The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ

There is a unity between death and resurrection that can only be grasped through a deep understanding of sacrifice. Christ’s death is a sacrifice not only as payment and punishment, but it is the sacrifice of the just and free from sin, it is the sacrifice in its absolute authenticity. Death in its essence must be taken as a supreme sacrifice, it means the transition from one way of being to another way of being, in Jesus a particular life and an ordinary man do not die, now, in these moments, in creation, in the rhythm of creation enters the Son of God, author of creation, in Him he sacrifices himself, a world dies. On the Cross, Christ concludes by saying, “It is finished”, that is, a work is done and an old world is finished, the work of restoring the fallen face is done and which is now offered as a sacrifice for the acquisition of a new life.
The descent into hell further discovers the cosmic depth of Christ’s cross and death, Christ’s love leaves no gap, embraces everything including hell, hell is exhausted in a divine soul, the empire of evil dissolves into the abyss of love, the darkness of absence dissipate in the full presence of glory. In Jesus Christ, something completely unusual happens, something that does not belong to this world, something completely new that means the death of death, its definitive annulment, we celebrate the killing of death, the destruction of hell and the beginning of another, eternal life, through the Cross came joy in everyone, therefore the triumph of life in Christ is not a resurrection, but a resurrection, Jesus Christ does not return to a mortal life, it is not a return, but a passage beyond death, it is Easter. The radical distinction between the old concept of resurrection and the resurrection of Christ, this is the distinction defined by the word Easter, the archaic virtues spoke of resurrection, Holy Scripture reveals the mystery of Easter.
Easter is a vocation. The death and resurrection of Jesus form in existence a whole, a whole, a non-dissociative unity, death and resurrection call each other with grace and nature because they are involved in each other and together they accomplish the work of Redemption. Sacrifice has its meaning in resurrection and resurrection is born in sacrifice, the death of the Savior is the last human act, but resurrection does not come after death has been consumed, although it had to be consumed, death is not an act that stands by itself, or a term definitely, but a premise.
Resurrection is a Revelation, an outpouring of grace that does not abolish nature but transfigures it, it appears as an eruption and gives a new existence to our nature. But the resurrection, although it is an initiative, a divine act, takes place in us, because God does not need to resurrect. The miracle does not abolish our nature but renews it, the Christian remains the same in the resurrection. Man carries in his soul the seed of immortality, but this is not identical with resurrection, resurrection is a new moment of creation.
Resurrection is the proof of redemption because Redemption means a definite triumph of our life over sin and death. Redemption signified this victory by transforming the tragedy of evil and death into the joy of resurrection. If Christ had only offered His death, He would also have given that payment to sin. Only the resurrection constitutes real evidence of the victory over sin and death, and in this the Redemption is a sacrifice in its essence because it ends in the resurrection. The mystery of Redemption lies in death as a sacrifice, which receives as an answer from the Father, the resurrection, a resurrection which in itself reveals to us the concrete signs of Redemption. As we see from the Holy Gospels, after the resurrection, the demon no longer appears in the life, in the existence of the resurrected Christ, his absence now shows that the evil that brought suffering and death has certain limits and can be definitively defeated. The mystery of evil is clarified, its time is until the resurrection, in the resurrected one it no longer has any power, according to the Holy Scripture evil has a beginning and it also has an end, its end is the “second death” and coincides with the resurrection through Jesus Christ.