Easter

Dec 16 2024

A Day to Believe In

Peter traces the scope and the spread of the gospel. He states that the power of Jesus’ ministry flowed from his having been anointed by God with the Holy Spirit. It was in and through this power that he performed good works. Peter himself was a witness to all of these wonders. Although Jesus’ ministry began with his baptism by John, it continues through people like Peter who are commissioned to preach the gospel and to bear witness to it. The power of the Resurrection is open to all who believe in Jesus. This is truly good news to the Gentiles.

The short passage from Colossians contains the fundamental teaching about the Resurrection and the way the death and resurrection of Christ transform the lives of Christians. It contrasts the world above (heaven) and the world below (earth). Having risen from the dead, Christ is now in the realm of heaven. True Christian behavior flows from belief in this reality. Joined with Christ, believers are already with Christ in God. This is not merely a dimension of Christians’ future expectation, it is an already-accomplished fact. They have not left this world, but they are summoned to be attentive to the things of another world.

The Gospel reading’s reference to darkness rather than the dawn of a new day may be the author’s way of incorporating the light/darkness symbolism. The stone had been moved from Jesus’ tomb and Mary of Magdala presumed that his body had been taken away. She seems to have entertained no thought of his resurrection. She ran off to tell Peter and “the other disciple,” an example of how Jesus’ disciples did not understand the scriptures concerning his resurrection. They would need both a Resurrection experience and the opening of their minds to the meaning of the scriptures. Neither Mary, probably Jesus’ closest female disciple, nor Peter, the leader of the Christian community, nor “the other disciple” grasped the truth of the Resurrection.

Dec 16 2024

Scripture Study for

Dec 11 2024

Scripture Study for

Pentecost comes from the Greek word for the Jewish Festival of Weeks, which took place fifty days after Passover. By the first century, this ancient harvest festival was also a time for Jews to celebrate the Noahic covenant, which God made through Noah with “every living creature” after the flood (Genesis 9:1–17). In the scene from Acts, Jews from all over the world represent the universal scope of this covenant and of God’s dominion and care. It is no surprise, then, that the Holy Spirit descends at Pentecost, bestowing on the church the power to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. The
tongues of fire and the driving wind are classic biblical images of divine theophany, in which the powerful and life-changing power of God descends into the world to set it on a new course.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul has been exploring the dilemma all faithful humans find themselves in: while wanting to live within God’s will, they nevertheless continually encounter a “flaw” in their human nature that resists God’s will and seeks selfish desires instead. This flaw Paul calls “the flesh.” The divine solution to this dilemma is Christ, in whom the flesh is crucified, and who bestows on the baptized his Spirit. Paul uses the language of debt to make his point. Christians “owe” nothing to the flesh; they are not “slaves” to it, such that they must do what it demands. In the Spirit, they are free children of God who can, if they wish, refuse the demands of the flesh. In doing so—even when it involves great struggle—they show themselves to be God’s children and heirs with Christ to his glory.

In his Last Supper discourse, Jesus assures his disciples that although he is returning to the Father, he will not abandon them. If they are faithful to him by heeding his commandments (the primary one being to love one another as he has loved them [John 13:34–35]), he will ask the Father to send the Advocate, or paracletos. This Greek term, drawn from the legal world, means an intercessor, spokesperson, comforter. All of these roles describe that of the Spirit, who will also teach the disciples and ensure their fidelity to Jesus’ teaching. Thus Jesus has equipped his followers to carry on his work by modeling his love for others and by faithfully teaching in his name.

Dec 10 2024

The End Is Near

The end is coming.

Jesus senses it. He feels its weight. In today’s farewell discourse from John, he knows that he is leaving. What will life be like for his disciples? It won’t be the same. Will they remain in him and in the One he loves? Will they be so filled with the Holy Spirit that they stay together? He prays that it be so.

The end is coming.

St. Stephen knows it. He is about to die. Then what? Death is like driving toward the top of a big hill and you can only see sky. After death, eternal life is not simply driving down the other side into the same-old-same-old, an unending life as we already know it; that would be interminable hell. No, eternal life is more like the car coming to the top of the hill and then launching into the air. Stephen sees the heavens opened. He stretches out his arms toward life with Jesus. Something new is coming.

The end is coming.

The author of the book of Revelation sees it. The verses that we read today are the finale of the Bible. And yet those final words are not “The End,” with the credits about to roll, as though the great drama of God with the human race has ceased. Those last words open up a new world: “Come, Lord Jesus!”

We are at the end of the Easter season, about to wrap up our celebration of the Resurrection on Pentecost. And yet . . . In the Resurrection, God has done something new. In that one human death, God has altered the heart of the world, deeply transforming earthly life forever. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. What looks like the end is not the end. It is a new beginning. That is the alleluia of Easter!

Consider/Discuss

With our physical senses of touch and taste, sight and sound and smell, we cannot perceive the deep change at the root of the world; it is as though we only move about on the surface. We walk by faith, not by sight. Yet on occasion, God strengthens our spiritual senses to give us glimpses of resurrection. Look back at your experience of Easter this year. What has God done for you?
At the end of the Bible, it is as though the great drama of God leaves an opening for “The Sequel.” We are now in the era of the Spirit, in which God unfolds that drama in the church and helps us to be fully alive in everyday life. But there is also more. An old spiritual sings, “I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger, a travelin’ through this world of woe. But there’s no sickness, toil, or danger, in that bright world to which I go.” Look forward to the end of your life. What will that “sequel” look like? How do you imagine eternal life?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord Jesus, you know our troubles. You knew the squabbles of the disciples. You prayed that all be one. You see how we humans fight with each other. We tell uncharitable, untrue stories about one another. We are not one. We cannot pull together by ourselves. Oh, help! Strengthen our love. Strengthen our hope. Strengthen our courage. In your resurrection, you have made all things new. You have offered to us a different way of life—a fresh vision, a glorious outcome, a loving future. Help us to live into that vision. We open our arms to you. Come, O Prince of Peace!

Dec 10 2024

Scripture Study for

Stephen was the first deacon chosen by the apostles, and we hear that he was “a man filled with faith and the holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5). We also hear that he was “filled with grace and power” and that he worked “great wonders and signs among the people” (6:8). This, along with his preaching, earned him the distrust and ire of some powerful people, who incited others to accuse him of blasphemy (6:9–15). His lengthy response to the charge ends with a reminder that his accusers’ ancestors had also persecuted the prophets (7:51– 53). He further infuriates the crowd with his claim to see “the glory of God” (that is, a visible sign of the presence of the unseen God) with Jesus at his “right hand,” a position of power and authority. This would seem to confirm the charge of blasphemy (which is why they cover their ears), the penalty for which was stoning (Leviticus 24:13–16). Stephen’s death conforms to that of Christ when he asks Jesus to “receive my spirit” and he prays that Jesus will not “hold this sin against them” (see Luke 23:34, 46).

The book of Revelation ends with the creation of “a new heaven and a new earth” and a new Jerusalem, “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (21:1–2). This city represents the church of God, formed around the “God and the Lamb,” from whose throne flows “a river of life-giving water” that waters the tree of life, bringing the biblical story back to its beginning in the Garden of Eden (22:1–2; Genesis 2:9; 3:22–23). Now the human race, banished from the source of life ages ago, can return home. The book also ends with the reminder that this vision, while trustworthy, is only “near” and awaits fulfillment with the final coming of the Lord of history, the Alpha and the Omega. Both the Spirit and the church pray for this coming, and the author exhorts his hearers to do the same. Christ himself, who gives the testimony of this final victory, affirms that he will certainly return, bringing with him the fulfillment of all of God’s plans and promises for all of creation.

In the Gospel reading, John’s characteristic intertwining and repetition of themes is on full display, a rhetorical device that mirrors the close connection among those themes, which are “abiding,” faith, and witness. In the first place, Jesus prays that his followers “may all be one,” just as he and the Father are “one” because they are “in” each other. In this Gospel that means not only an ontological identity (being of the very same nature) between Jesus and the Father (1:1), but also a union of wills and a sharing of the bond of love (15:9). Jesus thus prays that the church will “abide” in him and so also in the Father through the bond of love, manifested by, among other things, a visible unity. This unity is a sign of the divine origin of the church because it is a sign that Jesus was sent from the Father. Christian unity thus has a crucial function for evangelization, giving plausibility to Christian claims about Christ. Division and lack of love among Christians makes it impossible to accept their testimony about Christ. Thus the mutually “abiding” in love of the Father, the Son, and the church is a witness to the truth, and so a firm foundation for belief and faith.