Easter

Jan 27 2025

Scripture Study for

This week’s first reading continues from last week. After Peter has declared that the lame man was healed through the power of Jesus, the religious leaders have Peter and John arrested for teaching and proclaiming resurrection of the dead in Jesus (4:1–3). Now they question Peter, who responds by ironically wondering aloud that he and John have been dragged before the authorities for doing a good deed, a point that highlights the parallel between the apostles and Jesus himself, who was also interrogated after doing good deeds. Peter then repeats that it was in the name of Jesus that the man was healed. All salvation (healing, forgiveness, well-being, deliverance) comes only through Jesus.

In his First Letter, John has been exhorting his audience to follow God’s commandments. He has also assured them that if they do sin, yet “abide in Christ,” they will be saved because in Christ believers have been made children of God. The world, that is, that aspect of human society that is opposed to God, does not recognize this great dignity in Christians, and Christians themselves may have difficulty recognizing their own status as God’s children. Just as a human child is like the parents and also the siblings, so children of God are growing into the likeness of God and of Christ. This reality is still obscure, but one day this perception will become clear, and then Christians will see more clearly who they themselves are, as children of God and siblings of Christ.

The image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd has deep roots in the story of Israel. The metaphor of shepherd was standard for kings and religious leaders, who were expected to guide Israel in the ways of God, and thus protect them from spiritual and social harm. In Ezekiel, God accuses the shepherds not only of leaving the people at the mercy of the wolves, but of ravaging them themselves. In response, God promises to shepherd the people himself (34:1–31). Jesus, then, is taking up this divine role, to the point of even laying down his life for the sheep, rather than allow them to stray or suffer. Jesus also alludes to the fact that God’s flock is not confined to Israel, and that one of Jesus’ tasks is to unite all of God’s flock into one under his (Jesus’) care.

Jan 27 2025

Scripture Study for

The first reading, which features one of several kerygma-based speeches in Acts, follows the healing of a lame man by Peter and John, to the astonishment of onlookers. Peter responds by asking the crowd why they are so amazed, as if Peter and John themselves had performed the cure. No, he says, it was by faith in the name of Jesus that the man was healed. The healing, then, is proof of the truth of the proclamation Peter makes about Jesus. Peter also pointedly remarks that, although the people and their leaders acted out of ignorance in crucifying Jesus, they can no longer claim such ignorance. Just as Jesus announced the reign of God and called for repentance, so now Peter announces the Good News of Christ and calls for repentance.

The First Letter of John begins with an exhortation to accept the message that “God is light” and that only those who walk in the light have fellowship with God (1:5–6). To walk in the light means to turn away from sin and accept God’s forgiveness in Christ. Only those who fail to recognize their need for forgiveness can block this gracious action of God; all others can be assured not only of forgiveness, but that they have Jesus as their Advocate. There can be no greater assurance of being in fellowship with God. John emphasizes that living in fellowship with Christ is above all a practical matter. “Knowing” Christ means obeying his commandments, and obedience to Christ is the royal road to love of God.

Immediately before the present Gospel account, the disciples who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus returned to Jerusalem to tell their story to the Eleven (24:33). Now Jesus suddenly appears in their midst, greeting them with peace. Their terror at seeing what they think is a ghost reflects doubt in the possibility that Jesus has indeed been raised from the dead, hence his invitation to “touch me and see,” and the pointed statement that he ate, something ghosts do not do. The Gospel accounts agree that Jesus’ resurrection was physical, although they are equally clear that his is a transformed physicality. Now that Jesus’ work on earth has been done, it is time for his followers to preach both repentance and forgiveness, not just to Israel, but to “all the nations.”

Jan 27 2025

The Burning Joy of Jubilation

Jesus is risen! Joy, exultation, a grand hurrah! And resounding alleluias! The disciples running back to Jerusalem are jubilant! As they run, they shout to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us when we walked on the road with him?” Jesus is alive!

Teresa of Ávila, the mystic, felt that jubilation, too. In her autobiography, she described that an angel thrust a long spear, tipped with fire, into her heart. As the point was being drawn out, she was left all on fire with a great love of God. That painful but sweet caress of love left her in bliss for many days.

Do modern day folks ever feel that inner burning? I wonder . . . On occasion I’ve had a bad cough and my lungs felt like they were burning. But that is not it.

When something is deeply unjust, the heat of righteous indignation can fire up the gut to do something to make things right. But that is not it either.

What is this burning of jubilation?

A young man once shared with me that he had experienced that burning in his heart one time, as he watched his bride come up the aisle. Happiness and gratitude and love all rushed together to create a fiery jubilation inside.

A mother described the touch of the tiny fingers of the two-day old child who so recently had been inside of her. Her heart swelled with the warmth of jubilation.

A husband has talked of how his heart burned with joy when his wife came home from the hospital, healed. Gratitude and love and relief all flooded together into the jubilation of having more days together.

This burning of the heart in jubilation is the opposite of Good Friday’s burden of the heart in sorrow. It is a foretaste of heaven. Death is not life’s final answer. Jesus is risen! We too will be raised! God be praised!

Consider/Discuss

Some scholars suggest that the second of the disciples on the road to Emmaus is unnamed in order to allow us to be that traveler on the road. When have you been that disciple, and felt your heart burning with jubilation within you?
Resurrection is more glorious than we could ever imagine. Yet sometimes we allow ourselves to be satisfied with just a bland or dulled hope. How could we grow more fervent in living new life?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, we taste the sweetness of your blessed fire so rarely. Though the joys of heaven are never ending, maybe the reason that we don’t feel that more often is that we couldn’t handle more glory on a regular basis. But thank you for the moments when your joy breaks through into our lives. Thank you for love and friendship and the sharing of bread and the little touches of ways that you reveal to us the glory of heaven. Come, be with us now. Our hearts want to burn with your love.

Jan 27 2025

Mercy Breaks through Our Hardness

Imagine you are at the table that evening. Thomas has set his face like stone, “Um, yeah, and how exactly did Jesus come through the room’s rock wall last week when the door was locked? And how can you say that he just stood here among you? We all know that he died. We saw him. Not breathing. Water and blood flowed from his side where they stabbed him. Gone. Jesus is dead.” He wonders, “Whatever made me hang out with these guys anyway?”

Andrew is ecstatic. “No, he’s not dead! Alive! Yes, he stood right there, next to where you are sitting now. Jesus is alive! He breathed the Holy Spirit upon us. I feel different. I am not afraid. I am so excited.”

Thomas looks over at the sandstone wall and shakes his head. That doesn’t make any sense. Andrew, always the first to believe, the one who drags everybody else into things . . .

Peter knows what he saw. But he doesn’t know how to respond to Thomas’s disbelief. The big fisherman stands up and pounds on the rock of the wall. “He was here. I don’t know how he came through, but he was here. It was Jesus. Real. Real as you and me. He was looking for you. And he wanted to see the other one, too.” (Nobody would say aloud the name of Judas the betrayer.)

Nathaniel quietly lowers his cup from his lips and says, “But still . . . not the same, Peter; not the same; not the same as you and me. . . ” He thought back to the reviving of Martha’s brother Lazarus, and the smell. “It is different. Lazarus came back with the same body he had before. Jesus was entirely and totally changed, as though his body were a new material. It is hard to describe. Thomas, you just had to be here.”

And then suddenly, there he was.

Consider/Discuss

The hardness of the stone wall did not stop Jesus. The hardness in Thomas’ heart did not stop Jesus. Our own hardness does not stop Jesus. His divine mercy is greater than any hardness. His divine presence is greater than our disbelief. How do we too call out, “My Lord and my God!” when we have been shown mercy?
The apostles lived closely with each other when they walked with Jesus. He was the glue for their camaraderie. When he was no longer there—he who had held them together—it was gone. What happened to their unity? What happens to the unity of the people of God today, if/when Jesus is no longer the center of our connectedness?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, you hear our wrangling about “what I believe” and “what I think” and “what group I belong to.” There is the blaring noise of those who yell at us to believe. There is the mocking noise of those who do not believe. So much hardness surrounds Christianity. And then . . . you come through the wall. You tenderly tap us on the shoulder and say, “I am here.” You show up in our lives when we least expect. Help us to refocus on you, for you come through walls in every age.

Jan 27 2025

Scripture Study for

The reading from Acts highlights two related aspects of the early Christian community. First, we are told that the community was “of one heart and mind,” living precisely as a community holding everything in common, rather than as a collection of individuals. The last sentence returns to this idea, emphasizing that everyone contributed to the common fund; no one among them went without. Between these two notices is the comment that the apostles “bore witness to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” Rather than disrupt the theme of the common life, this statement holds it together, suggesting that the impetus for this new social structure was the new life found in Christ. This itself called for a new way of living among those who would call themselves disciples.

In his First Letter, John explores the mutual relationships between Christ and God, between Christ and believers, and between believers and God, all of which inform each other in a complex “abiding,” one of John’s favorite words (4:13–21). Just before this reading, he has stated that “whoever loves God must also love his brother” (4:21). When we love God, we can love those whom God has begotten because, when we are begotten by God, we receive or are strengthened in our faith. Through faith in Christ, one is both begotten by God and enters a circle of love, in which we love God and through that love, love our neighbor and, in loving our neighbor, we thus fulfill God’s commandments, which is what it means to love God.

Eight days after his resurrection, Jesus returns to his disciples, who have hidden themselves away from the world out of fear. During his passion, death, and now even his resurrection, the most dominant trait of most of Jesus’ closest associates has been fear. Yet now, in his moment of victory, Jesus speaks not a word of reproach or condemnation. Instead, he twice speaks a word of peace and then shows that he still has faith in them. This faith is not grounded in their native abilities or in their spiritual strength, but in the power of the Holy Spirit. The essence of the mission is to proclaim forgiveness, which the apostles have now received. Both the experience of forgiveness and the power of the Spirit equip the apostles to go out into the world to proclaim Christ.