Matthew is the only Gospel to narrate the plot of the chief priests in Jerusalem to discredit the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus by bribing the guards at the tomb to say that the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus at night. (Matthew 28: 11-15)
Certainly, the fact that no one ever found the corpse of Jesus Christ points to the truth of the Resurrection, despite many efforts made to find it.
We can also study the mystery of the Shroud of Turin and the Veil of Manoppello, two burial cloths associated with Jesus, whose origin and composition remain impervious to the many attempts made to discredit them as forgeries.
The natural argument for the reality of Jesus’ Resurrection, which I find most compelling, is the fact that all 12 of the apostles were willing to suffer brutal torture and a horrific death, (although John was tortured but not killed) rather than deny the truth of Easter and its Gospel of salvation. Who would face the brutality of martyrdom for a self-created mythical fiction?
The Gospels make no effort to hide the uncomfortable truth that the apostles (again with the exception of John) ran from the cross and Peter even denied knowing the Lord.
Until Pentecost, they are confused, fearful, and silent about their experience of the resurrection and not certain what to do next.
Simon Peter wants to go back to fishing. It is what he knows.
But after the anointing of the Holy Spirit, they are bold, articulate, passionate, and determined, spending the rest of their lives preaching the Gospel and witnessing to the power of Jesus, crucified, and risen.
We rightfully call our Catholic faith apostolic, because it rests on the experience and witness of those first followers of Christ, who themselves were evangelized by Mary Magdalene.
Embracing a life transformed by Christ
All of this Scriptural meditation leads me to conclude that the most effective way to evangelize others is by embracing a life transformed by Christ.
When others can see in us the radiant difference that faith in Jesus and His saving Gospel makes in our lives, then Christian belief becomes more credible.
We can never offer scientific proof that Jesus rose from the dead, but we can show others how the Lord has forgiven, changed, freed, and saved us.
Others need to see what that looks like before they would even consider the possibility of living an existence grounded in Catholic faith and practice.
We want to raise compelling questions in the hearts of the people around us who may be agnostic, secularized, atheistic, or simply indifferent to religion.
What secret fire would compel Katherine Drexel to give away a fortune and go serve Native and African Americans? What happened in the heart of Francis of Assisi, which moved him from being the carefree life of every party to embracing a poverty, startling in its austerity? Why would Maximilian Kolbe love and forgive the Nazi guard who was starving him to death in an Auschwitz cell?
Such radical acts of generosity, forgiveness, and love can only find a rationale on some supernatural plane, far beyond the calculation of logic, calculation, and transaction.
Years ago, I was praying outside an abortion clinic in Milwaukee on a brutally cold morning.
A young, angry woman stood in my face for 30 minutes, shouting obscenities and insults.
Later, I crossed the street to buy coffee at a gas station for our frigid band of pro-life witnesses and realized to my surprise that the woman who had been nastily yelling at me was behind me in line.
I did not want to do it, but I felt God calling me to pay for whatever she was buying that day.
I doubt if that small act of kindness profoundly transformed her bitter and wounded heart, but it had to have compelled her to wonder why someone she had been so unkind to, would turn around and be generous to her.
The Resurrection means everything
We want to live in such a way that our values, decisions, conversations, work, leisure, and finances only make sense in light of the truth that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and our lives are forever and radically different because of it.
The Resurrection is the most beautiful, true, and good historical fact, the pivot upon which we pin our hopes for eternal life, mercy, forgiveness, and meaning.
Most often, our words of faith, our creedal commitments will only find a ready reception in the minds and hearts of others when they can see the glorious difference Jesus makes for us.
Of course, we are sinners, so our Christian witness will always be imperfect, but we know well that a sad, selfish, complacent, and lukewarm Catholic will have little impact in winning others over to Christ and the Church.
Forgive your enemies with joyful abandon, love others with a lavish generosity, go the extra mile with someone in need, and give your heart to Jesus alone.
In the witness of such a life, the rising of Jesus from the dead becomes credible and real.
There must be something to this Catholic faith, we can imagine others saying who watched St. Francis or Mother Teresa in action.
May we cause such a curiosity by our bold embrace of the Gospel!