Living the Christian Story: The Third Sunday of Easter
In all of our readings for this coming Sunday — Peter’s speech in Jerusalem, the passage from John’s First Letter, and Jesus’s appearance to the two disciples and the eleven— we encounter a sort of “handing over” — a traditio.
First, Peter proclaims the Good News of the Risen Jesus to those gathered around them after the healing of a crippled beggar. And how does he do this? By placing the story of Jesus firmly within history— who raises Jesus but “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” Peter proclaims that “God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets.” All these things have been handed down to the Apostles and to the community of Israel, and now Peter hands them on once more. Second, the author of John’s Letter urges the reader to remember the commandments of God that we have been handed, to keep them so that God’s love may be perfected in us.And third, we have two intertwined accounts of “handing over” in our Gospel reading from Luke. The two disciples who have seen the Risen Jesus on the road return to the Apostles and hand on their experience, so that the Eleven can share in their joy. But then Jesus again appears in their midst, recalling his teaching on the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms. Jesus opens their minds to see the message they have been given.
In all of these encounters with Scripture, we are reminded that our lived faith stems itself from encounter — an experience of the Risen Christ. The Scriptures themselves are the stories of encounter, in various genres — poetry and prose, Gospel and letter, history and prophecy. If we are members of the Church, it is because we have come to know Christ, whether we can point to a definitive experience or a lifetime of call or to nothing particular at all. Some experience, some encounter, has drawn us to follow Jesus. By accepting this call to follow, grounded in experience, we, like the Apostles, ground ourselves in history, His Story, the saving action of God in time. We take are brought into relationship with the God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. This story is shared with other followers of Christ, across all borders, races, and cultures — we are united by this encounter with Christ. Our faith is never held alone, but with the Communion of Saints, throughout and beyond all time.
On the topic of time, history is not simply time past, but this moment and those yet to come. We are not Christians only because of the past action of God, but also because of the future promises of God. Christian faith is not simply about holding on to the past and what has happened, though that is a large part of it, but is also about making the past present, while looking forward to the future. We do this when we celebrate the Mass, which makes the historical sacrifice of Christ present at the altar — anamnesis is the word for that. The pre-2011 Memorial Acclamation “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again” also makes this clear: we look back to Christ’s death, we proclaim his resurrection in the present, and we look forward in hope to his Second Coming. Especially this time of year, having just finished Lent and in the middle of the Easter season, with the Ascension and Pentecost coming up shortly, this is a special time to reflect on the nature of the Christian story and the Easter message of Jesus risen.
Our responsibility in accepting this story — past, present, and future — is to allow this story to become an ever greater part of who we are, to always be reminded of our encounter with Christ and to continually seek this encounter. We ourselves are to become living witnesses to the truth of the Christian story, to learn to see as God sees and to love as God loves. God’s story works through us, the Church, as we are gathered together by God so as to bring others to God. We are to know the Scriptures, written accounts of encounter with God. We are to know God in prayer, by which we are called to be transformed anew. As the experience of God has been handed on to us, so also must we hand on the experience of God to others, proclaiming as do Peter, John, and the two disciples the Good News of the Risen Christ.
