Third Sunday of Easter

Third Sunday of Easter

(Summary:

Repentance for the forgiveness of sins
The connection with the resurrection in particular
God’s extravagant love: getting the order right
The resurrection appearances as illustrations of where Christ is to be found also in our lives
Everything happens in such a way as is only to be expected in the circumstances – still being thought out)

1. Repentance for the forgiveness of sins

Readings today are very rich and varied, but there is something they all have in common, namely a concern with repentance and forgiveness of sins (quote here from each)

This can seem so little, such a small deliverance from such great events, but this is so only if we have a cut-down version of what these things might mean.

Repentance = meta-noia, change of mind and heart, and has been part of what Jesus has been about from the beginning, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand, because God is doing a new deed, because God is throwing a party, to which we are all invited. And now this new deed has been done. As one of my sources has it, “Repentance is the fundamental change of outlook that happens when one discovers the extravagant love of God.” It is much much more than saying sorry for or apologizing for or giving up sin. The extravagant love of God manifested in the words and deeds and human face of Christ during his ministry, or in his suffering, death and rising from the dead and his gift of the Holy Spirit. And it is this to which we witness and the witness to which in word and deed and in our human face and human lives which make for what we call repentance and forgiveness of sins among ourselves and among the nations.

Christ came on earth to save sinners, so that sins might be forgiven, and sends us out as witnesses to this. But he also spent a lot of time curing diseases and casting out demons, sometimes even for the same person, like with the paralytic who was dropped down through the roof, both to forgive his sins and to cure the paralysis. For a deeper understanding, for me it helps to put the two elements of Jesus’ ministry together: forgiveness of sins = deep healing, from the inside out.

I think we can start off with the position that we ask God to have compassion on us, or more accurately stand inside the mercy and compassion of God because of our sins rather than in spite of them. It is something bad, awful, like disease, the difference being that we are complicit in our demise as well as in that of other people as well as doing harm to other people. So we are not just miserable, we are responsible, we are guilty. We have been co-opted, or have co-opted ourselves, in our own demise. But this does not make it less bad, this complicity of ours and of our world, it makes the harm and damage worse. It penetrates more deeply, it touches into who we are, mind body spirit. It requires healing, indeed, a greater and deeper healing, and so we pray, “Lord, heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.” And God in Christ comes to do just that, it is something God comes to do for us, not us doing something for God. Something which Christ very much wants to do for us, indeed something for which he shed his blood, something for which he died and rose from the dead precisely in order to do. The over-riding attitude of God in the Scriptures and of Christ to sinners is tenderness and compassion, and it is compassion for us in our sin rather than in spite of us, like with the prodigal son. Because of where it leaves us and what it makes us: Christ goes to seek us out because we are lost. And to provide healing from the inside out, as well as from the outside in, and as deep as might be needed. And this is all a consequence of God’s extravagant love in Christ Jesus.

Finally, and this is something else we really need to take away from all three readings: as all three readings make clear, this theme is expressed in the whole of our witness, in preaching and in the mass and in all our sacraments and in all our ministries, not just in baptism and confession.

The Mass in fact does it a powerful and indeed obvious manner, from the ‘I confess’ onwards, Lord have mercy, Lamb of God you take away the sins of the world have mercy on us, hear our prayer. This is my body, given up for you, the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which shall be shed for you and for all, so that sins may be forgiven, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, Look not on our sins but on our faith and the faith of your church, our communal faith – seeing their faith, the Gospel about the paralytic says. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, this is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed, or only say the word and my soul shall be healed. It’s all there, part of our preaching and practice by entrance into which repentance is achieved and our sins are wiped out.

The extravagant love of God thus uses whatever works, whatever it takes, to provide this deep healing to us, healing to the depths, so that we can take full advantage of this New Deed, the ministry and suffering and death of Christ and his rising from the dead and sending of the Holy Spirit, so as to participate fully in the Banquet that he comes to put on.

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2. The connection with the Resurrection

Christ is the sacrifice that takes away our sins, and not only ours but the whole world’s. This is presumably by his saving death, his death on the cross, body broken blood shed. Where, then, does the Resurrection fit into the picture?
I think that while the death might be the sacrifice that takes our sins away, the resurrection is the proclamation that our sins have been taken away, that all our sins have been forgiven. All that remains after this is the implementation in our particular case.
There is something of this in that early preaching of Peter and the others, as recorded in Acts week after week during Easter time. You killed him, but don’t worry, it’s all right, God raised him up.
There is also something of this in the Resurrection appearances themselves. Jesus comes into a room full of people who have deserted him, denied him, forsaken him, all run away. What does he say? Peace be with you! And again, Peace be with you. Do not be afraid! It is I. See my hands and feet. Everything is all right.

3. Getting the order right: God’s extravagant love comes first.

Thirdly, I think it is important to get the order right, and this is where the second reading from the epistle of John is a great help.
It is not as if we keep the commandments and therefore God loves us, or we repent, and therefore God forgives us.
No, God’s extravagant love comes first, our sins are already taken away, Christ is risen, Jesus is the sacrifice that takes our sins away. The first consequence of this is repentance, and after that the progressive transformation of life that keeping the commandments involves, which is God’s love coming to perfection within us.
“Anyone who says I know God and does not keep the commandments is a liar.” This is even stronger than, “anyone who says, I love God but does not love the brothers and sisters is a liar”, though it is along similar lines, in so far as Jesus’ key commandment is to love one another as I have love you. (‘Know” here I’m pretty sure is as is usual in the Scriptures is not just knowing about but a strong sense of knowing by acquaintance, something like having been intimate with.) What it says, then, is something like, you can’t claim to have been intimate with God if this is not expressing itself, for example, in our love for one another. Though it may be a work in progress – that’s made clear enough early on in the reading – if it’s not happening, then the intimacy hasn’t occurred, it can’t have occurred, and we are lying when we say it has.

4. The resurrection appearances as illustrations of where Christ is to be found also in our lives

The reports we have of Jesus’ appearances in the days after his resurrection are more than just the way Jesus appeared or manifested himself or became physically present to certain people a few thousand years ago. They are also written in such a way as to illustrate where Jesus is to be found by us also, how Jesus comes to be present also to us.
This is particularly the case with the Emmaus story, today’s reading which comes immediately after and also the appearance in John’s gospel on the shores of the lake of Galilee. All three include eating, the breaking of the bread, the grilled fish, the bread and barbequed fish on the sea shore. In two out of three, Jesus is initially unrecognized. Today’s and Emmaus also have Jesus explaining to his disciples how the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms apply to himself and get to be fulfilled in his life and ministry and death and resurrection. He greets us and takes away our troubles and our fears, our hearts warm within us as he explains the scriptures to us, and we recognize him in the breaking of the bread. And then he sends us out to be his witnesses. Though we also find him in the stranger, in our hospitality to the stranger. And in our love for one another, in our washing each other’s feet, both the expression of intimacy with God in Christ having occurred and place where Christ also is present to us. From Christ coming to us with the greeting of peace, Christ present with us in the Word warming our hearts and in the Eucharist nourishing us to his presence in each other, in our neighbour, in the stranger, the widow and the orphan and in the events of our everyday life.

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