On this morning, almost two-thousand years ago, the man Jesus of Nazareth appeared to His followers, alive, after having been killed and buried. He did not appear as a spirit or ghost, but in the flesh; He ate food, He breathed, and His followers felt the scars and marks on His Body.

But this was more than just a mere coming back to life, like His followers had already seen when Jesus rose His friend Lazarus from the dead. In all the Gospel accounts of the resurrection, the Apostles originally fail to recognise Jesus, something had changed. He could also do the unthinkable; appearing, and disappearing, suddenly inside locked rooms, and appearing to some in a town 3 miles away, while seemingly at the same time, appearing to the others in Jerusalem. So while this was the same Jesus, in His same Body, there was now something different, something new, about Him.

Scripture sheds some light on this. We hear that unlike with Lazarus, who rose from the dead but did by all means die again later, when Jesus rose from the dead, He defeated death in His Body once for all. He was no longer corruptible, no longer damageable. The world had never seen anything like it. Every living thing on Earth, is destructible – trees can be cut down, plants can be picked out, animals can be killed, nothing can escape death. But in the Body of our Lord, death itself had been destroyed.

According to St John, the first person Jesus appeared to was Mary Magdalene, and to her He said “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus had continuously referred to God as His Father, but not once had He called God our Father, or used language to suggest that God was the Father of anyone except Jesus. But now, after Jesus had given His life as a sin offering, and defeated death, He opened the way for us to call God our Father as well. But how?

Galatians 3:26-27 tells us:
In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ

When we are Baptised into Christ, we participate in His Sonship, and are thus Baptised into being the children of God the Father. But we also participate in Jesus’ resurrection, as Romans 6:3-4+11 tells us:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his… So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

But back to the resurrection itself. According to St Luke, on the first day of His rising, Jesus walked with some of His followers for about three hours until they reached a town called Emmaus. The whole way there, Jesus spoke to these followers about why it was necessary for the Messiah to die, but, His followers did not recognise Jesus. The man they had been with and heard preach and talk every day for three years, was talking to them face to face, but they did not recognise Him! However, once they went into an inn to have dinner, this happened:

When He was at the table with them, He took bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him; and he vanished from their sight…. Then they told the other disciples what had happened on the road, and how He had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
(Luke 24:30+35)

They recognised their Lord, not in His teaching, but in the breaking of bread – the Holy Eucharist. And it is the Eucharist itself, that also allows us to be resurrected, and Jesus Himself said in John 6:54-57:
“Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.“

Therefore, just as Jesus’ Flesh and Blood has now become immortal, it is inherently life-giving, so that if we eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, we will receive that immortality for ourselves. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood… Its blood is its life” (Leviticus 17:11+14).

So then, for us who have faith in the Lord Jesus, and have been Baptised into Him, and eat His Flesh and drink His Blood – we too can now relate to God as our Father, we can experience Jesus Christ Himself intimately and we too, will be physically resurrected to eternal life, being set free from death and corruption once and for all!
Alleluia!