Second Sunday of Easter A: April 16, 2023

When this gospel from John opens up, the disciples are terrified. Apparently they have gone back to the upper room where they had eaten the last supper with Jesus and locked themselves in. Why? Because Jesus had just been put through the mockery of a trial by the Jewish authorities, tortured, and put to death the most horrible way they could imagine: he was crucified. So they were terrified that the authorities would come after them as well. Imagine yourself in their position. You have been told by a woman disciple that she has seen Jesus and that he has arisen. But wouldn’t that sound like wishful thinking? They wanted to believe it, but it was too good to be true. None of the other disciples had seen him. Any moment a knock would come on the door and life would be over. Fear ruled their lives.

And now Jesus appears in their midst and seems to come out of nowhere. Can you imagine the relief and joy that they felt. If they did not recognize Jesus in any other way, they did by the wounds in his hands, feet, and side. It was really Jesus, a resurrected, changed Jesus, and Mary Magdalene had been right. Jesus was not just revived, but he had begun a new existence. But just seeing Jesus and being sure that he had arisen, would not have been enough to get them to leave the upper room. It is important to realize what else happened in that upper room.

Jesus had greeted them with “Peace be with you,” an ordinary Jewish greeting. He then showed them his wounds and they were convince that this indeed was the Jesus they knew, and were beside themselves with Joy. But what happened was not just a reunion. Jesus went further. He said, “Peace with you,” again, but went on, “As the Father has sent me, I send you.” Jesus had forgiven their slowness to understand who he was, and to bring them fully into his life. “Peace be with you” and “I send you.”

What did this do to the disciples? It empowered them; they did not have to remain a group of scared people hiding in an upstairs room. Now they had a purpose. They whole of their years of discipleship had been for this moment. All that they had not understood, or understood only dimly, came into the light. They now knew that, though Jesus was not the Messiah they had originally thought, He was a Messiah that had risen from the dead. Now they understood his message and were prepared to take his message of the Father’s Kingdom to all peoples. This Messiah was a messiah for everyone on earth, not just the Jews. He was a messiah that wanted justice and fairness to be experience by all, not just a few with money. They saw and felt the kind of love that Jesus had been trying to give to them, even to the point of dying. And, in this dying and rising, Jesus had freed humankind from sin and death. Death now had no sting, because now death, for the believer, was only a beginning of a new and transformed life with God that would last forever.

And, they had not only understanding, now they had a mission to spread this Good News to all people. They had a purpose which would allow them to leave that room and go out to witness and to preach. Today, we who believe through faith, and not because we have seen his wounds, are given the same mission: to go out, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, and live the good news, not just preach it. Pope John Paul II said, “True holiness does not mean flight from the world; rather, it lies in the effort to incarnate the Gospel of life, in the family, at school, and at work, and in social and political involvement.” John Paul II is a person who did just that when he forgave and gave comfort to the man who tried to kill him. Let’s put his words into practice just as he did; but not his words only, but words of Christ the Lord. It is not an easy task; today showing the values of Jesus may not be popular; they may seem to go against our culture. But nonetheless, Jesus did tell us, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

I recently read a story that caught my attention; it deals with ordinary people. It’s an example what can happen if we truly embrace the resurrection and what it means. It is the story of Oshea Israel and Mary Johnson. Oshea had shot and killed Mary’s son – a boy Oshea didn’t even know. There was no way Oshea could pay Mary back for what he had taken from her. And Mary owed him nothing. It’s not an easy story. As Mary said, “I hated everyone for a while.” But over time Mary came to forgive Oshea. She visited him in prison. She helped him when he was released. In the process they both changed. Mary gave Oshea the one gift he needed to begin his healing: total forgiveness. Mercy doesn’t undercut justice but surprises it! It is the anchor that supports forgiveness and compassion. Mercy is the force that reawakens us to new life and instills in us the courage to look to the future with hope. We might think of mercy as the grace for conversion. It also drives us out of ourselves to spread the Good News.

We are called to surprise people with mercy and forgiveness. Peter was surprised by being forgiven by Jesus’ forgiveness of his betrayal. Thomas was implicitly surprised at Jesus forgiveness of his disbelief. This surprised forgiveness fills us with Jesus himself, and enables us to bring his hope, his forgiveness and his life to reality in our world. After Jesus’ death and before he appeared to them, the disciples were just a frightened group of people huddled in a locked room. Afterward they were larger than life. This same largeness is ours as well. Our forgiveness can be given to heal much smaller happenings in life; this too makes resurrection present and real.