Easter Sunday

IT CHANGED EVERYTHING

Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Colossians 3:1-4 or 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8;  John 20:1-9

Readings for Easter Sunday

Origins: The Journey of Humankind showcases the major discoveries and events that have changed us. Each episode in the eight-part series features one factor that transformed human civilization: fire, medicine, money, communication, war, shelter, exploration, and transportation. The first episode Spark of Civilization avers that the discovery of fire led to countless more milestones. The ability to harness and control fire gave humans the power to create, transform, and destroy; transformed us from nomadic tribes to a species which can undertake space voyages. It changed everything.

The series does not feature one important event: Jesus’ Resurrection! The Resurrection changed everything!

If Jesus had stayed dead, nobody would have given his crucifixion any significance. There were several revolutionaries who ended up on Roman crosses; Jesus would have been yet another failed revolutionary. Jesus’ crucifixion has significance because he is risen. 

Further, all that was obscure about his life, teaching, works, identity became clear. Jesus told his disciples: “You do not understand now but later you will understand.” That “later” is after the Resurrection.

The Resurrection marks the launch of God’s kingdom on earth: he has defeated the powers of evil and oppression; an oppressed people are free to live a new life. 

It changes the physical world: death no longer has the last word. Since Christ has been raised, we can tell those looking into the casket of their loved ones that this is not the end of the story.

It changes the moral world: a wandering preacher, labelled a heretic and criminal, is the one through whom God speaks to us and through whom God makes all things new. 

It changed the disciples’ understanding of Jesus: they will affirm him as Lord and God. 

It changed their attitude and behaviour: timid and afraid earlier, they became bold and full of joy. In the words of Paul in the Second Reading, they became “a fresh batch of dough”: a small group of frightened people will multiply such that one out of every three people on the planet identify themselves as Christian. 

The Resurrection changed everything. Has it changed me, my life, my ethics, my perspective? If not, why not?

Palm Sunday

THAT’S NO WAY TO END UP

Mark 11:1-10

Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; Mark 14:1—15:47

Readings for Palm Sunday

Addressing a college audience, Gordon Liddy (a former FBI agent and White House staff) emphasized that only force, ruthless use of violence, and an iron will could earn the respect of friends and foes in this “real world”.

One of the faculty rose timidly and stammered: “But… in our country, most people… base their ethics on… the teachings of Jesus… and this-doesn’t-sound-like-the-teachings-of-Jesus.” 

Liddy glared a moment, took in a breath, and bellowed: “Yeah! And look what happened to Jesus!” He flailed his arms outward as if on the cross and said: “They crucified him.”

The audience was stunned. Briefly. Then there was a thunderous applause! Liddy had stated what they believed. He said: “Failure, persecution and pain, instead of success, appreciation and a good retirement—that’s no way to end up” (cf. A.J. Conyers, The Eclipse of Heaven).

The crowds in Jerusalem two millennia ago applauded Jesus and greeted him with palm branches because they expected a conquering hero. However, since Jesus’ power was not the power the world understands, since the Messiah was not a military hero but a suffering servant, their cheers quickly turned to jeers. 

Paul is clear in the Letter to the Philippians: though Jesus was the Son of God, he did not cling to his privileges but humbled himself and became obedient unto a shameful death on a cross. Abused and abandoned, he did not rebel, he did not use force but was the suffering servant. It was this crucified and broken Jesus who “truly… was the Son of God”, a fact the Roman centurion recognized and affirmed. Wasn’t the Roman a foe?!

Failure, persecution, and pain—that’s the way Jesus chose; that’s the force of God… which has won the respect, love, and faith of millions of people through the ages.

Which way will I choose: the way of Gordon Liddy—success, appreciation, and a good retirement, or the way of Jesus—the way of obedient suffering?

V Sunday of Lent

WORK FROM THE INSIDE

Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12:20-33

Readings for the V Sunday of Lent

A little boy asked: “Why is it that when I open a marigold it dies, but if God does it, it’s so beautiful?” Before anyone could respond, he said: “I know! It’s because God always works from the inside.” 

The little boy was wise to God’s way of working! Whether it’s with nature or with people, God works from the inside as today’s readings indicate.

In the first reading, God announces the new covenant he intends making with his people. The earlier covenants had external elements: the sign of the covenant with Noah was a rainbow; the covenant of Sinai was inscribed on tablets. In this new covenant, God will put his “law within them and write it upon their hearts”. All will then “know” him. This “knowing” is not an external keeping of laws; it’s an inner relationship with God.

The Lord assures the Jews in Babylon, uprooted and in exile: “I will be their God and they shall be my people.” God is not restricted to their home territory or to an external structure; God is with them wherever they go. 

In the gospel, Jesus uses the analogy of the death of grain to produce fruit to emphasize that – beyond an inner relationship – the covenant involves a dying to oneself and a rising to eternal life. God always works from the inside!

Growing in relationship with God and becoming persons God calls us to become, begins with a dying to our immaturity, to our doubts and fears, to our prejudices, to our self-centred wants, to our plans and our will. 

This inner work takes time and patience. So often, like the little boy, we force growth, we force change in behaviour in ourselves and in others. Like his marigold, we die. But this dying is not like the dying of the grain! It does not produce fruit; it produces frustration. We need to work from the inside with patience. We need to allow God to work from the inside. 

Will I allow God to write his law upon my heart? Will I – like Jesus – fall into the ground and die to myself so that I can produce fruits of the kingdom? Am I willing to let the divine gardener nurture me with his never-ending love?

Let me allow God to work from the inside and “create a clean heart in me.”

IV Sunday of Lent

THE GREATEST GIFT

2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23; Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21

Readings for the IV Sunday of Lent

A man saw his five-year-old tearing expensive wrapping-paper and sticking it on an old box. He yelled at her for wasting paper.

The next morning, she gave him that box and said: “This is for you, Daddy.” The father was embarrassed by his earlier reaction.

He opened the box, found it empty, and yelled again: “Don’t you know, when you give someone a present there’s supposed to be something inside the package?” The little girl’s eyes became little pools. She said: “Daddy, there is something inside. I blew kisses into it; I filled it with my love.” 

The father was crushed. He hugged his little girl, and he asked her to forgive him for his anger. He kept that love-filled box by his bed for the rest of his life. Often, he’d open the box, take out an imaginary kiss, and remember the love of the child who had put it there. 

In a very real sense, God our parent has given each of us a gift-box filled with the greatest gift of his unconditional love. 

The First Reading tells us that God manifested his love through his patient faithfulness towards his unfaithful people. He persistently sent his messengers to them and consistently went after them because he loved them.

The Second Reading and the Gospel remind us that God shows his love in the ultimate gift: the sending of his only Son. 

The text from John reads: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  This is the core of the Gospel: God took the initiative to love us; he sent his Son… for one reason: he loved us. It tells us of the width of God’s love: he loved the world. Not just the “chosen people”, not only those who loved him.

The greatest gift of all is for you and me. All you and I must do is to accept the gift.

Do I accept the gift of God’s love? Do I believe that God loves me so much that he sent his son to be my redeemer? How do I respond to his love?

When someone gives a gift, it is not polite to ask: “How much did it cost?”  In this case, the Bible tells us how much God’s gift cost. It cost God his only Son.

III Sunday of Lent

A LITTLE SLICE OF HEAVEN ON EARTH

Exodus 20:1-17 ; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25

Readings for the III Sunday of Lent

In Culture Shift, Wayne Cordeiro tells of a parishioner who worked six days a week and volunteered to be a receptionist at church on her day off. 

He asked her: “Why do you come here and do this?” She replied: “Being here is like a breath of fresh air.”

He asked: “Don’t you want to take a day off?” She said: “This is a day off. This is a little slice of heaven on earth.”

Cordeiro reflects: “She feels valued. This is the kind of love we want to show… which comes from learning to recognize evidence of God’s presence.”

The Ten Commandments were meant to put God’s people into a covenantal relationship with him and into a right relationship with one another… so that they became a sign of God’s presence and all experienced a “little slice of heaven on earth”. 

Gradually, these became 613 dos and don’ts which focused on externals and became a burden!

The Jerusalem temple was meant to be a sign of God’s presence, another “little slice of heaven”. 

At Jesus’ time, it had become “a marketplace”: moneychangers and animal sellers extorted pilgrims in the name of religion. Further, the “marketplace” was in the Court of the Gentiles, the only place where a Gentile could pray; but the noise from the animals and people precluded any prayer.

In cleansing the temple, Jesus wished to restore it as a sign of God’s presence. In his confrontation with the Jews, he indicated another sign (and reality) of God’s presence: his body!

We are God’s people and the Body of Christ.

Am I a sign of God’s presence? Do people experience a “little slice of heaven on earth” and “a breath of fresh air” around me?

What do I need to cleanse in myself to become a true “temple”?