\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just what is our salvation all about, have you ever really thought about that?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For the Jews in ancient time, who eagerly awaited their Messiah, salvation meant restoration of the glory days of Israel, the days of King David and King Solomon.\u00a0 They were looking for a worldly Messiah.\u00a0 Jesus didn’t fit that bill at all.\u00a0 In fact, Jesus suffered one of the most humiliating and desecrating deaths that a Jew could suffer- death by hanging on a tree.\u00a0 Jewish scriptures could easily be cited that implied a person who suffered such a death could not be from God.\u00a0 And so, most of the Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah- and with righteous conviction, they rejected Jesus based on their own scriptures.\u00a0 So, what is so amazing is that Christianity established any roots at all in such a difficult environment- a Jewish people whose scriptures and culture rejected Jesus as an outcast living in a secular Roman state whose only recognized God was Caesar and multiple mythical imperfect gods.\u00a0 There simply must have been something to Christianity, there must have been something that really happened, something that was so significant that it transformed those who became exposed to Jesus with such tremendous conviction that they were willing to endure anything for their Faith.\u00a0 I believe that the Easter event, which we continue to celebrate this week and for several more weeks, is it- that is, it is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
And just what is so special about Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ; and just what was so transforming about his message and the Easter event? \u00a0\u00a0I think it was a realization of something very, very profound.\u00a0 It was a glimpse of the certainty of something, the certainty of something that otherwise seemed so unreal, unintuitive, and even impossible- \u00a0the fulfillment of the Covenant promising salvation and everlasting life.\u00a0 Yes, everlasting life was proven a certainty by the Resurrection!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now the Jews of Jesus time were split on the resurrection and after life. \u00a0Some, like the Pharisees, believed in an after life; others- the Sadducees, did not.\u00a0 These competing groups would argue about it; but they didn’t know what it was like.\u00a0 They hadn’t experienced a resurrected person.\u00a0 All they could do was speculate.\u00a0 But that all changed on the first Easter Sunday and for 40 or so days afterward because hundreds of people, people like you and I, actually saw the resurrected Jesus.\u00a0 And that was a transforming event because it did two things.\u00a0 First, it opened their eyes to the fact that this was the real promise to the Jews of a Messiah and Salvation all along.\u00a0 That is why Peter quotes King David this morning- Peter proves that David’s words in scripture are not about an earthly salvation and the restoration of an earthly kingdom, but rather, they are about a new life in the everlasting Kingdom of God.\u00a0 Peter openly argues that the words of David simply cannot be about restoration of David’s Kingdom, as the Jews had always interpreted them.\u00a0 Why- because the earthly Messiah, like all other human beings, will suffer corruption?\u00a0 The Holy One, the True Messiah, according to David, will not suffer corruption.\u00a0 Jesus resurrected body validated the incorruptible after life.\u00a0 And this eye opening realization would revolutionize the way the other Old Testament Scriptures were read as well.\u00a0 That is a major point in today’s Gospel- we hear how Jesus personally interpreted all the scriptures in the Jewish Old Testament that talked about himself as the Messiah.\u00a0 Indeed, this realization of the fulfillment of the Covenant was a cause of great joy, because it made the entire tradition of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and David and Solomon instantly relevant. \u00a0Not only that, Jesus resurrection meant that the covenant had just been fulfilled in their own times- they were seeing it.\u00a0 It was real, and it felt real.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But that wasn’t all.\u00a0 In addition, Jesus was the living proof of the reality of everlasting life.\u00a0 Jesus proved he was alive; that he was not a ghost; and that he could eat and drink.\u00a0 Despite his mortal wounds and entombment for 3 days, he was very much alive and in a transformed, incorruptible state.\u00a0 There were hundreds of witnesses to all of that.\u00a0 But more than that, Jesus promised repeatedly in his resurrection appearances that those who repented of their old way of life, believed in Him, and followed His teaching, would share in the everlasting life that He, Jesus, was living.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, these two realities, the fulfillment of the Old Testament Covenant and the Living Resurrected Christ, made the Resurrection the transforming event it was to those who saw and heard it at the time.\u00a0 They were forever changed, because they believed; they were convinced; it was so real to them; that no matter what would happen to them in this world, they were guaranteed, through Faith, everlasting life.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Gospels and New Testament Scriptures record all of this for our benefit, and our Church, through the Church Calendar each year, commemorates and relives this wonderful Easter event. \u00a0\u00a0We who are living some 2000 years later are privileged to the same promise.\u00a0 It should be just as transforming for us.\u00a0 But is it?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now one of the things that people often discuss these days is the afterlife.\u00a0 Does it exist, and if so, what is it like.\u00a0 People share “God incidents” in which they may have experienced the presence of God when they are in the Adoration Chapel, or dreams or visions of their relatives who are deceased; or little things that happen that are signs in answer to prayers of intercession; and some folks have near death experiences, and have lived to tell about wonderful glimpses of an afterlife.\u00a0 Other folks haven’t experienced any of that, and some people might even be skeptical of those who do.\u00a0 It’s like most of us want to believe in the Resurrection and the promise of life after death, but deep down, we still long for proof.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But actually, we don’t really need any of these experiences or any new proof to convince us of our salvation.\u00a0 We have the Easter story- and that is why we spend 40 days each year celebrating Easter.\u00a0 It comes down to a very simple thing in the end.\u00a0 Recall the end of today’s Gospel story on Thomas.\u00a0 Jesus tells Thomas:\u00a0 “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed”.\u00a0 Yes, blessed are we who just believe even though we have not seen.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 3rd Sunday of Easter Acts 2: 14, 22-33; 1 Peter 1: 17-21; Lk 24: 13-35 Dc. Larry Brockman Just what is our salvation all about, have you ever really thought about that?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For the Jews in ancient time, who eagerly awaited their Messiah, salvation meant restoration of the glory days of Israel, the days […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[41,39,40],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172"}],"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=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}