2nd Sunday of Easter
Easter is over and I am wondering how you are. I am asking you this because for me the post Easter season is often more difficult than Lent. This is because Lent focuses me. I have a goal and I have the discipline to get there. After Easter I get triumpalistic, but then exhaustion sets in It and becomes so easy to let the discipline slip away. The Monday after Easter was the hardest day to stay focused in prayer because I felt that it was time to relax after the fourty days of discipline. So I wonder about you… What does your post-Easter scene look like?
The state of the post-resurrection disciples is not very different than mine. Just as my post-Easter experience, I think the post-resurrection church was a mixed bag. For example, first we get a glimpse of this ideal Christian community. Scripture tells us that “the community of believers was of one heart and mind.” If we could find one such community today, priests would queue up to be pastors. But the gospel reading quickly brings us back to the ground. Life wasn’t all rosy for the disciples. They were victims of such crippling fear that they locked themselves up. And then we have Thomas – a specimen of skepticism. He would have none of this resurrection stuff till he had himself touched Jesus’ wounds. However, the church is not left paralyzed by fear and uncertainty. We are consoled to hear that Jesus was there in the very midst of their dilemmas. He offered the post-resurrection community peace and the ability to believe. Nevertheless to say, the disciples were a happy lot again.
What does all this mean for us?
a)There is something I like about the post-resurrection gospel accounts that make the resurrection of Jesus more believable. While the gospels are uncompromising about the resurrection of Jesus, they do not present a romanticized picture of the post resurrection days. The disciples are still crippled with fear and some of them still encounter skepticism. Fear, anxiety, doubts, suffering and death would still haunt them. But that does not mean that nothing had changed. In fact, there is a RADICAL CHANGE. In the post-resurrection community, the risen Christ was not just with them but right in the midst of their fear and doubt. Soon the disciples instead of running away from fear, doubt, suffering and death will stand up to them. With Christ in their midst their whole approach to life and what life had to offer would change. So as we live in these post-Easter days I am sure you realize that nothing much has changed. We still have to get back to work; the crabby people in our lives still exist; we still cannot walk on water; and we still have to buy that plot at the cemetery. But, there is a difference between people who face life with Christ and those that face life without Christ. I hope you and I belong to the former group of people.
b)There is another reality that is worth noticing in the gospels. There are those who believed and those that did not. And I am not talking just about Thomas. There were two thieves crucified alongside Jesus; one believed and the other did not. There were many Roman soldiers around the cross but only the Centurion confessed that Jesus was the Son of God. There were many religious leaders at the time of Jesus but only Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea believed. What intrigues me is that somehow, those who believed were able to tap into the reality that God is, and believe. And that is my big question of the day. How can we tap into the power of the resurrection and believe? How can we bring the power of the resurrection right in to the midst of our lives? How can we come alive with the power of resurrection? For us, the answer lies in the Eucharist. As real was the presence of Christ to the first disciples so real is the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Like Thomas and the others who finally believed, if we can bring ourselves to recognize the reality of Christ in our midst, then I think we have begun to tap into the power of the risen Christ.
c)One of the aspects that we overlook today is the significance of the community and communal living in the early church. The first reading from the Act tells us, “The community of believers was one in heart and mind.” Is it not interesting that in the gospel reading Christ encountered the community of disciples and not just individuals? Then he breathed the Holy Spirit upon them and sent them to bring forgiveness, peace and healing to the whole world. In other words, in the early Christian church, the community was where faith was best lived. The danger today is that we come to the church with our sufferings, our fears, and our disbelief alone and we leave the church alone. If this parish is a community of disciples as we strive to be, then we must bring our being sense of community more toward the center.
This Eucharist is like a double-edged sword. On the one hand it is the most enduring sign of Christ’s presence and on the other the One Bread and the One Bread makes us one as a community. In the Eucharist, not only is Christ present to us but we become present to one another. May our Eucharist prepare us for life IN Christ and WITH one another. Amen.
- Fr. Satish Joseph