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Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
1 Corinthians 15:12–20
When Saint Paul preached in Athens,
he spoke about Jesus raised from the dead.
Some people laughed.
Others said:
We will hear you some other time.
The resurrection sounded strange to Greek ears.
Many Greeks believed that the soul was trapped inside the body.
For them, death was a kind of release.
Why would anyone want the body to rise again?
Would that not mean returning to prison?
But Paul was a Jew.
He carried another hope.
In the Bible, death is not liberation.
Death is an enemy.
Death is the last wound.
Death is the final humiliation of the human person.
The hope of resurrection was born in times of suffering.
Faithful people were persecuted.
Some were told:
Give up your faith and live.
Remain faithful and die.
Many martyrs chose death.
Then the question arose:
What will God do for those who suffered in their bodies for His sake?
Will their tears be forgotten?
Will their wounds be wasted?
Will death have the last word?
The answer was:
No.
God will raise them up.
God will give them transfigured bodies.
God will wipe away their tears.
God will bring them into a world no longer ruled by death.
This is the hope Paul proclaims.
But he proclaims something even greater.
The resurrection is not only something waiting at the end of time.
It has already begun.
It began on Easter morning.
Christ is risen.
Saint Paul says:
Christ has been raised from the dead,
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Firstfruits means the first part of the harvest.
More is coming.
Jesus is not only one person raised.
He is the beginning of a new creation.
Because He lives, the dead will rise.
Because He lives, our bodies matter.
Because He lives, our wounds are not meaningless.
Because He lives, death is no longer the end of the story.
Without the resurrection, Paul says, our faith is empty.
Our preaching is empty.
Our hope is empty.
But Christ has been raised.
That changes everything.
Death remains painful.
We still grieve.
We still stand beside graves.
We still feel the tearing of the heart.
But death is no longer a wall.
It has become a passage.
Christ has passed through it.
And He draws us after Him.
So today, let us hold fast to this hope:
not escape from the body,
not escape from the world,
but the transfiguration of both.
Christ is risen.
And in Him,
life has begun again.
Biblical Reflections on the Gospel of Matthew
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition,
copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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© 2025 Krakus.
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
(Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial).