April 14, 2024 at Saint Peter and Saint William Churches in Naples, FL
Acts of the Apostles 3: 13-5, 17-19 + Psalm 4 + 1 John 2: 1-5 + Luke 24: 35-48
The risen Christ is among us here gathered in his name and proclaiming the Word of God in this assembly This gives voice to that presence. He asks us a question, not just those disciples in the past. He also gives us a command just as he did those other disciples.
“Why are you troubled? Why do questions arise in your hearts?” he asks us. At the time for those disciples it may have seemed like a very silly question. Why in the world would they not be troubled and filled with questions when the very person who had lifted their hopes, shown them great signs and wonders, had been brutally killed and buried was now suddenly in their midst? They were not imagining this. He was real. The scars of his torture and death were visible. He ate with them. They are not imagining things.
Christ stood there among them facing those who abandoned him, and I believe he stood there with a smile on his face and his arms outstretched. His wounds were on full display making it perfectly clear that no evil, no suffering, no disaster can overpower the goodness of God. It took them a long time to understand that. They were slow, and so are we. Too many are still troubled, and asking the wrong question. We hear it all the time: “Why doesn’t God do something?” This Gospel rephrases the question: “Why don’t you do something?”
When they finally got it right through the help of the Holy Spirit, those disciples did do something, and we are here as a people of hope, faith, and charity because they did do something.
Then comes a command to take on a new vision of life, to believe and act with the sure knowledge that love is the only lasting power, that love disturbs the violent more than any great weapon. When we really believe that the only way to peace is loving forgiveness, there will be peace. If we could get that right there would never be another violent act of revenge like we see today in Gaza or the Ukraine.
It was out of ignorance that Jesus Christ was put to death. He said so himself at the time: “They know not what they do” asking for their forgiveness. We are not ignorant. We do know what we are doing, and what we fail to do. During these fifty days leading to our Pentecost we would do well and pass these days profitably with the hope and the prayer that we will finally understand and believe in the depths of our hearts what the cross reveals: that the violence, oppression, and hatred will fail every time an innocent person stands up in the face of it. Moving through life, we can either cling to a dismal and hopeless view of life and complain because God does not fix things; or, like the disciples, we can allow ourselves to be confused enough for the Holy Spirit to open our minds to understand new ways.