2015-04-15 11:20:00

3rd Sunday of Easter – April 19, 2015


Acts 3: 13-15, 17-19; I Jn 2:1-5; Lk 24: 35-48 

Some years ago one Luiqi Tarisio was found dead with hardly any creature comforts in his home, except the presence of 246 exquisite violins. He had been collecting them all his life. They were all stored in the attic. The best violins were found in the bottom drawer of an old rickety bureau. The greatest of his collection, a Stradivarius, when it was finally played, had had 147 speechless years. In his very devotion to the violin, he had robbed the world of all that exquisite music. How many of Christ's people are like old Tarisio? In our very love of the church we fail to give the glad tidings to the world; in our zeal for the truth we forget to publish it. When shall we all learn that the Good News needs not just to be cherished, but needs to be told? Don't bury God's Good News of Easter at the bottom of a rickety old bureau. Let the people hear the great sound of the music: He is Risen!

Introduction: The common theme of today’s readings is a challenge that our faith in the living presence of the risen Lord should strengthen our hope in his promises, call us to true repentance for our sins and lead us to bearing witness to Christ by our works of charity.  The readings also remind us that the purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection was to save us from sins. Hence they invite us to make our bearing witness to the risen Lord more effective by repenting of our sins, renewing our lives, and meeting Jesus in the Word of God and at the Eucharistic Table.  The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles describes how Peter fulfills the mission of preaching Jesus.  In this second sermon, Peter goes on with the preaching mission begun on Pentecost in Jerusalem, and again presents Jesus as the fulfillment of all the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.  He also asks the Jews to turn toward God so that their sins might be wiped away.  In the second reading, John tells us that true knowledge and love of God consist in acknowledging that Jesus is the expiation for our sins, by bearing witness to Him in our lives and by obeying His commandments.  Today's gospel leads us to reflect on faith, doubts and crises.  It shows us how Jesus convinced his disciples of his resurrection and how he commissioned them to be his witnesses throughout the world.  He prepared them to receive God's power through the coming descent of the Holy Spirit upon them, and he commanded them to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins.  

 The first reading: Acts 3: 13-15, 17-19: Saint Luke wrote for an audience of cosmopolitan, middle-class Gentiles, living in a skeptical society, yet attracted to a religion with long historic Jewish roots.  This new religion reached out to all humankind.  To tell that story, to ground his audience in their adopted religious heritage, and to keep them focused on the new religion's mission, Luke needed to tell the story of Jesus anew in a second book, the Acts of the Apostles.  Today’s lesson is the second of five discourses preached by Peter.  Today’s episode from the Acts of the Apostles reports Peter’s forceful address to the astonished crowd gathered at the Portico of Solomon in the Jerusalem Temple after a healing miracle. This reading tells us about the Jewish heritage of Christianity -- how the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob sent His Son Jesus as the Messiah to save the world and how his chosen people rejected him and conspired with the Romans to execute him.    It also tells us how Jesus was raised from the dead and fulfilled all the messianic prophecies.  The sermon concludes with the admonition to the Jews to repent of their sins and be converted.  “Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away” (Acts 3:19). Although we were not part of that crowd demanding his death, it was our sins that Christ carried to the cross,  and it was for those sins that Christ asked the Father's forgiveness from the cross.  Hence we are the ones who need to reform our lives and turn to God with repentant hearts.  If we believe that Christ has forgiven our sins, we must forgive the sins of others. 

Second Reading, 1 John 2:1-5:   In liturgical year B, we read from the First Letter of Saint John on the Sundays of Easter.  This Letter was addressed to the early Christian community beset with many problems. Some members were advocating false doctrines. These errors are here recognized and rejected. Although their advocates had left the community,   the threat posed by them remained.  They refused to acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God who came into the world as a true man.  They were difficult people to deal with, claiming special knowledge of God but disregarding the divine commandments, particularly the commandment of love of neighbor.   Likewise, they refused to accept faith in Christ as the source of sanctification.  Thus they denied the redemptive value of Jesus' death.  While neither today’s reading from Luke nor the reading from Acts explains how Jesus’ death and resurrection frees us from sins, John in his letter provides an explanation, calling Jesus “expiation for our sins.”  This presupposes that the death of Jesus was a sacrifice, like the sacrifices prescribed in the Old Testament (Numbers 5:8).  The sacrifice of Jesus makes up for sins, and so offers an opportunity for their forgiveness. Jesus continues to  remain our advocate when we encounter the harsh reality of our sins in our lives.Hence John advises true Christians to approach Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins and to lead true Christian lives by obeying his commandments. 

Exegetical notes: The context: This apparition of Jesus took place on Easter evening, after Jesus had appeared to the two disciples of Emmaus.The two disciples to whom Our Lord appeared on their way to Emmaus, returned hurriedly to Jerusalem to report the glad news that they met him in the person of  the stranger who explained to them the Sacred Scriptures and whom they recognized at the breaking of bread.  They discovered that the apostles were convinced, by that time, of the resurrection of Jesus because Simon also had seen him.  While they were discussing these things Jesus appeared in their midst, surprising and terrifying them.  This story was told and retold and recorded by Luke for at least three reasons: (1) Jesus' death and resurrection fit God's purpose as revealed in scripture; (2) the risen Jesus is present in the breaking of bread; and (3) the risen Jesus is also physically absent from the disciples.

The facts emphasized: 1) The reality of Christ’s resurrection. By inviting his apostles to look closely at him and touch him, Jesus removed any fear that they were seeing a ghost and instilled confidence in him by greeting them: “peace be with you.”  By eating a piece of fish before their eyes, he convinced them that they are not dreaming or having a mere vision or hallucination. Jesus wanted them to be authentic witnesses to the reality of his life as their risen Lord with his glorified soul and body.

2) The necessity of the cross:  Jesus explained that his death on the cross had not been the result of a failed plan.  Instead, it was part of God's eternal plan to show His love for His people by subjecting His Son to suffering and death.  

3) The Resurrection of Jesus gives meaning to the Old Testament prophecies. Bible scholars cite 324 Messianic prophecies scattered throughout the Old Testament, especially in the prophets and in Psalms.  Jesus explained to his disciples how these prophecies had been fulfilled in him so that they may become witnesses to their risen Lord in Jerusalem and to all the nations. 

4) Commissioning of the disciples with the missionary task of preaching the good news of salvation through repentance and faith in Jesus.  Jesus told the disciples what they were to preach, namely:  a) that the Son of God was crucified and died on the cross for the expiation of our sins; b) that he rose from the dead and conquered death; and c) that all people must repent of their sins and obtain forgiveness in his name. In this gospel passage, Jesus also commanded His disciples to remain in Jerusalem and pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Life messages: 1) Renew the "Upper Room Experience" in the Holy Mass: The same Jesus who, in the upper room of the Cenacle, prepared his disciples for their preaching and witnessing mission, is present with us in the Eucharistic celebration.  He invites us to share in the "Liturgy of the Word of God" and in “The Liturgy of Bread and Wine."   In the first part of the Mass, Jesus speaks to us through the "Word of God."  In the second part, he becomes our spiritual food and drink.  Thus, today's gospel scene is repeated every Sunday on our parish altars.  Like the early disciples, we come together to repent of our sins, express our thanks for the blessings received, listen to God’s words and offer ourselves to God along with our gifts of bread and wine.  We also share in the spiritual food Jesus supplies, and we are sent to share his message with the entire world.

2) Jesus needs us as witnesses to continue his mission.  Jesus needs Spirit-filled followers to be his eyes, ears and hands and to bear witness to his love, mercy and forgiveness.   The church badly needs dedicated witnesses: priests, Brothers, Sisters, teachers, doctors, and nurses – all of us.  The essence of bearing witness is to testify by our lives that the power of the risen Jesus has touched and transformed us.  In other words, Jesus is to speak to other people through us. In Calcutta, a dying old woman with her head in the lap of Mother Teresa, looked at her for a long time, and, in a feeble voice, asked:   "Are you the God Jesus who loves the poor and the sick"?

3) Let our daily lives be the means of experiencing and sharing the risen Lord with others. Just as the disciples experienced their risen Lord in their community, let us learn to feel the presence of Jesus in our own homes, social service centers, nursing facilities, hospitals and schools.  These are also the places where we have the opportunity to convey our peace and joy to others.  

4) Be agents with Jesus in the establishing of the Kingdom in our world: Jesus wants us to be a community which shares and cares and in which everything is shared; a community which knows how to recognize Jesus in the poor, in the marginalized, in the sick; a community to bring healing into people's lives; and a community of peacemakers and not makers of division or conflict.

There was a man who was very attached to his father, who had been a labourer all his life. When the father died the son was grief-stricken. As he stood quietly gazing down into the coffin in which he was laid out, he was particularly struck by his father’s hands. Even small things can reveal the essence of a person’s life. Later he said: ‘I will never forget those magnificently weathered old hands. They told the story of a countryman’s life in the eloquent language of wrinkles, veins, old scars and new. My father’s hands always bore some fresh scratch or cut as adornment, the result of his latest tangle with a scrap of wire, a rusted pipe, a stubborn root. In death they did not disappoint even in that small and valuable particular. ‘It is not given to sons to know everything about their fathers, but I have those hands in my memory to supply evidence of the obligations he met, the sweat he gave, the honest deeds he performed. By looking at those hands you could read better part of the old man’s heart.’ Jesus said to the apostles: ‘Look at my hands and feet … Touch me and see for yourselves…’ He said the same thing to Thomas: ‘See my wounded hands and side. Cease doubting and believe.’

(Source: Homilies of Fr. Anthony Kadavil)








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