Glimpse, Week 3: Third Sunday of Easter - April 19, 2015
This is the third week of our Easter message series, Glimpse, in which we are trying to open ourselves to the possibility of believing in the Resurrection, and believing that the Resurrection is good news for each one of us. We’ve talked about how important it is for each of us to have personal experiences of encounter with the Risen Christ--such encounters are key to coming to believe in the Resurrection and to seeing why it matters. This is all a process, and we’re all at different points in the process. It’s not only OK that we’re all at different stages of the journey, it’s good--this diversity makes us a stronger community.
We’ve started to think about some of the roadblocks that can keep us from recognizing those moments of encounter with Christ. One roadblock is thinking that I can’t believe in the Resurrection because I can’t prove that it happened. Another roadblock might be not believing that such an encounter with Christ is even possible for me. Or maybe it’s assuming that I already know all that I need to know about Jesus--by reading about him and knowing his teachings and even trying to live them--so that I’m not looking to develop a personal relationship with him.
But if some of those things have kept us from recognizing Christ in the past, he does not give up on us. He keeps coming back to meet us where we are and to break through those barriers. The readings for today give us an opportunity to reflect on the ways we may not have been able to see or recognize Christ in the past--we might have failed to notice or be interested. We reflect on these times we have failed to recognize Christ not to dwell in negativity or in the past, but so that we can be brought out of those experiences into new possibilities.
Today’s readings invite us to consider the possibility that we encounter the Risen Christ specifically through experiences of reconciliation and healing. We want and long for things like healing, renewal, rebirth, new life, and peace. But if we don’t long for repentance and forgiveness in the same way, it could be because we don’t associate these things with healing and new life. A real relationship with God involves asking for and accepting God’s forgiveness, compassion, and understanding, leading to inner peace. We are not able to be perfect. God understands this better than we do and wants to stay in relationship with us anyway. What if we consider the possibility that we come to know Christ specifically through reconciliation, through healing? Repenting and being forgiven for our sins can be some of the most concrete experiences of new life and of resurrection that we can have.
Guilt can be a really terrible, dark experience. Think about what it feels like to know you have hurt someone you love, that you have failed them, that you have let them down. Guilt can feel crushing and hopeless--like death, like the tomb. If you have ever been forgiven by someone, think about the sense of healing that can come with it. Like you’ve been given a fresh start, a new chance. It’s a little bit like resurrection. In our lifetime, we may not rise from the dead, but we do rise from some pretty dark places. God wants us to be free from all our sin and guilt--not just one particular instance or another. He wants us to be set free from guilt and be free to live with joy again.
In the first reading, Peter is making a big speech in the streets of Jerusalem, and he accuses his hearers of a really serious sin--putting to death “the author of life.” It’s not just that they failed to recognize Christ: Peter says they denied Christ and handed him over to be killed. He talks about how they did this out of ignorance--they did not know that Jesus was the Savior and Messiah. But Peter also says that none of that matters now, for God calls all to repent and be converted, so that sins are wiped away and forgotten. Peter has amazing confidence in God’s mercy and the healing power of God’s forgiveness: he has no doubt that even this sin--of handing Jesus over to be killed--will be forgiven, even wiped away and forgotten, if they repent.
The people Peter was talking to hadn’t recognized Christ before, but his invitation to repent isn’t just a formal step they have to take so they can be admitted to the club. Peter is trying to get them to believe in Jesus--he’s preaching to them--and he’s telling them what life in Christ is like. He’s trying to get them to recognize Christ through the experience of forgiveness, something he had experienced himself. Peter is doing for them what God does for us--helping them come to understand that encountering Jesus, coming to know him, will always bring us joy. The people listening need help, just like Peter needed help at one point. He knows what he’s talking about because he had gone through that experience of guilt (and coming to know forgiveness).
God is there to help us, and God wants so much for us to understand that we are forgiven and loved. Knowing that we have sinned and been forgiven are experiences of sharing in Jesus’s risen life. But learning to see that takes an element of trust. It’s not just a matter of identifying and reflecting on our experiences of forgiveness, but believing that such experiences are genuine encounters with the Risen Christ--not just good things that happen to us.
In the Gospel, the disciples already knew that Christ was Risen--the scene opens with them recalling how they had known the Risen Christ in the breaking of the bread. In both last week’s Gospel and this week’s, Christ greets his disciples with the phrase, “Peace be with you”--a greeting of comfort and support and forgiveness. The Risen Lord wants to shower all his people with peace. But when he appears to them, they are startled and terrified and think they’re seeing a ghost.
Even though the disciples know in theory that it was possible to encounter the Risen Lord, they fail to see that that is what is happening in that moment. They fail to recognize him, and he has to convince them that it’s really him. One question for us to ask ourselves today is whether we have been in a similar place--whether Christ has come to us, offering us peace and forgiveness--and we have mistaken the source of the gift, failed to recognize that it was the Risen Christ extending us that peace. Have we seen the effects of the Resurrection, but not been able to believe that the Risen Christ was really there with us?
Forgiveness is an experience of new life, whether it is God’s forgiveness of us, or the forgiveness that we offer to another, and all experiences of new life are experiences of the Risen Christ. This makes me think back to a time during my married life. It was a Friday, and my wife and I had both arrived home tired and cranky from a long work week. Neither of us wanted to make dinner, or talk about what to have for dinner, or even to be very nice to each other in the process. I decided to be a really great guy and throw a can of soup into a pan on the stove. And then I decided to go walk the dog. In the course of our walk, my neighbor called me over and said I had to come into his house to try some of his brand new batch of home brewed beer, which he said was terrific. We stood in his kitchen looking out at the front yard where our two dogs were playing, chatting about this great beer recipe that had yielded his best brew yet and sampling the evidence.
It was a much more pleasant experience than it had been at home, and I didn’t think about the time. Until, that is, when I saw my wife’s car heading down the block. I ran out to catch her and found her furious at me. She told me the soup had burnt on the stove and ruined the pan and that she had been convinced that I must be dead out on the street. I reacted very defensively, not admitting to doing anything wrong and wanting to blame her. It was not our finest hour as a couple! Eventually, of course, we worked through it, by my admission that I had been inattentive and inconsiderate, and by her willingness to forgive me.
But the thing that was so remarkable was that after that experience, our relationship hadn’t simply been restored to what it was before the incident. Through our experience of reconciliation and forgiveness, our relationship had actually gotten stronger and deeper. This experience pointed us to the reality that as good as our human intimacy and relationship could be, there was something more than just the two of us in the experience of loving each other. The new and deeper life that we experienced was truly an experience of the risen Christ, offering us the gift of something more than we could achieve on our own.
Until we are able to forgive, our hurt can rule our life. Past hurts can be like a prison that determines our decisions and actions in the present. Our forgiveness of others might not erase our hurt, but it frees us from being buried by it. Forgiving others who have hurt us means we are no longer controlled by what they did to us, a control that could lead to resentment and hatred.
The peace that comes from forgiving and being forgiven--by God and by others--is how we come to know the Risen Lord. Often it’s hard to extend forgiveness or receive it because of some hardening or resistance in our hearts. But we know that Christ is trying to help us to do this. A next step each of us can take this week is to reflect on the times in your life when you have been able to forgive someone who has hurt you, and the experiences in your life when you have failed, rejected, or hurt others, and yet they have continued to love and accept you. Can you allow Christ to help you take a step toward healing? What step is Christ inviting you to take?
We’ve started to think about some of the roadblocks that can keep us from recognizing those moments of encounter with Christ. One roadblock is thinking that I can’t believe in the Resurrection because I can’t prove that it happened. Another roadblock might be not believing that such an encounter with Christ is even possible for me. Or maybe it’s assuming that I already know all that I need to know about Jesus--by reading about him and knowing his teachings and even trying to live them--so that I’m not looking to develop a personal relationship with him.
But if some of those things have kept us from recognizing Christ in the past, he does not give up on us. He keeps coming back to meet us where we are and to break through those barriers. The readings for today give us an opportunity to reflect on the ways we may not have been able to see or recognize Christ in the past--we might have failed to notice or be interested. We reflect on these times we have failed to recognize Christ not to dwell in negativity or in the past, but so that we can be brought out of those experiences into new possibilities.
Today’s readings invite us to consider the possibility that we encounter the Risen Christ specifically through experiences of reconciliation and healing. We want and long for things like healing, renewal, rebirth, new life, and peace. But if we don’t long for repentance and forgiveness in the same way, it could be because we don’t associate these things with healing and new life. A real relationship with God involves asking for and accepting God’s forgiveness, compassion, and understanding, leading to inner peace. We are not able to be perfect. God understands this better than we do and wants to stay in relationship with us anyway. What if we consider the possibility that we come to know Christ specifically through reconciliation, through healing? Repenting and being forgiven for our sins can be some of the most concrete experiences of new life and of resurrection that we can have.
Guilt can be a really terrible, dark experience. Think about what it feels like to know you have hurt someone you love, that you have failed them, that you have let them down. Guilt can feel crushing and hopeless--like death, like the tomb. If you have ever been forgiven by someone, think about the sense of healing that can come with it. Like you’ve been given a fresh start, a new chance. It’s a little bit like resurrection. In our lifetime, we may not rise from the dead, but we do rise from some pretty dark places. God wants us to be free from all our sin and guilt--not just one particular instance or another. He wants us to be set free from guilt and be free to live with joy again.
In the first reading, Peter is making a big speech in the streets of Jerusalem, and he accuses his hearers of a really serious sin--putting to death “the author of life.” It’s not just that they failed to recognize Christ: Peter says they denied Christ and handed him over to be killed. He talks about how they did this out of ignorance--they did not know that Jesus was the Savior and Messiah. But Peter also says that none of that matters now, for God calls all to repent and be converted, so that sins are wiped away and forgotten. Peter has amazing confidence in God’s mercy and the healing power of God’s forgiveness: he has no doubt that even this sin--of handing Jesus over to be killed--will be forgiven, even wiped away and forgotten, if they repent.
The people Peter was talking to hadn’t recognized Christ before, but his invitation to repent isn’t just a formal step they have to take so they can be admitted to the club. Peter is trying to get them to believe in Jesus--he’s preaching to them--and he’s telling them what life in Christ is like. He’s trying to get them to recognize Christ through the experience of forgiveness, something he had experienced himself. Peter is doing for them what God does for us--helping them come to understand that encountering Jesus, coming to know him, will always bring us joy. The people listening need help, just like Peter needed help at one point. He knows what he’s talking about because he had gone through that experience of guilt (and coming to know forgiveness).
God is there to help us, and God wants so much for us to understand that we are forgiven and loved. Knowing that we have sinned and been forgiven are experiences of sharing in Jesus’s risen life. But learning to see that takes an element of trust. It’s not just a matter of identifying and reflecting on our experiences of forgiveness, but believing that such experiences are genuine encounters with the Risen Christ--not just good things that happen to us.
In the Gospel, the disciples already knew that Christ was Risen--the scene opens with them recalling how they had known the Risen Christ in the breaking of the bread. In both last week’s Gospel and this week’s, Christ greets his disciples with the phrase, “Peace be with you”--a greeting of comfort and support and forgiveness. The Risen Lord wants to shower all his people with peace. But when he appears to them, they are startled and terrified and think they’re seeing a ghost.
Even though the disciples know in theory that it was possible to encounter the Risen Lord, they fail to see that that is what is happening in that moment. They fail to recognize him, and he has to convince them that it’s really him. One question for us to ask ourselves today is whether we have been in a similar place--whether Christ has come to us, offering us peace and forgiveness--and we have mistaken the source of the gift, failed to recognize that it was the Risen Christ extending us that peace. Have we seen the effects of the Resurrection, but not been able to believe that the Risen Christ was really there with us?
Forgiveness is an experience of new life, whether it is God’s forgiveness of us, or the forgiveness that we offer to another, and all experiences of new life are experiences of the Risen Christ. This makes me think back to a time during my married life. It was a Friday, and my wife and I had both arrived home tired and cranky from a long work week. Neither of us wanted to make dinner, or talk about what to have for dinner, or even to be very nice to each other in the process. I decided to be a really great guy and throw a can of soup into a pan on the stove. And then I decided to go walk the dog. In the course of our walk, my neighbor called me over and said I had to come into his house to try some of his brand new batch of home brewed beer, which he said was terrific. We stood in his kitchen looking out at the front yard where our two dogs were playing, chatting about this great beer recipe that had yielded his best brew yet and sampling the evidence.
It was a much more pleasant experience than it had been at home, and I didn’t think about the time. Until, that is, when I saw my wife’s car heading down the block. I ran out to catch her and found her furious at me. She told me the soup had burnt on the stove and ruined the pan and that she had been convinced that I must be dead out on the street. I reacted very defensively, not admitting to doing anything wrong and wanting to blame her. It was not our finest hour as a couple! Eventually, of course, we worked through it, by my admission that I had been inattentive and inconsiderate, and by her willingness to forgive me.
But the thing that was so remarkable was that after that experience, our relationship hadn’t simply been restored to what it was before the incident. Through our experience of reconciliation and forgiveness, our relationship had actually gotten stronger and deeper. This experience pointed us to the reality that as good as our human intimacy and relationship could be, there was something more than just the two of us in the experience of loving each other. The new and deeper life that we experienced was truly an experience of the risen Christ, offering us the gift of something more than we could achieve on our own.
Until we are able to forgive, our hurt can rule our life. Past hurts can be like a prison that determines our decisions and actions in the present. Our forgiveness of others might not erase our hurt, but it frees us from being buried by it. Forgiving others who have hurt us means we are no longer controlled by what they did to us, a control that could lead to resentment and hatred.
The peace that comes from forgiving and being forgiven--by God and by others--is how we come to know the Risen Lord. Often it’s hard to extend forgiveness or receive it because of some hardening or resistance in our hearts. But we know that Christ is trying to help us to do this. A next step each of us can take this week is to reflect on the times in your life when you have been able to forgive someone who has hurt you, and the experiences in your life when you have failed, rejected, or hurt others, and yet they have continued to love and accept you. Can you allow Christ to help you take a step toward healing? What step is Christ inviting you to take?
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