Sunday of Divine Mercy, Year B
Theme: Where Comes Our Peace? 何來平安？
The first reading today seems nostalgic and distant. In context, the apostles had undergone the first round of persecutions from the Jewish authority which failed to nip this new Jesus Movement at the bud. Contrary to their intention, the persecution reinforced the conviction of believers who affirmed that they had to be on the right. Otherwise, they would not be attacked by the corrupted establishment! “The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common” (Acts 4:32). This would have turned into a dangerous doomsday mentality, had they not been further persecuted and dispersed. Historically, communism among Christians was confined to the early Church in Jerusalem only and vanished for good when they were dispersed after the death of the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen during the second wave of persecutions. Only the apostles remained in Jerusalem (8:1b). This communism was possible because early Christians expected the ascended Lord to return soon. It was no longer necessary to accumulate wealth for future uses. Therefore, the best way to spend their money was to share it among believers. This practice was both attractive and charitable. Many poor people, in particular widows, joined the expanding Christian community and sharing wealth in common became helping the poor and the needy. Did the early Christians in Jerusalem worry about the sustainability of this practice? No. They were putting Jesus’ teaching into practice. They believed that they were doing God’s will and therefore God would provide (Genesis 22:8).
In reality, the community of believers were not exempted from malicious attacks both from within and from without. Luke was candid and did not portray a rosy picture of the early Church, reporting only good things and evading bad ones. No, he reported the scandal of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 and the neglect of Greek-speaking widows in Act 6. Let’s be realistic. With the incarnation of the Son of God, the Kingdom of Heaven broke into this sins-infested world. The mission of the Church is to reinforce the foothold and extend the reign of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. This mission is a continual struggle until the Kingdom comes into her full actualization at the end of the world. Had Luke painted a perfect society, Christians of latter generations would have had a hard time following it. His candid portrayal gives us encouragement as well as an ideal to pursue. Therefore, Christians cannot afford to be complacent. It is true that Easter is joyful because of the promise of a new life in Christ. Furthermore, the early Church has shown us that Christian communism was possible. What does this message or ideal mean for us in today’s world? Shall we dismiss it as being unrealistic in today’s world? If not, how should we proceed?
I think that it is unrealistic. There were in record 5000 Christians (Acts 4:4) and “Yet more than ever, believers in the Lord, great numbers of men and women, were added to them” (5:14). Luke began to lose count of the population of Christians in Jerusalem. Starting in Acts 6, there arose a new class of ecclesiastics, namely the deacons to take care of the Greek-speaking community. It was similar to the development of the 12 tribes of Israel. When 600,000 Israelites left Egypt, the tribe of Levites were singled out to serve the Lord. This class did not produce. The support of their livelihood was shared among the remaining eleven tribes which took over different regions of Canaan, the Promised Land and grew independently from each other. Even after King David managed to unite the 12 tribes into one kingdom, they did not pool their resources together into one. Therefore, Christian communism is viable only for small communities under, say 10,000 people. Modern communism is capable of putting a population of more than 1.4 billion under control only because it is totalitarian. However, the threat of civil war always remains.
The apostles had given up their families, their jobs and their peers to follow Jesus for three years. In other words, they had totally forsaken their previous life to start a new way of life which promised them a kingdom of some sorts! At the zenith of their movement, they managed to attract more than 5000 men and many women were following too. After Jesus had entered Jerusalem triumphantly a few days before the feast of Passover, things turned sour rapidly and on the day before Sabbath, Jesus was crucified, died and was buried. The movement He had started looked certain to fail. People expected the Jewish authority to round up the apostles after Passover! They looked like caged birds waiting for the butcher. Fear for life infused their hearts. Some disciples had already started leaving Jerusalem before the Temple guards arrived. As for the apostles, they were totally lost because they had severed all their relationships three years before! To whom could they turn to or where else could they go? Peace of heart was in short supply! Thus when Jesus greeted them peace, what a relief for the apostles! Jesus, who had been the centre of their life for three years, had returned. The apostles were no longer lost anymore. They would follow their master wherever He went! Their master had defeated death as well as the murderous attempts of life from the Jewish authority. Their fears literally vaporised. In short, they were able to continue their previous relationship with Jesus.
However, Jesus did not stop there. He gave the apostles Holy Spirit and told them to forgive sins (20:23). Notice that the apostles had abandoned, had betrayed and had denied Him. In short, they were grave sinners. Besides fear and a sense of loss, all the apostles were carrying a heavy guilty conscience even though Jesus was merciful and did not count their failures. They would never forgive themselves and their failures.
Why then did Jesus give them the faculty to forgive sins? The apostles themselves needed forgiveness badly. By giving them the faculty to forgive sins, Jesus opens up for them an opportunity to forgive themselves. Do you remember the Lord’s Prayer? It says, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). By not forgiving, the handle to control over our debtors remains in our hands. By forgiving, we grant them freedom! Now Jesus returns the ball to our court. By forgiving others, we learn to forgive ourselves. After sufficient practices, we will be more capable of accepting God’s forgiveness!
Beloved brethren! When a guilty conscience, fear and a sense of being lost vaporize, our peace is total. Let us sing praises to the divine mercy of the Lord to restore peace in our hearts and to be able to celebrate genuine freedom with each other. Amen.
God bless!
2021 Reflection
Picture Credit: corpuschristiphx.org
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