Easter People

It is now a week after we celebrate Easter Sunday. And we are back to our regular routine. This does not mean that the celebration of Easter and the Paschal mystery is just a passing activity we celebrate every year like a birthday or a wedding anniversary. Easter is forever!

But the focus now is not so much on the historical person of Christ, the carpenter from Nazareth, as it is focus on us. This is precisely the lesson of love today’s liturgy lays on you and me.

How do we make it alive? How do we make it a part of our daily living? Today’s liturgy suggests that we look into three stages of the Christian community: The Community of Jesus’ own disciples after the resurrection; The Jerusalem Community after Pentecost; The Christian Community to which you and I belong now.

First, the Community of Jesus’ own disciples. It is a puzzling picture John’s Gospel presents. Resurrection day – John already outraced Peter to the tomb, looked inside, has found it empty, and has told us himself that “he saw and believed.”

Mary Magdalene has rushed from the tomb to declare to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” But the disciples were hiding, huddled together behind closed doors, frightened and afraid of the Jews. It doesn’t make sense.

And you’ll be happy to know that Scripture scholars are as puzzled as you and I.

At any rate, here they are, here is Jesus in their midst in spite of the locked doors. We have no idea what that risen body looked like – a body that could pass through the locked doors of a room. But what is more significant is what we do know of Jesus’ Easter visit to his dearest friends.

First, the greeting – “Peace to you.” Not an ordinary greeting, “Hi Guys!” or “Kumusta na kayo” or “Yo,” or “Give me five!” The word “Peace” assures the disciples they have nothing to fear from this uninvited guest, from this unexpected appearance.

More importantly, “Peace” fulfils what Jesus promised at the Last Supper: “Peace is my farewell to you. My peace is my gift to you. And I do not give it to you as the world gives it. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. You have heard me tell you ‘I am going away.’ And ‘I am coming back to you.’” (John 14: 27-28) No wonder at the sight of the Lord the disciples rejoiced.

Remember another promise of Christ during the Last Supper: “You are sad now; but I shall see you again, and your hearts will rejoice with a joy that no one can take from you.” (John 16:22) Second: “As the Father has sent me, so do I send you” (John 20:21)

The disciples – those who follow Jesus – become apostles, those who are sent by Jesus. Sent to do what? To continue Christ’s mission: “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” (John 20: 21)

But to carry Christ to others, the apostles need a Godgiven gift, the Gift of gifts. And so Jesus breathes on them: “Receive the Holy Spirit,” the Spirit he had promised them at the Last Supper, “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16: 13)

Move now to a larger Community of disciples – the Jerusalem Community after Pentecost. Many of the old familiar faces are still there: Peter and John, Thomas and Matthew, the women who followed Jesus so faithfully to Calvary – and of course his mother Mary.

But the Community mushroomed, three thousand baptized in a single day. Countless believers were added day after day. Of these, Scripture should have startled you with that surprising sentence: “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the sale laid it at the apostles’ feet. And distribution was made to each as any had need.” (Acts 4: 23-25)

The phrase from Luke’s description of the early Christian Community should challenge us: “There was not a needy person among them.” Challenge us, because that fact is the prelude to the sobering theology in the Letter of James: “What does it profit, my brother and sisters, if someone says he/she has faith but not work? Can his/her faith save him/her? If a brother or a sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled.’ Without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith itself, if it has no works is dead,” (James 2: 14-17)

Now we come to the Community face to face with you and me, more accurately, the Christian Community of which you and I are privileged to be a part of. The problem is this: How can we keep Easter alive? How to move from the Risen Christ to the Risen Christian? Each of us, rose in Christ, rose with Christ.

That resurrection we realized in our baptism. If our newness of life is too vague, hurry back to the first two Communities. Fix our minds on faith and works, on “My Lord and my God.”

And “There was not a needy person among them.” First Faith, our Faith is not merely a matter of mind and memory, the Apostles’s Creed or the Nicene Creed. But to come alive our Creed, our faith, must move beyond brains and lips. Faith is our whole person given to God; living faith is an act of love.

When Thomas uttered, “My Lord and my God!” it was not a simple exclamation. It was his whole person given to God with living faith.

Next – work. Here I have little to tell you. Not because there is little to tell; not because there are no needy in our neighbourhood; rather, because once your faith comes alive, the love that kindles it will tell you where God wants you to work it out.

Still, one principle from St. Paul must pervade them all: “You are a Community – a Community in Christ. However individual, however personal your service to Christ, you serve within and through a community.”

Dear friends, Easter is forever – and we are Easter people! If your faith is fired by love, and your love brings you out to the needy among you, to the needy beyond you.