“If the dead do not rise, then Christ has not risen either; and if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is groundless, and your faith too is groundless. Worse still, we are convicted of giving false testimony about God; we bore God witness that He had raised Christ up from the dead, and He has not raised Him up if it is true that the dead do not rise again.

“If the dead, I say, do not rise, then Christ has not risen, either : and if Christ has not risen, all your faith is a delusion; you are back in your sins. It follows too that those who have gone to their rest in Christ have been lost. If the hope we have learned to repose in Christ belongs to this world only, then we are unhappy beyond all other men.

“But no, Christ has risen from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep; a man had brought us death and a man should bring us resurrection from the dead; just as all have died with Adam, so with Christ all will be brought to life. But each must rise in his own rank; Christ is the first-fruits, and after Him follow those who belong to Him, those who have put their trust in His return” (I Corinth. 15, 13-24).

SHARING THE NEW LIFE

One day while He was teaching His followers – before His death – Christ had said : Believe me when I tell you this; a grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die, or else it remains nothing more than a grain of wheat; but if it dies then it yields rich fruit. He who loves his life will lose it; he who is an enemy to his own life in this world will keep it, so as to live eternally.” (John 24-25)

This story of the grain of wheat is Christ’s own story. He passed through suffering and death to a wonderful new life given to Him by His Father. He had offered His own life and self to His Father. And His Father accepted it and gave it back to Him – not the same life as it was before, but a new life – a new life that has new qualities, one of which is that He can share it with us.

He gives this new life to those who allow their own selfishness and self to die-like the grain of wheat falling into the ground – so that they may rise up in and with Christ to this new life with Christ living in them.

We all have our sufferings and sorrows, and one day we shall pass though death. There is no escape. If I can bring myself to offer all this to the Father with Christ, I shall be changed already here and now – a change that I will only fully realize after my death.

In joining myself to Christ. I have a possibility of a wonderful new life to gain.

This new life is given in Baptism when a person accepts Christ and lives fully according to His teaching. [Baptism will be explained in the ninth lesson].

It will be good to stop here and ask myself in the silence of my own heart, whether the story of Christ’s death and His new life seem to have a message for me. Do Christ’s suffering and death and new life seem to offer me something that I really need?