What an amazing transformation! The Apostles, who had been \u201chuddled in the\nupper room for fear of the Jews\u201d, were transformed by Jesus\u2019 resurrection\nappearance and his gift of the Holy Spirit to them. They would stand in the portico of the temple\nin full sight of the authorities who they had previously feared, and preach\nChrist crucified and resurrected. That\u2019s\nwhat we have been hearing day by day in this Easter season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This morning, our reading tells us that the court officers\nmade them stand before the Sanhedrin, where they were reminded that they were\ngiven strict orders not to preach \u201cin that name\u201d. And Peter boldly tells the Sanhedrin that: \u201cWe\nmust obey God rather than men.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, Jesus appears to the Apostles and tells them to be at\npeace; and he means internal peace, not peace in a secular or worldly sense. Certainly Peter and the Apostles do not appear\nto be at peace in a worldly sense in this morning\u2019s reading. Here they are, hauled in front of the\nauthorities they feared previously, and we are told that the authorities wanted\nto kill them. That\u2019s not the kind of\npeace the world gives. But they were at\npeace in their hearts because they had found their calling; they had found\ntheir hearts; they were at peace with God. \nThey were responding to the call to go out and preach the Gospel to all\nnations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What do you suppose the message is for us? Does this story just give us a glimpse of the\nauthenticity of the Christian story? Is\nthat all we take away from it, and then go on with our daily lives? Or is there a much more profound personal\nmessage? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there is the Gospel today. It is taken from the very beginning of St.\nJohn\u2019s Gospel, Chapter 3. Jesus is\nexplaining his role. He has come from\nheaven, from above, \u201cto testify to what He has seen and heard\u201d from God the\nFather. He boldly claims that He has\nbeen sent from the Father and \u201cspeaks the words of God\u201d. And he tells everyone that \u201cWhoever believes\nin the son has eternal life\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His next sentence is very interesting because he says\n\u201cwhoever disobeys the son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains in\nhim.\u201d That means that our belief is\nproven by our obedience. We are required\nto be obedient to God\u2019s call to us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus post-Resurrection message to the Apostles was meant to\nbe a message to all of us, not just the Apostles. We are called to believe and to go forth and\ntestify to the truth. That\u2019s what the\nEaster season is all about. We are not\njust called to hear the story. We are\ncalled to believe the story, embrace the peace of God that protects us from\nfear of the secular world; and boldly spread the message of the Gospel to all\nnations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We can do that within the context of our daily lives from\nwhere we are planted by God. Each of us\nwas given life in the here and now- in this age, some 2000 years after the\nevents of the Gospel. But our mission is\nthe same as that of the first Christians. \nWe are called to be fearless witnesses of everything we have heard about\nour Christian Faith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We don\u2019t have to drop everything and dedicate every waking\nhour to preaching Christ. Rather, we\njust have to preach Christ by our daily lives in the way we treat others we\ncome in contact with; in the way we raise our families; in the example we show\nour children and coworkers; in the way we stand up to the evils of the secular\nworld. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, it is Jesus hope that each year in the Easter season each\nof us will experience an amazing transition just like the Apostles did. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of the Second Week of Easter Acts 5: 27-33; Jn 3:31-36 Deacon Larry Brockman What an amazing transformation! The Apostles, who had been \u201chuddled in the upper room for fear of the Jews\u201d, were transformed by Jesus\u2019 resurrection appearance and his gift of the Holy Spirit to them. They would stand in the portico […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[581,14],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1139,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138\/revisions\/1139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}