Uncovering the Depths of True Freedom
By Costantino Esposito — What does the word "resurrection" suggest? It'd be fascinating to ask someone deeply immersed in the culture of this post-Christian era — particularly in the Western and globalized parts of the world — what image comes to mind when they hear or say this word. More importantly, whether "resurrection" still refers to something specific, if it holds a particular reference.
Indeed, all of us "Christians," including those who have ventured into atheism or scepticism, still have (though it's uncertain for how much longer), almost by cultural instinct and imagination, a reference to a grand narrative. This narrative is about an exceptional man, increasingly distant, named Jesus, who chooses to die to save us from despair and death and then is pulled from the darkness of nothingness.
All of this still functions as a shared symbol of the redemption of love and justice over the sufferings of the natural condition and the injustices of human history. Like an extraordinary but unreachable utopia or the brief flicker of an impossible hope. Maybe even as an act of faith, but a faith that's become ultimately unmotivated, irrational. Sweet, familiar, comforting enough to live by, but irrational. More tied to our feelings than to the reality of things.
Yet, to understand if "resurrection" still means something to us, we can't view it merely as a value-laden word from our tradition and our "religion"; we must consider whether it speaks to something alive, something real. Something experiential in the present seems paradoxical, but if that word only denotes something that'll happen at the end of time. If it means nothing now, it ultimately loses its most profound meaning. It might sound odd: it's about making the impossible possible, the transcendent present, the mystery an experience. Yet, it's precisely here that the significance of a word that enters our language anew each year with the recurrence of Easter hangs in the balance, waiting silently for someone to discern its meaning again.
This isn't merely a linguistic or socio-cultural exercise, as demonstrated by a clear and pressing fact that almost burns within our hearts and the intelligence of life. That's our irrepressible desire to be ourselves and genuinely free. Free from the nets and chains of expectations that try to reduce us to what we can achieve, that crucify us always to the images of what we should be, but which we ultimately always fail to meet. Saved from the nothingness of senselessness that echoes in the emptiness of lives, all planned out to cover the fundamental question at their core, the question of being happy and loved, knowing that it's impossible to achieve this with our meager resources. Resources that may be formidable but incapable of fulfilling a desire that never quiets.
Only by recognizing this existential finiteness, which is also the ultimate question of being, can the infinite content of the word "resurrection" become understandable again, like a blade of promise reopening our limitations. It requires our questioning to reveal its meaning. As Charles Péguy once wrote, "God, who is everything, had something to hope for, from him, from that sinner. From that nothingness. From us." Even though He is God, He waits for our questioning because He is God.
This questioning is like the sign and guarantee of the victory of life over death. The fundamental expectation that disturbs the foundation of our existence is like a cry asking for someone to take our questioning seriously, for someone to reach out to us even today. We may have completely forgotten it, but this question continues to disturb us precisely because of someone. It's about realizing that someone has come and "risen." And that someone bears witness to it, alive today. This event is announced anew every time a human doesn't give up the desire to encounter a look or a gesture that tells them that an answer to their question exists, not due to an uplifting suggestion but through a burning experience.
In a recent interview with "La Lettura," Swedish author Björn Larsson, known for his book "Being or Not Being Human," was asked by Telmo Pievani why he insists on searching for a meaning in life when this meaning does not exist in itself but is something we can only give it. Larsson responded: "The sciences that deal with human beings must confront the most difficult existential questions that people face in real life, rather than ostriching away from the complexity of reality. One of these is indeed the meaning of life, for example, how is it possible that fifty thousand people, including many young ones, commit suicide in Europe every year."
Taking the question of meaning seriously means not burying our heads in the sand of our explanations or disillusions but paying attention to people's "real life." Waiting for grace, intercepting it, is the most realistic occupation for human beings.
Reflections on the Meaning of "Resurrection"
Constantino Esposito - unrevised translation - Osservatore Romano
