The Resurrection convinced the greatest skeptics:
The Apostles!
by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
What is most peculiar about Easter is that although His followers had heard
Him say He would break the
bonds of death, when He actually did, no one believed it. They had to be
convinced beyond all shadow of a doubt. Of all the skeptics in the history of the world, none ever
equaled the Apostles and the disciples
and the holy women. Voltaire and the like were credulous babes compared to them in skepticism. Contemporary attempts to explain away the
belief in the Resurrection psychologically fail to take this doubt into account.
The followers of Jesus were not expecting a Resurrection
and, therefore, did not imagine they saw something of which they were ardently hoping. Even Mary Magdalene,
who within that very week had been told about the Resurrection when she saw Lazarus raised from a
grave, did not believe it. She came on Sunday morning to the tomb with spices to anoint a body - not
to greet a Risen Savior. On the way, the question of the woman was: 'Who will roll
back the stone for us?' Their problem was how they could get in; not whether the
Savior would get out.
When Mary Magdalene found the grave empty, the Resurrection
did not enter her mind. She ran to some of the disciples, saying, 'They've taken the body from the tomb
and we don't know where they've put Him' (John 20:2). Then she heard the rustling of someone in the bushes, she did not look
up - so little was she anticipating seeing the Savior; she assumed that it was a gardener. Belief and
expectancy are two factors that are absolutely essential for the production of psychological visions or imaginings, but both were
lacking in the case of the disciples and the followers.
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Resurrection |
Ascension (+40 days) |
Pentecost (+50 days) |
The Easter Season begins on Easter Sunday at the
Resurrection, and continues through Ascension Thursday
(forty (40) days after the Resurrection) until the Feast
of Pentecost (fifty (50) days after the Resurrection).
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