Easter III, Year B

Acts 4:5-12
1 John 1:1-2:2
Luke 24:36b-48

“Ye are witnesses of these things.”

+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

A few nights ago, I got home about eight o’clock and found a note by the front door that my wife and friend were out picking up dinner - a typical gourmet evening. A few minutes later I heard them come in, and probably because I had not moved the note, one of them said, “Oh, he’s not back yet.” That was my cue. I quietly got up from the couch, tip-toed around the corner toward the foyer, and then pounced with a great, “Hahaa!” They screamed and jumped about three feet in the air. Our infant was wholly unflustered. His sense of normalcy is not as developed as ours; to him, everything must be new, strange, and scary. Why be surprised that your father is acting like he’s five?

I think S. Luke is a master of understatement. He wrote: “Jesus stood among his disciples, but they were startled and frightened.” No kidding they were startled and frightened! Out of nowhere some guy suddenly appears, and what’s worse the disciples didn’t recognize him. He frightened them out of their wits. The disciples are not only terrified. When their spasms of fright end, they are incredulous; they do not believe that it is Jesus, even after Jesus has shown them, and had them handle, his hands and feet. One of the common features of our Lord’s resurrection appearances is that his disciples, his best friends, initially failed to recognize him. Of course, that’s true of us as well, that we rarely recognize our Lord’s presence with us in our lives, but we would think that his disciples would be more aware than we are, especially because they saw him and handled his body, because they had physical contact with the risen Lord.

It took the disciples a while to come to apprehend the resurrection and to know the joy of the resurrection. They came to faith not only through physical contact with the risen Jesus, something that we’ll never have, but through reflecting on scripture, that is through reflecting on how God had worked in history, how God had showed his love for Israel through the ages. Luke tells us that Jesus “opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus had told his disciples that he would rise again, but the disciples didn’t get it. They finally began to get it after the fact, when Jesus had risen from the dead. Jesus was opening their minds, and we need that too. Christianity, when it is being true to itself, expands our hearts and minds, broadens our sympathy and understanding. It does not leave us where we are, simply reinforcing our views and prejudices; it challenges us, always. God wants us to grow, to see things in new, bigger ways, to open our minds. Christianity enhances our humanity, makes life richer and fuller.

For most, if not all, of us, belief in the resurrection, belief in God, will not come simply from reading and reflecting upon scripture. Belief, faith, requires an act of will on our part, a decision to believe. If it was hard for the disciples to believe, and they saw Jesus and touched him, we ought not be surprised that our natural instinct is not believe any of this.

This morning instead of giving a positive argument for the resurrection, I’m approaching it from another point of view: what else is there? If the Resurrection, if Christianity, is not true, then what else is there? Where do we commit and direct our lives? What has meaning in life? The novelist Walker Percy once gave himself an imaginary interview.

Q. [Do you believe in the dogma of the catholic church?]
A. Yes.

Q. How is such a belief possible in this day and age?
A. What else is there?

Q. What do you mean, what else is there? There is humanism, atheism,
agnosticism, Marxism, behaviorism, materialism, Buddhism, Muhammadanism,
Sufism, astrology, occultism, theosophy.
A. That’s what I mean.

Q. To say nothing of Judaism and Protestantism.
A. Well, I would include them along with the Catholic Church in the whole peculiar Jewish-Christian thing.

Q. I don’t understand. Would you exclude, for example, scientific
humanism as a rational and honorable alternative?

A. Yes.

Q. Why?
A. It’s not good enough.

Q. Why not?
A. A life is much too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then to be asked what you make of it and to have to answer “Scientific humanism.” That won’t do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight, i.e., God. In fact I demand it. I refuse to settle for anything less. I don’t see why anyone should settle for less than Jacob, who actually grabbed aholt of God and wouldn’t let go until God
identified himself and blessed him.

If someone doesn’t believe that God loves us and gave Jesus to us, what do they believe? Is there a better explanation of life? A better way to live? I’ve yet to find a better answer than Christianity. I still ask myself that question, even if my livelihood may prejudice my
answer. I think that if we decide that we want to believe in Christianity, that is a decision that we need to question always, not only when we convert and first commit ourselves to following Christ, but also as we try to become more faithful to him. It is a way to renew our faith. We continually test our faith not only by asking ourselves, “Is it true?”, but also by asking ourselves, “Does Christian faith improve my humanity, strengthen my character, provide me meaning, give me more joy, deepen my gratitude? Does it give me more empathy and compassionfor others? Does it help me to love my neighbor, to give of myself, tolive in optimism and good humour?”

I agree that those qualities are not always evident in Christians. Hardly! Walker Percy once asked, “Why is it the case that [Christians] are repellent precisely to the degree that they embrace and advertise that truth? One might even become a Christian if there were few if any Christians around.” Most Christians ought to be able to admit that he has a point, but if we have to be wholly sincere and earnest, and it is occasionally appropriate to be that, then we know that such glibness and animosity doesn’t take us very far.

Jacob came to know God because he literally threw himself at God; he reached out, committed himself to knowing God. We get to know God better the more we are willing to commit ourselves to him. “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Luke 11:9) In my experience, the more we commit, the more we risk, the more we find, the more we know of God’s mercy, the more we
know God’s love for us. It’s terrifying to try to know the living God; it can change everything; it can re-order life. But we will grow in faith; we will have a better sense of ourselves, a more positive sense of ourselves; we will know that we have a future and that death does not stand in the way.

One of the ways we deepen our commitment to Christ, one of the ways our faith grows is letting other people know about it, that there is another dimension of our lives that is important to us and that sustains us. Most of us who are parishioners here have found something of God here, some meaning in life, some sustenance for enjoying and enriching life. We are grateful for this gift, and we express our gratitude by talking about it, encouraging searchers and unbelievers to think that there’s more to life than what meets the eye. This is what Jesus calls witnessing to resurrection and forgiveness. Think about that first brought you to this parish. Not all of you, but most of you are here because someone told you about us. We have to talk about our faith. We don’t try to impose it, but we don’t hide it. Our Lord asks us to bear witness to him. Let’s not be terrified to speak about him.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.