The Cross and the Resurrection

The Cross and the Resurrection form the heart of the Christian faith. By his death on the Cross, Christ redeems the sin of the world; by his Resurrection, he triumphs over death. These two inseparable moments are called the paschal mystery, and it is there that our salvation is accomplished.

An Infinite Offense

Sin had separated man from God, and this rupture surpassed any human reparation. The gravity of an offense is measured by the dignity of the one it strikes: the same affront weighs more heavily against a king than against an ordinary man. Now sin strikes God himself, infinitely great. It therefore carries a gravity beyond measure: an infinite offense.

Saint Anselm unfolded this logic. To repair such an offense required a satisfaction of equal value, therefore infinite. The word satisfaction here means the reparation offered to God for sin, the gift that answers the offense. Yet no man could offer it: a finite creature, already indebted to God for all that he is, man had nothing to give that was not already owed. His debt surpassed him infinitely.

Justice nonetheless willed that it be man who repairs, since it was man who had sinned. There had to be a redeemer at once fully man, to offer in the name of all, and fully God, so that his offering might have the infinite value the fault demanded. This redeemer is Christ, fully God and fully man. In him alone could humanity at last render to God a reparation equal to the offense.

What the Figures Foretold

Long before Calvary, the Old Testament had traced the features of the sacrifice to come. These images, which we call figures, are not mere resemblances: God was preparing his people to recognize the Savior. Abraham leads his only son Isaac to offer him, himself carrying the wood of the sacrifice, as Christ would carry his Cross; but where Abraham’s hand is stayed, the Father does not spare his own Son. “God will provide himself a victim for an holocaust, my son.” Genesis 22:8

In the desert, when the people were bitten by serpents, they were healed by looking upon a bronze serpent raised on a pole; Jesus sees in it the foretelling of his Cross. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” John 3:14 The paschal lamb, whose blood marked the doorposts to spare Israel from death, pointed to the one whose blood delivers us; and the sign of Jonah, three days in the belly of the fish, prefigured the burial of Christ and his Resurrection on the third day.

The Sacrifice of the Cross

On the Cross, Christ takes upon himself the sin of the world. John the Baptist had pointed to him: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” John 1:29 Innocent, he takes upon himself the burden of the guilty and bears its consequences, out of love and in solidarity with us. Seven centuries earlier, the prophet Isaiah had described this innocent just one, the suffering Servant, who takes upon himself the sin of the multitude. “But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5 He offers himself in reparation for all. “he hath delivered his soul unto death, and was reputed with the wicked: and he hath borne the sins of many.” Isaiah 53:12 His blood poured out is the total gift of himself to the Father, offered in love as reparation for all. No one wrests it from him: he gives himself freely, and it is this obedience of love, in which the Son fulfils the will of the Father, that makes the worth of his offering. “No man taketh it away from me: but I lay it down of myself. And I have power to lay it down: and I have power to take it up again.” John 10:18 There, the sacrifice foreshadowed by all the altars of Israel finds its fulfillment. In this sacrifice, Christ is at once the priest who offers and the victim offered: he presents not the blood of an animal, but his own. “Neither by the blood of goats or of calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption.” Hebrews 9:12 And what gives this offering all its worth is the obedience of the Son, humbled to the very end out of love. “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:8

Justice and Mercy

The Cross reveals together the justice and the mercy of God. His justice, for sin is there fully repaired, by an offering equal to the offense.

His mercy still more. To save man was pure gratuity: he had lost himself by his own fault, and nothing obliged God to raise him up. Mercy begins in this love offered to one who had not deserved it: “when as yet we were sinners, according to the time, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8-9 It goes further still. Justice willed that the guilty one pay; the guilty one could not. So it is the offended one who pays for the offender: God, entitled to demand reparation, makes himself the one who repairs and takes upon himself the debt he could have claimed. For this he gives what is most dear to him, his own Son. The gift matches the measure of the offense: infinite as it is.

God remained free, however. By his omnipotence, he could have remitted sin by a simple pardon. If he chose this way, it is because it was the most worthy of him, the one where his justice is honored, his mercy made manifest, and man associated with his own redemption. Thus is fulfilled the word of the psalm: “Mercy and truth have met each other: justice and peace have kissed.” Psalm 85:11 On the Cross, God forgives without lowering anything of his holiness.

The Descent into Hell

Between his death and his Resurrection, Christ did not remain idle. The Apostles’ Creed, the most ancient summary of the faith, professes that he descended into hell. The word does not mean the hell of the damned, but the abode of the dead, where all souls had waited, since Adam, for Heaven to be opened to them. Christ descends there in his soul united to his divinity, not to suffer, but as victor, to bring the news of salvation and to deliver the just who had gone before him. “Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust, being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit, in which also coming he preached to those spirits that were in prison.” 1 Peter 3:18-19 Thus his victory reaches all men, of the first covenant as of the new.

The Victory of the Resurrection

On the third day, Christ rose, alive forever, victor over sin and death. The Resurrection is the crowning of his sacrifice and the source of its fruitfulness; upon it rests the whole faith: “And if Christ be not risen again, your faith is vain: for you are yet in your sins.” 1 Corinthians 15:17

This Resurrection is neither an image nor a mere memory that survived in the hearts of the disciples: Christ truly came forth from the tomb, in his body, on the third day. On Easter morning, the women and then the Apostles find the sepulchre empty, and the Risen One shows himself alive to them, eating in their presence and letting himself be touched. Saint Paul recalls these facts as the very foundation of the preaching. “how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures: And that he was buried: and that he rose again according to the scriptures: And that he was seen by Cephas, and after that by the eleven.” 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 The same one who was crucified is now glorious, free from the limits of this world; in seeing him alive, the Apostles proclaim not an idea but an event of which they are the witnesses. Through it, what the Cross merited becomes life given. The risen Christ is the cause of our justification: “Who was delivered up for our sins and rose again for our justification.” Romans 4:25 And his victory does not remain his alone: he is the first of a multitude, and his Resurrection is the principle of our own. “But now Christ is risen from the dead, the firstfruits of them that sleep.” 1 Corinthians 15:20 In his glorified humanity, raised to the right hand of the Father, he is established Lord and communicates to his own the life he has received. In him, death ceases to be an end: it becomes the passage to the life that does not end.

The Ascension

Forty days after Easter, the risen Christ ascends to Heaven before the eyes of his Apostles. The Ascension is not a departure: it is the entry of his humanity, body and soul, into the glory of God. For the first time, our human nature is brought into the very heart of the divine life; where the Head has passed, the members are called to follow. Seated at the right hand of the Father, an expression signifying the sovereignty shared with God, Christ never ceases to intercede for us and pours out the Holy Spirit upon his Church. “In my Father’s house there are many mansions, because I go to prepare a place for you.” John 14:2 He remains present to his own until he returns in glory.

A Single Paschal Mystery

The Cross and the Resurrection make but one act of salvation, which the Church calls the paschal mystery. Death there redeems, the Resurrection there gives life; one calls for the other, and Christ passes from one to the other to draw us with him.

Justification

What Christ merited on the Cross, he applies to each one through justification. God makes the sinner just: he blots out sin and infuses into the heart sanctifying grace, which makes of him an adopted son. “Justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:24 This grace reaches us through the sacraments: baptism plunges us into the death and Resurrection of Christ, “that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:4 and the Eucharist feeds us with his sacrifice. It is this mystery that every Mass celebrates and that every Easter renews; united to him, justified by his blood, we await rising as he did, on the last day.