Seventh Sunday of Easter (B) Acts 1:15-26
As we near the end of our journey through the Easter season this year, our first reading calls our attention to a moment very early in the Easter journey of the early Church. Earlier in this chapter, Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit. After Jesus’ Ascension, those first followers of Jesus – the Apostles, Mary, some of Jesus’ relatives, and other disciples – are gathered specifically to wait and pray in anticipation of the fulfillment of this promise. We are told of only one other thing they actually did before this first Pentecost of the Church. It is here, in our first reading.
Peter addresses this first Church and speaks about a situation that needs to be addressed. They have been called by Jesus to bear witness to all he said and did. However, Jesus had named twelve of them to be Apostles – and Judas had betrayed Jesus and then “went his own way”. To be faithful to Jesus’ intentions, they needed to find a replacement for Judas. Jesus himself had named the Twelve. However, the Apostles and the others knew that Jesus had promised them that his Spirit would be with them always. So, they nominated two candidates, prayed, and cast lots, believing that the Holy Spirit would make clear through all this who the choice should be. Matthias was chosen.
What is most interesting is the criteria that Peter lists for who could be a replacement for Judas. It needed to be someone who had been with them from the baptism of Jesus by John, and who was a witness to his resurrection. Later on, Paul – though he was not with Jesus and the disciples during Jesus’ ministry in Galilee and Judea – would see the risen Jesus, and then would see himself as being named an apostle because of this.
But what would happen once everyone who had been with Jesus during his human life among us had died? Could anyone fulfill the role of apostle then, even if they were not called apostles? Paul himself would say yes. That role would still be based on being a witness to the resurrection. Not that anyone had seen Jesus literally rise from the dead, nor that they needed to have a vision of the risen Jesus as Paul did. No, what was needed was that the person live out the dying of Jesus so that the rising of Jesus would also be manifest in and through that person. By turning over one’s life to the Risen Lord, a Christian will experience, in a real way, the death and resurrection of Christ.
In this sense, we, who never walked with Jesus in Galilee and who never saw an appearance of him risen from the dead, can nevertheless be witnesses to his resurrection. His life is poured into our hearts. Our response is to, day by day, let go of our old way of seeing things, and of the desire to have my life be about me, and to be remodeled by the Lord. Bad habits will need to go – or, at least, be radically changed. But this will only make more room in our lives for the power and grace of the Lord’s resurrection to fill us and live in us.
What might all of this look like? What does it mean to become a witness to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus?
Our readings for this Sunday offer us a few helpful criteria. A few words on each may prove helpful.
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- We witness through love. “God is love”, John tells us in the second reading, “and whoever remains in love remains in God, and God in him”. First of all, we need to be careful as to what we mean by love, as we use the word ‘love’ in so many ways. Here, we mean the love shown by Jesus, who emptied himself for us. We mean the love that seeks the good of the other – and isn’t concerned with what we might get out if it. It is the example of Jesus himself that defines what love we are talking about. Each one of us may live out that example in different ways – because we all begin from different places in life – but we are all moving toward the same goal – emptying of our concern for self alone so that the love and joy of Christ may dwell in us.
- We witness through unity. In our Gospel reading, Jesus prays to the Father that all his followers may be one, just as Jesus and the Father (and the Spirit) are one. We also need to be careful about what we mean by “unity”. After all, every kind of government humanity has ever known has sought some kind of unity among the people it ruled. Our unity as Christians is, once again, based on Jesus. We are one in him. We all acknowledge his Lordship. We all listen to his words, in Scripture and in the Church. We all follow his example, empowered by the Spirit. Jesus, and Jesus alone, is at our center and binds us together into one Body in him. This is a great challenge to us living in contemporary America, where we find ourselves seriously splintered politically, as well as in many other ways. Catholics find themselves just as splintered as everyone else. However, this is one area where we, as Catholics, can bear witness to the unity that binds us, which is deeper and stronger than what divides us. This unity does not mean that we all do everything in exactly the same way. It does mean that, in everything, the ultimate standard is Christ. How might this play out in a pluralistic society like our own? Here, Catholic politicians, whether they skew “red” or “blue”, are in a great position to witness to this unity – if they recall a basic distinction. We can have legitimate disagreements among ourselves (and others) over what the best ways might be, given our society, to implement Catholic teachings – be they the pro-life, pro-family, pro-environment, concern for the poor and disabled, or any other. However, as Catholics (politicians or others), we are not free to disagree about the teachings themselves. That would be like saying that we want to play baseball, but then wanting to ignore strikes or to tackle the guy with the ball. Then, whatever we are doing, we aren’t playing baseball. However, there are many ways to play the game, even within the rules. Just so, as Catholics, we are called to agree on the teachings of the Church, as they define what being Catholic is all about. But, within that world, there is plenty of room for legitimate disagreement, and serious dialogue, over how we can best promote these teachings in a pluralistic and largely secular society.
- We witness through example. This is strongly implied by the first two criteria I have given, but it deserves some consideration of its own. We humans are wired to be social beings. We learn a great deal from example. We imitate what we see others do: be they parents, friends, our favorite celebrities, or anyone who seems to model some virtue or quality we admire. “Imitation”, it is said, “is the highest form of flattery”. We imitate others; so, too, others imitate us. When we see someone living out the implications of their faith even (and especially) in difficult circumstances, we admire such commitment and seek to imitate it. This is why the example of the saints has been so important in the Church. So, too, people will imitate us. If we live lives of Christian integrity, we help others to do so. If we do not practice what we preach, we discourage others and make it easier for them to do the same. In the Gospel reading, Jesus says to his Father that he consecrates himself for his disciples, “so that they also may be consecrated in truth”. This is only another way of saying that Jesus commits himself to be the example for his disciples, so that they might also be faithful to the Father and be examples for one another.
- We are “in the world, but not of the world”. I touched on this point in my discussion on unity, but it also deserves a few words on its own. The use of the word “world” by John’s Gospel can seem confusing to modern readers. At times, Jesus announces that he has come to save the world. At other times, Jesus seems to reject the world. It’s important to know that John often assigns ‘double meanings’ to words in his Gospel. Accordingly, “world” has two meanings for John – and we can tell which one John intends only by the context. Sometimes, John uses “world” to mean the world in general – everything we know, our universe, so to speak. In this first sense, Jesus has come to save the world. At other times, John uses “world” to mean any construct of life, any way of living, any theory or belief that rejects Jesus as the One who fully reveals who God is. In this second sense, Jesus can tell his disciples to not be “of the world”. Jesus comes to us as the Word of God, the One closest to the Father’s heart, the One who reveals the Father and then sends the Paraclete. Saying yes to this means saying no to other approaches that deny Jesus. Although we cannot follow the “world” in the second sense, we still love the “world” in the first sense. In fact, our witnessing to Jesus and his Church is the greatest gift of love we can offer to anyone who may still be “of the world” in that second sense.
In all these ways – and more – we bear witness to the Resurrection of the Lord. The Resurrection changed how those first disciples saw everything; it does the same for us. All the pleasures and all the threats that this world (in our second sense) can throw at us are as nothing compared to what is offered to us in Christ. If this is so, then we do not seek to edit Christ in order to fit more comfortably into the assumptions of our favored group or our society at any given time. It is the other way around. We are called to offer others another way – perhaps the way they have been seeking all along – and to show, by our desire to be people of integrity, that it is both possible and desirable to live such a life. Even more importantly, our living such a life opens the door of our hearts, as we wait in joyful hope for the Lord to fulfill his promise to us and send us his own Spirit, again and again. Once we have tasted this Spirit – even once – nothing looks the same from then on. Nothing else can take the Spirit’s place. No threat will cause us to compromise our commitment to the Lord. We belong to the Lord. That is enough – and more than enough!