Not seeing is Believeing, 3rd Sunday of Easter

The author of life was put to death, but God raised him from the dead, of this we are witnesses.

Peter, in Acts, tells the people what is the fundamental living truth proclaimed by the Church.

 It is the heart of all confessions and creeds.

Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

Or

"By dying he destroyed our death and by rising again he restored our life."

So fundamental is this truth that St Paul says

"If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching and your faith is in vain"

Christianity stands on this truth (experienced in countless ways from the earliest church till today), Christ is risen from the dead. We stake our own lives on it.

 

In the second reading John describes what staking our lives on this truth looks like.

The way we may be sure that we know him (that is, be in communion with him) is to keep his commandments. Those that say, I know him, but do not keep his commandments are liars and the truth is not in them, but whoever keeps his word (by living it), the love of God is truly perfected in them.

This reality of knowing and keeping and sharing, that permeates every aspect of our lives, has been described by Jesus as simply loving God and neighbor.

This is not limiting the commandments, Jesus expands them to include every person everywhere, especially the poor, the sick, the broken hearted and the oppressed.

 

In the Gospel we see this knowing, keeping and sharing in the foreshadowing of the saving activity of the Church - evangelizing - witnessing to the love of God made known in Jesus.

 

 Two disciples recounted how the Risen Jesus was made known to them.

 At first we know they fail to recognize him because their faith had not yet been awakened and Jesus himself had be made new.

But, in an action that was familiar yet now new and somehow richer - the Risen Lord was no longer hidden, but was made known to them in the breaking of bread.

 

In knowing this, their hearts were enflamed and they were compelled to share this knowing.

They could not keep the encounter with Jesus a secret. They must witness (in Faith and Love) to this new truth, this new reality that was still far beyond their understanding.

 

As the disciples gathered in the room, listening to the two telling them how the Lord was made known to them Jesus appeared, in their midst.

Appeared is an important and accurate word.

 He did not enter through the door nor was he discovered hiding in some dark corner.

As the two tell their story, he is simply there.

They were terrified (by the sheer unbelievability of it) and they first thought he was a ghost.

 

Peace be with you he says to them.

Jesus asks them why they are troubled, why they doubt.

 Even has he stood there before them he knew there were many questions in their hearts.

Because disciples were still trying to get their heads around a crucified messiah, much less the risen Jesus. And risen not at the end of time, but in their time.

Like the empty tomb their first thought was the dreadful, but possible Jesus is dead and this is his ghost.

 

 We know that their encounter with Jesus was not some temporary movement the soul.

It was not an otherworldly encounter with a spirit (disembodied and still belonging to the dead).

This was the very real encounter with the very real and very much living Jesus, risen (not resuscitated) from the dead.

 

Look and see, I am real. Touch and feel, I am he who you love.

He showed them his very real hands and feet.

And they were amazed and overcome in joy.

Jesus asks them for food and this gesture awakens in them the memory and a new understanding of the feeding of the multitude, table fellowship with sinners, the last supper, the two disciples at Emmaus.

 

This was table fellowship, sharing of bread and wine which they recognized and associated with Jesus of Nazareth,  but it is also something new, something Devine, fellowship with the Risen Lord.

And now risen Jesus spoke directly to heart, mind and spirit.

He revealed to them, that everything written about him, every account and prophecy is true and must be fulfilled.

He opened, in and through his Spirit, the scriptures for them.

They began to understand not just with their minds but to believe with their hearts and their whole being that Jesus, is the Christ, and he had to suffer, but that he would be raised, by God, on the third day.  In Jesus death had become life.

 

On that day, in that room, the Risen Lord was made known to them, and it not only changed them, it changed the world.

 

Jesus was not dead, but living, compelling, life giving and life transforming.

Their encounter with the Risen Lord gave birth to new faith and new hope in them, in us, and for the world.

 

And this is our faith and because we did not need to see to believe we are especially blessed, because the Lord said

Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.

And those are us my brothers and sisters.

 

We who believe and who have received the Holy Spirit in baptism also received Jesus' mission

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

Jesus has been made known to each of us.  We keep him within us by doing his will - to love God and neighbor.  And we share this Good News by being sent, as the disciples were sent and as the two who recounted how Jesus was made known to them were sent.

One person telling their story of encounter and conversion.

 

And isn't it true, that there is no better way of handing on the Gospel than by sharing with another one's own personal experience of the love of God in Jesus.

We who have encountered the Risen Lord now need to go out, as witnesses of these things.

 

 

 

 

EASTER

It is no surprise that it was Mary Magdalene who was first to come to the tomb that morning.

In the cold and darkness she went alone, on the first day, to the deserted place where they buried Jesus.

She love the Lord, because he had literally saved her.

Remember her story from Luke -

"The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities; Mary, called Magdalene from whom seven demons had gone out"

He told her to sin no more and she didn't. He told her to follow him and she followed.

 This was true encounter, powerful healing and transforming conversion.

We must not forget that she was not the only women to follow Jesus.  The passion narrative, we read on Palm Sunday names Mary the mother of James and Salome, we know that the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha loved and served the Lord. There was Joanna, Susanna, and the wife of Chuza. Who can forget the Samaritan women at the well, and of course, there was always Mary the blessed mother of God.

These women and many others loved and followed Jesus, any from Galilee to Jerusalem.

They supported his ministry of the preaching of the Good News and now, each in their own way, was left broken hearted.

But now, (on that day) in distress and anguish, Mary of Magdalene went to where they had laid Jesus. She found ihat the stone was rolled back revealing the entrance to the tomb.

She did not think of the power of God which can move mountains. She did not think about the possibility of Jesus' resurrection. The risen Christ was still hidden and Faith had not yet come to her.

 In horror, which must of been as heavy as the cold dawn itself she ran to the twelve, whom she trusted, to Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved.

"They" whoever they might be: the enemies of Jesus, the temple authorities or the Romans themselves.

 She only knew that "they" must of taken him and then with tears she adds - we know not where.

We must remember that Mary Magdalene, as a women and as formerly demon possessed, would not be a very credible witness. It would be laughable.

So, why would the early church claim this to be the truth, if it were not.

Mary, as the first witness to the empty tomb was a powerful, personal account that was believed, remembered, and recounted orally by the earliest Christian communities until it was faithfully and lovely written down in the Gospels..

 Now, upon hearing, but not necessarily believing, her story, Peter and the unnamed disciple run to the tomb. We assume the younger of the two gets there first, but he does not enter. 

Is it in difference to Peter? or is it some unsettling expectation?

So Peter enters first (so like Peter to rush in) and he sees the evidence that the tomb was empty and that the burial cloth (the cloth of death) was still there.

Of course, the absence of a body does not mean a resurrection. There were more dreadful reasonable explanations and this was what Mary first thought and what Peter first thought.

But, if the body was stolen, would not "they" produce the body to discredit the resurrection story?  Or if the two disciples had made a simple mistake in the unfamiliar dark place  and gone to the wrong tomb, would not that mistake come to light.

The truth (whatever that was), could not be keep hidden.

 The Gospel is silent as to Peter's actual reaction or thoughts.

But, it is clear about the other disciple who enters the same tomb and sees the same evidence, but here scripture tells us, rather starkly "he saw and believed"

The great gift of faith, a foreshadowing of the understanding (Faith) the Holy Spirit would bring to them all.

 But, they did not understand, yet. They could not explain it, yet. The Spirit had not come upon them, yet.

Jesus, risen from the dead, glorified, as the Christ, was still hidden from them.

We know from the first reading that no such proof of a theft or mistake of location was ever produced.

There was a different kind of proof; the appearance of the Risen Jesus to Mary of Magdalene,

then to the twelve and then to many others. There was the sharing of the Holy Spirit, Jesus' Spirit, the Spirit of God, come not only to them, but let loose into the world.

And now, in truth and love, they believed.

 In the first reading we also hear what they came to believe - God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good, for God was with him. He was put to death and was raised on the third day. He was made visible to us and he commissioned us to proclaim  this Good News.

  And they did proclaim it, as did our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters.

As the Church does to the ends of the world, as we do, by our very lives, everywhere and anywhere we find ourselves..

Christ has risen, alleluia, alleluia.

 By his dying and rising again he destroyed death and gave us new life.

By rising he destroyed the darkness of fear and despair that haunt the human condition.

By rising he brought us redemption and salvation.

By rising he gave us Hope, here and now and for eternal life to come,

and he gives us a blessing on those who believe without seeing.

By rising he sends us off to do as Jesus did –

to go about doing good for God is also with us.

Easter is proof of all we believe.

Christ has risen, alleluia, alleluia.