EKPOMA REVIEW

At Easter we celebrate a super extraordinary event. In the words of Pope John Paul II, paraphrasing St. Augustine: “We are the Easter people and ‘Alleluia’ is our song”. We all sing ‘alleluia’ today to praise and thank the Lord for the wonders He has worked for us. Easter, the celebration of the Lord’s resurrection is the center of the whole year of worship, ‘the feast of all feasts’. Our faith, our hope and the meaning of Christian life is founded on Jesus’ resurrection. Despite the surety of the Christian belief, the idea of the resurrection and its effect or relevance in Christian life has often been either underplayed or exaggerated. This paper therefore sets out to theologically affirm this historical reality of faith, examining counter theories of the resurrection by examining their logical correspondence and hypothetical soundness. As this essay will reveal, in as much as the resurrection of Christ cannot be definitely disproved, it becomes a fundamental element and in fact the most radical of Christian faith as the conclusion of the work revealed, to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is to believe as well in the possibility and reality of change in one’s life. This essay also clarifies the existential concreteness of the resurrection; it is not a raising from the dead which postpones an inevitable fate still but rather a definitive victory of Christ over death. Different formulations of the creed and magisterial statements give complete credence to this faith. This is the faith of the Christian Church from its beginning, celebrated in her ceremonies and rituals and lived in the life of Christians.

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