2nd Sunday of Easter – Year A
Acts 2:42-47 1st Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31
Today’s Gospel text is John’s account of one of the Risen Jesus’ appearances on the actual day of resurrection. Remember that theologically, the Paschal Event (the suffering, death and resurrection taken together) has brought about a radical and indescribable change in Jesus which was appreciated only gradually by the disciples as they met him after his rising. Before his resurrection Jesus appeared to be much the same as anyone else to casual human perception, with the exception of being an occasional wonder worker (aka miracle maker), an exorcist, and an authoritative, prophetic speaker. After his resurrection, Jesus was not easily recognized, not bound by physical laws of time and space, and otherwise quite astounding to those disciples who had known him before the event. And, we must struggle to imagine just how disturbing and destabilizing Jesus’ resurrection was to the apostles as their appreciation of the reality evolved. They and their lives had been profoundly and radically changed, and would never again revert to what had been normal for them before his resurrection. Meeting the Risen Jesus Christ effected the most fundament conversion of mind and heart imaginable!
Like the Solemn Feast of the Nativity, Easter enjoys a liturgical Octave of Days by which to extend the liturgical festival. The Gospel lessons for daily Masses between Easter Sunday and the 2nd Sunday of Easter each proclaim a resurrection appearance of Jesus and reveal gradually evolving insights on the parts of his disciples into what they had experienced. The 2nd Sunday of Easter is the Octave Day (the 8th Day) of Easter. The two Sundays are liturgically connected by means of the morning and evening resurrection appearances as remembered and recorded in John’s Gospel. The first Easter Sunday evening appearance had an encore appearance on the 8th Day a week later. No other liturgical observance, devotional practice, or spiritual remembrance is as important as the Easter Octave on these days and on this Octave Sunday according to ancient and long-standing Catholic Tradition.
The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles is an idealized memory of how the earliest Christians might have lived their lives. This short text describes them as believers who lived lives of perfect communal socialism and mutual respect. The values of Gospel socialism (radically different from Marxist socialism!) are fundamental, loving and necessary Gospel values. How to work and manage lives of mutual concern and sharing, to provide for all those in need, to live in sophisticated and intense gratitude for blessings received – these are the struggles of Christian fellowship in every era. Those first generation Christians are said to have held their property and assets in common and to have been completely gracious, generous, altruistic, and self-disciplined. (See the ancient Letter to Diognetus [#5-#6] for an expanded and inspiring apologia of early Christian life.) It was just such an ideal that caught the attention of so many in the pagan world of that time, so that “every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” This“being saved” was true on more than one level. Early Christians imagined that their profound faith in Christ and his Resurrection truly meant being “saved for” God’s Kingdom of Heaven. But, even more immediately practical was that they appreciated that they had been “saved from” the hopelessness of earthly existence of their day. A similar salvation is possible for believers of any time and place who consciously allow the Gospel message of the Risen Christ to penetrate and sanctify all aspects of their lives. This is the social consequence of the Gospel message which often overlooked and even subverted by many ideological and institutional qualities of culture, church or society. We must work to mitigate such subversions of the Gospel by countering the misuses of power, authority, wealth, and by challenging the spread of superstitious or silly beliefs. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has always been about the infinite, profound, loving, intelligent and wise God who reveals hope by means of the full and intelligent engagement of life. God’s mercy and compassion are not 20th Century discoveries. Divine compassion and mercy have been fundamental and essential theological and mystical insights about the Divine Mystery since the days of Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam, David and Solomon, Elijah and the Isaiahs, Mary Theotokos and Mary Magdalene, Peter and Paul, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Francis and Clare, Joan of Arc and Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, and John XXIII, Dorothy Day, and Oscar Romero, and in the lives of saintly believers all through Salvation History! One can truthfully assert that God’s infinite mercy and goodness have even been extraordinarily evident outside of the Gospel Tradition in the likes of Mohatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, and countless others of good will! God’s love and goodness are unimaginably large, generous, and ubiquitous!
Today’s second lesson begins a series of passages from the 1st Letter of Peter. Addressed to second generation Christians, this letter hints that they found their Gospel faith to be the practical cause for persecution and travail. They were therefore worried and somewhat insecure. They needed spiritual encouragement, edification, and reminding of the saving power of God and Christ. “Peter” reminded them that they were in line for an inheritance which was “unseen,” and so, more durable than even the Old Testament’s promised inheritance which was essentially the land of Israel. The unseen inheritance in 1st Peter was that Kingdom of God which is everlasting. The ultimate goal was “the salvation of your souls” which ought be understood not only as the salvation to be bestowed “after death.” We must hear, imagine, and understand salvation as that which comes from living the Gospel life, within the Gospel fellowship and community, and in the here and now! Thus, “salvation” meant then and means now what the Second Vatican Council described as “full, conscious, and active participation” in Gospel fellowship and in the embrace of Gospel life! We heard a parallel theme in today’s text from the Acts of the Apostles about living in loving fellowship and community. Today’s Gospel narrative is also set in the communal fellowship of those frightened, confused, and somewhat destabilized Christian believers in that first week or two after Jesus’ execution. The community of compassion and prayer was then and still is the seed bed in which the Gospel is remembered, refined and reflected upon by all who accept the power and Grace of the Risen Christ!
Today’s Gospel is John’s account of two Resurrection appearances a week apart. Thomas was the disciple in John 14 who had raised a challenge after the Last Supper when Jesus said to them, “You know where I am going!” Thomas had been absent from Easter Sunday’s evening resurrection appearance. Much has been made of Thomas’ skepticism over the earliest report of Jesus’ Resurrection. But was not Thomas really wise to hesitate in accepting the report of resurrection? After all, it was an outlandish concept never before actually encountered. Peter and the others had not received the news easily when Mary Magdalene first reported the tomb empty on Easter morning. Resurrection is an idea which was as strange and unlikely in those days as it is today. Thomas wrestled with his faith and with good sense. The two must not be separated. Thoughtful and faithful believers still wrestle with the mystery today! Note, resurrection does not mean resuscitation or revivification. In the Gospels, those “brought back” to life by Jesus after natural deaths are usually not called “resurrected” for they went back to their old lives physically unchanged and eventually died again (see about Lazarus in John 11; Jairus’ daughter in Mark 5:21-43; the son of the Widow of Nain in Luke 7:11-17). The same can be said for those who “die” in the Emergency Room or on the operating table, only to be “brought back” by skilled medical professionals. Resurrection is different from those events. It is a mystery which makes sense only (!) from the perspective of a balanced religious faith, which renders mortality no longer final. To be Resurrected means to have conquered death, to die never again. The Risen One lives life anew! Resurrection – before we experience it personally – is a metaphor for the most ultimate and important kind of hope humanly imaginable: that life has meaning, makes sense, and does not merely end with death. Belief and hope in Resurrection allows us – compels us! – to live “new” lives, i.e., to live with a profound peace, joy, compassion, courage and generosity which may strike “normal” people as odd. We Christians use other words and phrases to approach such hope from different perspectives: the kingdom of God, eternal life, salvation, heaven, paradise, the New Jerusalem, etc. Frankly, faith in the Resurrection of Jesus is most effective when it makes a positive impact on believers who in turn live their lives in ever healthier, more conscientious, balanced, and wise terms. Christians who only occasionally think about the next life might easily be labeled amateurs and near-believers. But, Christians who engage life fully – that is, those who actively embrace the Gospel thoughtfully, generously, joyfully, and with all their hearts and minds – these disciples of Jesus Christ make life worth living because they are thankful to God for the hope which the Gospel faith has instilled in them. They share a humane faith with those around them. Such is the practical power of the Great Easter Alleluia!
This year, Anno Domini 2011, Easter Sunday in the Western Catholic Churches (and many other Christian traditions) coincides with Easter in the Eastern Orthodox Churches. This is a truly happy event, because it demonstrates a facet of the genuine unity of faith for which healthy and balanced Christians pray regularly.
Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!