FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
3 MAY 2015
When this community gathered for Mass on Palm
Sunday, we prayed the beginning verses of Psalm 22. Those verses spoke of God’s servant being
mocked, abandoned, and murdered. Today,
we prayed the later verses of that same Psalm, telling us that God vindicated
his servant. The earliest followers of
Jesus Christ connected the first part of the Psalm with the passion of Christ
and these later verses with his the Mystery of his Resurrection.
Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles gives us insights into how
they lived that Mystery. Filled with the
Holy Spirit, those early believers boldly proclaimed their faith that Jesus had
been raised from the dead. That bold
proclamation brought death to Stephen and scattered the community. It infuriated Saul of Tarsus, who dedicated
himself to eliminating this new movement.
Having encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul was
equally bold in proclaiming the truth from his encounter with the risen Christ,
causing fear in the Christian community and so much anger that the Hellenists
tried to kill him. His friend, Barnabas,
had to take him back to Tarsus to save his life. And yet, in the midst of all of this chaos
and conflict, Saint Luke tells us that the Church continued to be built up and
was at peace!
This peace that Saint Luke describes
is obviously not an absence of conflict or problems. Rather, that peace is the result of the
indwelling of the risen Christ. Those
earliest believers knew that Christ was keeping his promise and that he
remained in them. They understood the
image presented by Jesus in today’s Gospel.
They saw themselves as branches which had been grafted onto the true
vine of Christ when they were baptized.
They were being fed by his Body and Blood when they gathered to break
bread. They realized that their efforts
to keep the commandments to love God and neighbor were connected with their
faith that Christ was remaining in them.
They also believed that God was using the conflicts and difficulties to
prune them, to cause them to bear more fruit by the ways in which they were
keeping his commands.
As we continue to reflect on the
implications of the resurrection in our own time, our first communicants remind
us that we too have been grafted onto the life giving vine of Jesus Christ through
the waters of Baptism. As they march to
the Baptismal Font clothed in the white garments that speak of their putting on
Christ at their baptisms, we join them in renewing our efforts to resist the
temptations of the Evil One and to live the faith we profess by making new
efforts to love God and neighbor. As
they come forward for the first time to be fed by the Body and Blood of Christ,
they remind us of the Sacrament we can take for granted. They remind us that we need to come to Mass
on a regular basis, not because of some arbitrary law, but because we need to
be nourished as branches on that true vine.
When most members of the Christian
community were afraid of Paul of Tarsus, Barnabas stepped forward and vouched
for him. Barnabas (his name means “Son
of Encouragement”) was able to see the surprising ways in which God works in
the conversion of his strong headed friend.
He encouraged the earliest believers to trust Paul and to protect him
from those who wanted to do him harm.
Boys and girls, you are “Barnabas” to us. Your uncomplicated faith and obvious joy on
this day encourage us as we renew our Baptismal Promises with you. You remind us that Christ wants to remain in
us. You remind us that the indwelling of
God in our lives will continue to give us that incredible gift of peace. With that gift of peace, we can take another
look at the conflicts and difficulties which we face in our daily lives, and
even at the ways in which we fail to keep the commandments. That peace remains, even when God uses these
difficulties to prune us and help us to produce more fruit.
No comments:
Post a Comment