It's the Easter season, when we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus! Do you know what that means for your body? In a recent online trivia game for our Family of Faith program, I included a question that I knew would stump many: “True or False? One day our bodies will rise from the dead like Jesus' did.” How would you answer?

Believe it or not, it's true: One day, your very own body will rise from the dead as Jesus' did. Although we Catholics tend to hear more about the salvation of souls, our Christian hope also includes the resurrection of the body. We're talking about our bodies when we profess in the Nicene Creed, “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church says this:

991 Belief in the resurrection of the dead has been an essential element of the Christian faith from its beginnings. “The confidence of Christians is the resurrection of the dead; believing this we live.”

The Catechism goes on to quote 1 Corinthians 15:

How can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. . . . But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor 15:12-14)

In fact, the Jewish people believed in the resurrection of the body long before Jesus himself rose from the dead. While many pagan religions believed in a disembodied afterlife of some kind, the Israelites were unique in believing that the Lord would give life even to their bodies. The faithful man Job, for example, proclaimed that he would one day see the Lord in his body even after his body had been destroyed:

As for me, I know that my vindicator lives, and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust. This will happen when my skin has been stripped off, and from my flesh I will see God: I will see for myself, my own eyes, not another’s, will behold him: my inmost being is consumed with longing. (Job 19:25-27)

When the seven Jewish brothers were martyred in the Second Book of Maccabees, they found courage in the hope that they would rise again. One of the brothers declared, “you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to live again forever, because we are dying for his laws” (2 Maccabees 7:9). Another brother stretched forth his tongue and his hands to be tortured, because he knew he'd receive them back again: “It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disregard them; from him I hope to receive them again” (7:11). Yet another brother declared, “It is my choice to die at the hands of mortals with the hope that God will restore me to life; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life” (7:14).

Jesus himself brought this Jewish hope in the Resurrection to fulfillment. The raising of his friend Lazarus from the dead was a particularly important sign of this fulfillment. After the death of Lazarus, Jesus had this conversation with Martha, the sister of Lazarus:

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” (John 11:23-27)

Notice that Martha, as a faithful Jew, already believed that her brother would rise again “on the last day.” Jesus, however, called Martha to a new faith: He called her to believe that He, as the Messiah, was the one who would bring about the Resurrection of the dead. Elsewhere in the Gospel of John, Jesus proclaimed:

Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to his Son the possession of life in himself. And he gave him power to exercise judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voices and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation. (John 5:25-29)

These words of Jesus highlight the overlooked truth of the resurrection of the dead. When we die, our souls are separated from our bodies, are judged, and go to either Hell or Heaven (often with a pit stop in purgatory). A day will come, at the end of time, however, when our souls will be reunited with our very own bodies, and our very own bodies will share in either our eternal reward or our eternal punishment.

It's true then, as the Church dogmatically teaches: “We believe in the true resurrection of this flesh that we now possess” (Council of Lyons II; CCC 1017)

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