Bulletins

November 13, 2022

Had the Resurrection of Jesus Christ not had taken place, what would Peter Simon bar Jonah have done?
Would he have stayed in the locked upper room indefinitely?
Would he have wanted to remain in the company of the remaining Apostles?
At what point would he have started to wonder if he had been wrong about Jesus?
Would he have concluded that Jesus had been a madman?
Would he have decided that Jesus had deceived them all?
Would he have committed suicide like Judas?
Would he have sneaked back to the Sea of Galilee to resume fishing for a living?
Would he have eschewed the attention he might have attracted in his home town and found another place to fish where he would go unrecognized?

I am confident that one course of action he would not have followed is to preach Jesus Christ as the Messiah. The self-proclaimed witnesses of the resurrection would have gained nothing by making it up. If there is no resurrection then Jesus has nothing to offer us.

St. Paul expounded on this hypothetical in his first letter to the Corinthians:

“If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain…. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.”

1Corinthians 15,14.17-19

The historical facts of the martyrdoms of St. Peter and St. Paul in the capital of the Roman Empire, the monuments over their graves that were maintained at great peril during the first centuries of Christianity, the basilicas that now stand on those locations are testimony that the Resurrection of Jesus actually did happen.

Ss. Peter and Paul, pray for us!

Rev. Christopher J. Pollard

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