The Resurrection Our Confession

23-04-2017 SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER (A)

DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY

SCRIPTURAL READING:

1. Acts 2:42-47
2. Ps. 118:2-4.13-15 AB. 22-24 (R. 1)
3. 1 Pet. 1:3-9; Accl; Jn. 20:29.
4. Gospel  Jn 20:19-31.

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER (YEAR C)-DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY

SCRIPTURE READING:

1. Acts 5:12-16.
2. Ps 118:2-4.22-24.25-27a (R. 1)
3. Rev. 1:9-11a.12-13.17-19; Accl; Jn. 20:29
4. Gospel Jn. 20:19-31.

Preamble:

Dear friends please repeat these words after me;

Stay with me Lord Jesus, as I give you my mind, may your word never depart from me.

Stay with me Lord Jesus, as I give you my ears, help me listen and obey your voice.

Stay with me Lord Jesus, as I give you my heart, help me welcome you always.

Holy Spirit, rekindle in me the fire of your love. Amen.

THEME: THE RESURRECTION OUR CONFESSION.

In an earlier message I preached within the week precisely yesterday morning, I told us that the resurrection is the foundation of the Christian faith, our confidence as Christian and confession. I told us that the actual evidence of the resurrection story is the reality of the church who has received a mission from the Lord to the world; a mission to preach, to teach, and to heal.

The resurrection is the central fact of the whole Christian faith. Because we believe in the resurrection certain things follow;

1. Jesus is not a figure in a book but a living presence. It is not enough to study the story of Jesus like the life of any other great historical figure. We may begin that way but we must end by meeting him.
2. Jesus is not a memory but a presence. A person we must make effort to meet daily.
3. The resurrection story because of the person we encounter, we are able to share, live together and have a common mission both as a church and as Christ’s faithful.
4. The resurrection story avoids us an opportunity to remain faithful to the teachings handed down to us by the apostles, a call to reawaken our love for the Lord, a participation in the celebration of the Eucharist like the apostles of old did and that is precisely the point of our first reading.
5. The resurrection clears our doubt as it happened to Thomas, even when the other disciples failed to believe in the story of the women who went early in the morning to anoint the body of Jesus, they were renewed in faith and zeal as the lord appeared to them. This is the central focus of the gospel account of today’s liturgy.
6. It is our confession in the sense that it has indeed become our identity as Christians by which we recognize ourselves as Christians; it constitutes the unity of Christians.

We find this confession of faith in the letter of St. Paul to the Romans 10 vs 9 which says “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.” This confession of faith is what we also find in peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi (Matt. 16:13-16) in response to Jesus’ question of who do people say I am- he says-“you are the Christ the son of the living God.” This leads to a profound statement from the lord in the following verses, “you are peter and upon this rock I will establish my church.” We see now that peter’s faith now becomes the faith of the church expressed in the church and lived by the community of Christ’s faithful.

St. Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 12:3 that this confession of faith in the risen Jesus cannot happen without the action of the Holy Spirit “no one who is led by God’s Spirit can say “A curse on Jesus!” and no one can confess “Jesus is Lord,” unless he is guided by the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit becomes the guide to this profession of faith. It is the same Holy Spirit who guided the apostles to do marvelous things, speak boldly and confront the Jewish authorities and with his help and enlightenment they were able to bear great witness to Jesus’ resurrection.

They were able to bear witness because the event of the resurrection of Jesus is not a thing of the past as some would suggest but a constant reminder of the power of God and triumph of God over sin and death which opens a whole new reality for man and it is always in the present and not in the past-something to be lived with and confess.

Jesus’ death is of another kind: it is occasioned, not by the presumption of men occasioned by the disobedience that occurred in the garden of Eden but the humility of God expressed in the obedience of Christ to the point of his death-death on the cross. The death of Christ is the fulfillment of the love of God in which God himself comes down to us, so as to draw us back up to himself. Jesus’ death is a death that achieves reconciliation and becomes a light for the nations.

The confession of faith speaks to us that Jesus died and was buried and it makes it clear that Jesus really was dead, that he fully participated in the human destiny of death. Jesus travelled the path of death right to the bitter and seemingly hopeless end in the tomb. Jesus’ tomb was known but he didn’t remain in the tomb after the third day because he rose triumphantly from the dead. He did not see corruption as the holy one of God.

Psalm 16:8-10 gives us a scriptural foundation as proof of the resurrection of Jesus who is considered as the new David who brings the perfect reign of God’s kingdom. The psalmist tells us “I am always aware of the Lord’s presence; he is near, and nothing can shake me. And so I am thankful and glad, and I feel completely secure, because you protect me from the power of death. I have served you faithfully, and you will not abandon me to the world of the dead.”

The statement we find in the 16^th chapter of the book of the psalms points our attention to the fact that Christ as the new David will not see corruption and this is a definition of resurrection. Only with corruption was death regarded as clearly defined. Once the body had decomposed, once it had broken down into its elements-marking man’s dissolution and return to dust-then death had conquered. From then on, man no longer exists as man-only a shadow may remain in the underworld. From this point of view, it becomes evident that Jesus’ body did not decompose, as such; he did not remain in death, that in him life truly conquered death.

On this note it then became necessary for him to appear to his disciples to offer hope after hope that his resurrection is not resuscitation, his resurrection signifies that he has power over death, that he is not bound by the laws of human nature of living and dying but that he lives forever in the presence of God. With this we have the assurance that after death there is life-a life not in utter contradiction, or chaos, or trouble, or darkness or confusion but a life in God.

Christ’s resurrection offers us a new reality, a new hope, a new joy, a new history, a truth that tells us that light is more powerful than darkness, that there is life after death, that the meaninglessness of the cross has become meaningful for you and I with Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Christ’s resurrection is the mustard seed of history which began with the apostles and has spread to you and I seated here, the reason of our being called Christians.

The resurrection entered the world only through certain mysterious appearances to the chosen few as our readings in the past week revealed to us especially that of today. And yet it was truly the new beginning for which the world was silently waiting. And for the few witnesses-precisely because they themselves could not understand it as in the case of Thomas in our gospel reading of today who expressed utmost disbelieve-the resurrection was such an overwhelmingly real happening, confronting them so powerfully, that every doubt was dispelled, and they stepped forth before the world with an utterly new fearlessness in order to bear witness: Christ is truly risen.

Thomas’ confession of Jesus’ resurrection becomes our Eucharistic faith-My Lord and My God-a confession of total abandonment to the power of God,- the power over death, a confession that professes:

1. Jesus is truly the risen Lord. All that Jesus had said was true. Acts 2:36 “therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

Rom. 10:9 “that if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

1. That Jesus is both Lord and God, the Sovereign majesty of the universe. Col. 2:9-10 “for in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.”
2. That Jesus is the one who has come to truly reveal God, and he is the Mediator between God and man. 1 Tim. 2:5 “for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

Heb. 9:24 “for Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.”

1. That Jesus accepts no half-way commitments. Jesus expected to be his Lord and his God: “My Lord and My God.” Therefore, he must personally bow and worship Jesus as his Lord and his God. Phil. 2:9-11 “therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
2. That Jesus expected an open and public confession of him as Lord and God. Matt. 10:32 “whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my father in heaven.”

1 John 4:15 “if anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.”

Thomas’ confession is a great lesson for us today in the following ways.

1. We are to believe without having to see evidences and proof. John 20:29 “then Jesus told him, “because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.””
2. We are to believe because of the tenderness and warmth of God
3. We are to believe because of love and care and because of the need and nature of the human heart. Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
4. We are to believe because of the need for morality and godly character. Gal. 5:22-23 “but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
5. We to believe because godly witnesses say so. Mark 16:15 says “go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”
6. To believe because of the inner witness of the heart.
7. To believe because of the outer witness of nature

The mercy of the Lord is also captured within the event of the resurrection. The Lord did not condemn Thomas but led him to great faith; to teach him that those who proclaimed the faith to him of the risen Lord where not liars or deceivers but were those who spoke to him about the joy of been in the presence of the lord which he also experienced.

The lord does not condemn anyone but leads us gently to the knowledge of the truth. That with his help we can build strength of character, tenderness and warmth of heart, sensitivity to the witness of the Holy Spirit, an awareness to the order and beauty of all the world.

So we as we celebrate the feast of mercy today, let us approach the throne of mercy once more seeking above all else his mercy and love which led him to the cross to die for you and I. the lord is indeed merciful and we must in this year of mercy rely on his mercy and love to be the reassurance of our hope, a sharpening of our faith and a deepening of our love.