April 3, 2016

Bulletin April 3, 2016 Second Sunday of Easter Acts 5: 1-16; Revelation 1: 9-13, 17-19; John 20: 19-31 John shares the very first words of Jesus after the Resurrection when He appeared to the disciples: “Peace be with you.” Luke describes what happened in downtown Jerusalem after the Resurrection of Jesus “Many signs and wonders were done among the people at the hands of the apostles.” John shares his mystical encounter which starts out, “Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last, the one who lives. Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever.” What a contrast: ….Peace……Miracles all around the streets of Jerusalem near the temple…and the call to trust, and not be afraid. That’s a lot of emotions all wrapped into one. I think spending a little bit of imagination and reflection time on these can bring us closer to the meaning of God’s message to our developing spirituality. In looking at the New Testament, all editions start off with the Gospels, first the ‘Synoptic’ gospels then the Gospel of John. Winnipeg helps us sort out the differences for us: “The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar wording. They stand in contrast to John, whose content is comparatively distinct….” So the gospels concern themselves with Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Essentially the remaining books of the New Testament tell about Jesus after His Resurrection and Ascension and how He continued His work through His followers. Imagine the scene from Acts…I’m sure that not only the apostles and the disciples but a huge population of Jerusalem was ‘afraid’ to come out. The horrid torture and crucifixion carried a point blank message: ‘We are in charge…don’t mess with us…’ This was the message both from the Roman mercenary soldiers and from the Jewish leaders. ‘We know who God is and he certainly wasn’t this country bumpkin.’ The Spirit came and filled the apostles…but the ordinary people didn’t know this. All they knew was that the word was out that these close followers were certainly not afraid and they were walking about and telling about Jesus. Weren’t they afraid….Obviously not! And amazing miracles were happening when Peter and the others walked by…Obviously, the miracles did not stop with Jesus…His followers had ‘the power too.’ ‘Come to be healed’…and they came out from hiding. The hurting and crippled; the blind and diseased; all who were not well off: the poor and beggars. They are ‘uncontrollable’ in a sense that they would not be stopped if they knew they could be healed and respected and loved. The second reading is from Revelation probably written between 81 - 96 AD. This was the time of Emperor Domitian. There was severe persecution among believers at this time. John is in exile on a tiny island called Patmos because he had been preaching about Jesus and the ‘authorities’ wanted to ‘shut him up.’ And the Lord appeared to John and told him not to be afraid because He would never be abandoned. God is always with us. John heard, ‘Do not be afraid.’ Fear is the opposite of trust. When God tells us this, He is saying to ‘Trust Him.’ Do I trust Jesus? Where is my belief and trust challenged? Where do I have problems in this area? A person who is loaded with fear and anxiousness does not know peace. And each of us have definite areas of fear: we fear the growing threat of terrorism. We still fear Iran and other countries in their potential for nuclear warfare. We fear the corruption and seduction of our children and grandchildren. We fear the future of our country…the future of the Church. We worry about our neighborhoods. We fear increasing taxes, identity theft, unsafe streets. We worry about our health and income. We worry about growing older, who will care for us. We worry about dying. We worry if God really loves us especially when we do not really love ourselves. We fear intimacy. This ‘fear’, this ‘worry’ just bottles us up. What did Bette Midler sing in The Rose, “It’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance…it’s the dream afraid of waking that never takes a chance.” And I hear comparisons to the ‘doubting Thomas.’ Actually, this is one of the most inaccurate conclusions we can make to Thomas’ search for truth. Fr. Raymond Brown one of the outstanding Scripture Scholars said that Thomas’ words to Jesus, “My Lord and my God’ were “”The most complete affirmation of Christ’s nature to be found on the lips of anyone in the Gospel.’ Thomas believed. Do I believe? Where do I have my problems? Fr. Joe Robinson in Guiding Light, Feed My Soul says, “A lot of times we hear people say: ‘seeing is believing.’ What they are really saying is that don’t believe one word we’re saying, because believing is accepting something without seeing it. Seeing is not believing, but with God the opposite is true according to the gospel. Believing will lead to seeing. But we have to believe first. We have to trust in what we hear (the words of Jesus) rather than in what we see (for the Lord tells us about things that are unseen). And we trust in what we hear because we choose to trust Jesus.” And when we trust there comes a ‘peace.’ It’s a peace that brings direction and purpose to all our relationships, to all our attitude. Msgr Eugene Lauer in Sunday Morning Insights clarifies this, “Peace is the all-embracing condition of a well-lived life; it brings all other virtues into harmony with one another. Peace is, therefore, not simply the absence of war. There can be all kinds of disrupted and poorly directed relationships, even when people aren’t shooting at one another. Peace is not ‘peace and quiet,’ the state of nothing going on, of not being disturbed by anyone, of ‘getting away from it all.’ That can be a vacuum, unreality, emptiness. Peace is the purposeful flow of life. It is an intently adjusting order of things in which the individual never gets lost. Peace may be used to describe the extremely busy day which ends successfully, in which everyone does his or her job lovingly. It describes the crowded intersection in which each motorist and pedestrian gets to where he or she is going without causing any hostile feelings. It describes the large family with a dozen different tasks to do in the same evening, with each caring about the other and all the tasks eventually falling into place. Peace is a sense of purposeful order in the midst of complexity. Peace does not remove all complications—it allows us to see a divine direction right in the midst of them.” And the Peace Jesus gives is the realization that God is present at every moment…leading us…caring for us… helping us…and we say ‘THANKS’. Thomas said, “My Lord and my God” We say Lord, I know You are with me…I can’t do anything without You. I trust You. I believe in You…help my unbelief. I reflect on the words of Sacred Space 2016, “Jesus, You invite me also to touch Your wounds. Then I can find You in my own wounds and allow You to touch me. Touch my hurts and my hardened heart with Your healing hand. Then may I be a gift to others.”