The readings today are full of Easter excitement!
• Peter is speaking
to a crowd of Jewish spectators who have come to witness the man whom
Peter and John had cured from paralysis. He had been begging for money,
but the two apostles could not give him silver or gold, but rather a
recovery of his mobility through the Holy Spirit.
• Peter begins his speech with a kind of Scripture
lesson. He reminds them that the God of their religious fathers, the
Patriarchs, has revealed Jesus to be the servant of the Scriptures.
• Peter reviews how the listeners had been complicit in the handing over
of this Servant to His death.
• Peter ends with a comforting call to
repentance and life offered through Jesus Whose death and resurrection
was written in their very own Holy Scriptures.
• He invites his listeners
to drown themselves in the forgiveness of Christ, Who before He was
born, was buried in their own prophetic writings. Remember . . . . the Old Testament prefigures the New. The New Testament fulfills the Old.
• This Christ, the
Servant of Suffering, once buried in a tomb, now is alive and giving
life to all who believe.
This psalm is an
individual lament in which a pious Israelite calls out for
deliverance and receives an answer in the form of vindication
from his/her enemies. Thus vindicated, the plaintiff can
lie down and sleep peacefully.
Since Christ is “the
Holy and Righteous One,” this psalm can be applied to
his death and resurrection. He was in distress and called
upon the Lord, who raised him from the dead and vindicated
him.
His work thus accomplished, he can sit down at the right
hand of God.
To apply to Christ the words “I will lie down and sleep” (responsorial
psalm) does not imply that he is inactive.
Jesus is our “advocate” (“paraclete,” literally “helper”)
in heaven. Sin still occurs in the Christian life (when 1 John was written, the
Gnostics were perfectionists who believed that proper Christians were sinless),
but the exalted Christ still pleads our cause with the Father.
The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments.
This gospel represents a departure from the norm in series B,
which is to follow a course of readings from Mark, supplemented
by John during Lent and the Easter season. It is
the counterpart of
John 20:19-23, which we read last week.
The Gospel of Luke has its own Easter event.
• Two
disciples had been taking their exit-walk from Jerusalem back to Emmaus.
Jesus had met them, responded to their invitation to stay with them and
while eating with them was known to them in the “breaking of the
bread”. This is so important! What is the sacrament in which we know Jesus in the breaking of the bread? The Eucharist.
• Then Jesus vanishes, but their hearts were so flooded with joy
that they decided to return and reveal to the others what they had
experienced.
What we hear in today’s Gospel is the rest of the
story!
While the disciples are relating their being accompanied,
(literally) by Jesus, the very same Jesus appears in the midst of the
group and extends “peace” to all. Terrified and thinking they were
seeing a ghost, the assembly has a real Easter dinner. Knowing their
doubt, Jesus invites them to touch His body and then asks for
something to eat.
Luke is greatly aware that his Greek readers were
skeptical about such a thing as rising from the dead. How comforting this must be to such skeptics! Jesus is offered some fish
and eats it as a sign that He is truly Himself. Ghosts don’t have bodies
nor do they eat.
Jesus concludes this appearance with clear
evidence from the writings of Scripture.
The law, the Prophets and the
Psalms all speak of the Servant having to suffer, die and rise. Remember . . . . the Old Testament prefigures the New. The New Testament fulfills the Old.
This is a perfect example of that. The disciples lived this revelation. Thinking about this always reminds me of this quote:
"If Jesus didn't rise, an even greater miracle happened: 12 relatively
uneducated guys changed the world & were martyred to protect a lie."
This
Good News is meant to affirm Jesus as the Messiah and that forgiveness
of sins is to be preached from the top of the Jerusalem Hill to the ends
of the earth. Those who have seen Jesus’ risen Body are now to become
that Body by living His life and giving His life to the world.
• Preaching the Lectionary:
The Word of God for the Church Today
Reginald H. Fuller. The Liturgical Press. 1984 (Revised Edition)
pp.
260-262.
