Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 118, Response: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love is everlasting.; 1 Peter 1: 3-9
Gospel: John 20:19-31
Last weekend I had a conversation with a young couple for Journeys of Hope, a weekly program we started this past Holy Week. At the end of the conversation, I asked them to express their prayer wish.
The husband, an executive of a popular global brand, gave a very striking message. He said that we cannot go back to the same situation after this. His hope is that leaders in government, the private sector, corporations and all of us in general must have a different approach.
He hopes there will be change—more sharing of resources and redistribution of wealth. Then his wife added that it is up to us how this situation turns out.
This Sunday’s Gospel gives us a parallel situation. The setting is Sunday evening of the very first Easter Sunday. In the midst of the crisis of the Cross, the defeat and seeming end to what the apostles dedicated their lives to, and in the midst for their fears, locking themselves up in the room where the Last Supper might have taken place, the Risen Lord appears.
They have received the news from the women who went to the tomb at daybreak and the two disciples on their way to Emmaus at dusk that they had encountered the Risen Lord. Despite these, the apostles were still in disbelief and fearful.
The Risen Lord appears and greets them with, “Peace be with you,” and shows them his wounds on his hands and side. It was a common greeting then, like “Kumusta?” or “How are you?”
Perhaps it was the Lord’s way of settling them down despite their disappointment and fears, recalibrating their focus on their relationship with the Lord disrupted by the Cross. He now brings them back to their original call and response to follow Jesus, to be his disciple.
He again gives them his peace and this time immediately followed by Jesus’ commission, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
Looking at these two narratives, the conversation with the young couple and this first Easter evening encounter between the Risen Lord and his apostles, we see three points for reflection.
Resolution
One, both happen in the midst of a crisis. The former, the crisis of the coronavirus pandemic causing so much suffering, fear and anxiety. The latter, a more personal crisis of those closest to Jesus, shattered dreams and hopes for which they left everything behind.
Two, hope enters the crisis. In the Gospel, it was the presence of the Risen Lord himself. For the couple, it is realizing they have a choice to live in and move forward with hope.
Three, the “resolution” of the crisis is mission, to hear, to discern and to discover one’s mission.
The basic message of our Christian faith is “Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will come again.” Thus, our mission is to be a witness to this message, giving us hope now as we go through this pandemic and the crises it has caused that the suffering and death on the Cross is not the final word.
Our present state is Christ is Risen. We live in the Spirit of the Risen Lord with the certainty of the promise that he will come again. This changes everything. It gives us a horizon that tells us we can overcome this crisis. We shall overcome.
Our platform for this is hope. For the disciples, it was the Risen Lord himself. But for us, we have two assurances.
One is the gift of the Spirit. Two is what the Lord tells Thomas, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.
It is the Risen Lord’s personal guarantee. We shall be blessed if we live in faith in the Cross and Resurrection; to live in faith that we live a life of mission sharing in the mission of the Risen Lord. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
For the young couple it was realizing we are free to make a choice how things will turn out. This was supported by their faith in the resilience of the Filipino and the Filipino’s happy disposition.
The final resolution is mission. From this commissioning of the Risen Lord, the disciples established the church spanning time of over two millennia and space growing into one of the first global institutions.
For the young couple, it is the mission to do their share in building a new world order where there is more sharing, people are more generous and caring, and wealth is more equitably distributed. It is our choice, as the wife put it, how this situation turns out in the end.
One of the antiphons of the morning prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours or Breviary for the Octave of Easter goes, “Alleluia, the Lord is Risen as he promised, alleluia.”
It is this guarantee of a promise fulfilled that gives us the hope, the courage and the inspiration to choose to act in mission, to bring hope to our world, our sphere of influence, and build a better world. —CONTRIBUTED