The Third Sunday of Easter- April 15, 2018
First Reading: Acts 3:13-15, 17-19
Psalm: Psalm 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9. (7a)
Second Reading: 1 John 2:1-5a
Alleluia: cf Luke 24:32
Gospel: Luke 24:35-48
Today’s readings are about God’s constant desire for us to turn to Him and enter into or resume a relationship of forgiveness, restoration, love and trust with Him. A relationship in which He will hear and answer when we call and do wonders in our lives, grant us faith, understanding and courage and put gladness in our hearts as we carry out the mission of being His witnesses of His Gospel to the world in which we live. And it is Jesus who has made all of this possible through His death and resurrection which we are currently celebrating in this Easter season. That is good news indeed which is true even in the midst of fear, pain, suffering, persecution and loss if we keep our eyes on Him. This wondrous offer is always open to believer and unbeliever alike as we shall see in today’s readings.
The context for the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles is that Pentecost has come filling the new Church with bold and joyous power, prayer, proclamation and living. Peter and John have gone up to the temple at the hour of prayer and encountered a lame beggar at the Beautiful Gate. Peter looked at the beggar who asked him for alms. Peter responded that he had neither silver or gold but that he would give him what he had, Jesus. And so Peter took his hand and commanded him to rise and walk in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And the beggar was able to stand, walk and leap, praising God. The beggar was well known by all the temple goers being a daily sight as they entered the temple. His healing caused a great commotion as the people in the temple were filled with wonder and amazement at seeing him healed. And all the people ran together around Peter, John and the beggar in Solomon’s Portico. When Peter saw the crowd he assured them that it wasn’t the power or piety of Peter and John that healed the beggar but rather it was Jesus, His name and the faith provided through Jesus that had made the beggar strong and well.
And so Peter begins to address the crowd in the first reading, to carry out his mission as a witness on which Jesus sends him in today’s Gospel reading.
As you can see, Peter immediately confronted the crowd with their responsibility for handing over Jesus to Pilate to be crucified in spite of Pilate’s assessment that Jesus was innocent of any wrongdoing and demanding the release of a murderer instead. They had denied that Jesus was who He said He was.
Then Peter softened the blow by acknowledging that they and their leaders had acted in ignorance and that the whole incident was part of God’s plan foretold by all the prophets that his Christ would suffer.
And then Peter made them the offer. Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.
It is important to note that this exchange is just the beginning of a salvation history lesson that lasts for the rest of chapter 3 and is interrupted by the arrest of Peter and John in chapter 4 by the temple captain and the Sadducees.
The responsorial Psalm provides additional context for what we see happening in Acts, God providing relief in distress doing wonders for his faithful ones, shining His face upon us, putting gladness in our heart and granting us peaceful sleep because in His presence we may dwell secure, even if we don’t feel His presence, even if our circumstances are anything but secure.
In the second reading from the first epistle of John, John declares the purpose of his epistle is so that they may avoid the pitfalls of sin. And then he reassures his readers that forgiveness and removal of sin are still available in and through Jesus for everyone. The offer Peter made in Acts is still good for believers who have fallen into sin and unbelievers who are still outside the Faith alike.
Then he gives his readers a litmus test so they can make sure they know Jesus. Are you ready? We can know we know Jesus if we keep His commandments. If we don’t keep His commandments but we say we know Him, we are liars and the truth is not in us. Simple? It seems so. But we almost invariably start thinking about the fact that we keep committing sins and we start getting alarmed that maybe we are kidding ourselves and we really don’t know Jesus. And then we start trying really hard to stop sinning so we can prove to ourselves and the world that we really do know Jesus.
And then we read the last verse. But whoever keeps His word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. So then we add trying to love God really hard to our to-do list showing up at the adoration chapel, adding extra prayers. And of course, we can’t keep it up and so eventually we get discouraged and we start to slide into sloth and indifference, going through the motions or not.
Does this chain of events sound familiar to anyone?
Yeah, well, the first thing we may have forgotten is that confessing our sins is one of His commandments. So by continually confessing our sins on a regular basis we are keeping His commandments and we will begin to experience healing. In fact, in the same epistle John says that if we say that we have no sin, present tense, the truth is not in us. Jesus already knows that we are going to fail in our trust in Him. He knows what it is like to live in this world because He has already been here, done that, remember?
The second thing we may have forgotten is that John also says in his epistle that we love because God first loved us. So we have to begin to know and experience God’s love for us before we can grow in our ability to love Him and others. How do we do this? By hanging out with God in prayer and spiritual reading, being still and knowing that He is God. Did you know that you can pray while doing stuff? So being still doesn’t always mean inactive, although some inactivity time before God is important. Then we begin to live life out of this knowing and guess what? His commandments and word start to take root in us and become precious to us and we start keeping them more and more out of our relationship with Him as His love flows in and through us. He becomes our true love.
In the Alleluia, we ask for Jesus to help us to learn His word and adore Him.
And in the Gospel, we see Jesus doing just that with His disciples.
Amen
