Thursday in the Octave of Easter
Happy Easter! As Christ exclaims in today’s Gospel – peace be with you. In these 50 days of unbridled joy, I pray that God may grant you joy, gratitude and peace –peace in the knowledge that our God is a God who keeps his promises.
As we read today’s first reading, we enter the scene – Peter and John have healed a man, who does not want to leave them. All those who saw this are amazed, questioning and in awe. We hear Peter explain to the Jewish people the reason he is able to heal this man – because of Jesus. Jesus, who he explains to them, is the fulfilment of the words of many prophets. We read here that God keeps his promises. God, who had promised to bring a prophet out of the Jewish people, did indeed keep his promise.
The peace that this brings us is the knowledge that no matter what we may be dealing with in life, God will keep his promises to us. It is through prayer, reading of the scriptures and partaking of the sacraments that we are able to hear these promises. And it is through open eyes of faith that we are able to see these promises come true. May the knowledge that God will hold you in the palm of his hand and care for you, bring you peace amidst the storms of your life.
May you also gain peace from the example of extreme forgiveness we see modeled by our Lord and Savior. Jesus is handed over and condemned to die, by his own people. Yet, when Christ rises from the dead, he does not resurrect and immediately raise gloriously on a cloud into heaven. Rather he returns to be among his people – both those who loved him until the end and those who killed Him. Christ, now in his full divinity, models for us the love of our Father. He does not hold a grudge. He does not speak words of hate or of condemnation. Rather, he returns to his people and shows them his wounds, tells them of his father’s love, and forgives them. May Christ be a model to us, of how to love and to forgive.
We all carry with us wounds of one kind of another. Often these wounds are accompanied by hurt and pain and hopefully one day, by healing and forgiveness. Christ’s wounds were exposed to those he loved – seeing these wounds they did not turn their backs on him, but rather shared a meal with him. May we look to Christ as a model. When we gather with those we love, may we not be blind to their wounds. May we instead see those we love for who they are, wounds and all, and may we then open our hearts, our homes and our lives to them.
- AJ Grimm