Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Today's Mass Readings

In today’s passage from Acts, (13:26-33) Paul mentions that, despite hearing prophecies in the synagogues on Saturdays, the people didn’t recognize Jesus. These are pretty strong words coming from someone like Paul. As we learned from last Friday’s reading, in his earlier “bad” days, Paul was Saul, persecutor of the Christians who was SURE that these Christians were lying, or at least delusional, about who Jesus is. The old Saul might well have thought, “Of course they didn’t recognize Jesus! The Old Testament prophecies are about something else! Those Christians aren’t reading scripture well.” Or, “Jesus didn’t follow the law – he didn’t look holy, so he couldn’t have been the Son of God.” In our culture today, I think we, too, have a problem recognizing Jesus. There are plenty (me included!) who expect to see Jesus in our lives in particular ways, or who read scripture in particular ways. But what if Jesus is not found in those set ways? Like the people back then, it would be hard to recognize Jesus if one reads scriptures in a way that closes off the possibility of seeing Jesus there. Many anticipated the Messiah to be someone who would come blazing in with armies to topple Rome - the earliest Christians, though, read passages like “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” and saw that this must refer to Jesus. The resurrection shows that Jesus comes to us in surprising ways, he does and says surprising things. Just so, too, Jesus might be asking us to do things that seem odd to others who do not recognize the risen Jesus as active in the world. I think here of a friend who always gives money to beggars, even though there are those who say, “That beggar ought to be able to pull himself up.” But she always responds, “The gospel doesn’t say to give all you have only to those who we think deserve it.” Maybe this is one of those unexpected ways Jesus pushes us.

Another reason we don’t recognize Jesus sometimes is that we think of holiness as looking like something different. Remember that Jesus worked on the Sabbath – something that for first century Jews would have seemed distinctly not-holy. That happens in our contemporary culture, too. I think sometimes people like to divide their lives into the “God portion”, the bit of life that gets spent in church, and the “everything else portion.” God and religion don’t seem relevant to pretty much any other part of life.

Sometimes this is a complaint that people make about Christians, too – that we seem hypocritical because we often don’t seem to practice what we preach. The great and surprising thing about the Incarnation of Jesus, though, is that God becomes flesh in even our troubled world. Our world is messy. Jesus’ action in our lives won’t always seem “holy” in traditional senses, but the good news is that God still chose to come to that world anyway. Are there places we can see Jesus, even in the messiness of our lives, even in the places that don’t seem very holy or pious?

The Gospel passage (John 14:1-6) proclaims that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. If we seek to be his disciples, we are called to follow HIS often unexpected Way. What are the unexpected places Jesus is meeting you? What are some of the surprising ways Jesus has called you to follow him?

- Jana M. Bennett