“Thus, it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations beginning in Jerusalem.” Jesus was calling upon his Apostles to be true disciples spreading his Good News of love and forgiveness. He was calling them to be preachers as he is now calling all of us to preach the Good News to all.
I have heard some say, “I am not a preacher. I cannot preach to anyone.” They might think that they cannot preach so they think they are off the hook!! Are you off the hook? After all, we have our priests like Father Rick, deacons like myself and Deacon Clark.; we have nuns, monks, friars, missionaries, those in religious life, lay apostolates, ministers of all kinds to be the disciples of Christ preaching the Good News. But you see, we are missing the most important preachers of our Church and that is you! Yes, you and you and you and you.
So, as you can see, you are not off the hook!! Christ depends on all of us to be his disciples, to be the body of Christ, which I might add, has responsibilities with it, to be his disciples preaching his Good News of the Fathers love and forgiveness. But how do we do this?
First, we must understand discipleship- every genuine call to follow Jesus originated with God and not our human choice. Yes, we chose to answer, but the call is his. The would-be disciples were challenged to be converted and transformed by the person of Jesus.
One important point to conversion is an awareness of one’s need of forgiveness. God’s call requires a total commitment that would willingly renounce anything that leads away from our Lord and a firm dedication toward the integration of our faith into our manner of living. If we truly believe, we truly live a life in Jesus. What a way of preaching!!
Any call to discipleship results in a sense of mission and ministry only after we seek forgiveness for our sins. Before we can be the disciples and preachers Jesus expects us to be, we must have that conversion of heart and soul. All three readings today make reference to sin and the need for forgiveness and conversion.
Our immediate reaction may well be to think that those are themes for Lent. Why stress them in the midst of the Easter season? But can we understand what has been achieved in the Lord’s Pascal mystery without taking into account the reality of sin?
It is the abuse of human freedom, our free will that has made the destructive world-from which we need to be saved and set free. The words of Peter in the first reading suggest a line of thought which has relevance for the world in which we live.
Our discussion of “sin” usually stresses what is done with full and willful responsibility. We sin. However, Peter points to another form of sin when he acknowledges that the perpetrators of the terrible miscarriage of justice that killed “the Prince of Peace” did not fully understand what they were doing. What did Jesus say while hanging from the cross, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they are doing.”
In today’s world of confused moral values, we tend not to say much. Who is to judge the moral guilt of many things that are done? But if what is done is a turning from light to darkness, from what leads to life to what leads to death, it is sinful in the sense that it is an aberration, a leading away from the right course – that has destructive consequences from which only God can save us. That is why we have the sacrament of reconciliation (Confession).
Our mission, as those who have found resurrection faith and the hope it brings, is to bring liberation from sinfulness in all its forms, by sharing the light and life of the risen Lord with our struggling world. Jesus is our liberator, our conquerer over sin and death.
We live with many guilt’s. The wisdom is to know how to banish these guilt’s. We need to know and understand that what comes from God is peaceful and joyful. That is why the first words in that upper room from Jesus in this last account with the Apostles in Luke’s gospel is, “Peace be with you.”
Just as Jesus rose from the dead and conquered sin and death, he now wants us to open our hearts and souls to receive God’s forgiveness so that being transformed we become what God wants us to be-a loving people who live our lives praising him through A LIFE in Jesus Christ.
I believe that the message in our first reading from Acts is that we are not just called to repent and receive and to respond. We are called to proclaim the truth and the reality and the presence of our Lord, Jesus.
We are called, all of us, to proclaim the Lord as the Apostles did.
Through our baptism and confirmation we are called to proclaim the salvation that our Lord Jesus has won for us and for all people throughout the world. This means giving witness to the presence and action of Jesus in our lives. Preaching by living our faith.
My sisters and brothers, these three readings today stress repentance. We must be born again, and again, and again; not in the physical form of course, but in the spiritual form. Conversion to the Lord is an on-going process or journey.
We renewed our baptismal vows at Easter. But the root of sin remains all around us. That root is the devil who is always eager to lead us astray again, and again, and again. The letter from 1 John in our second reading reminds us “if anyone should sin we have our advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ.” He is the sacrifice that takes our sins away.
Regular confession is a grace-filled necessary means of maintaining union with the Lord. The only way we will not be able to be the preachers of His Word, even by how we live our lives, is if we are in the state of sin. Well, we know how to remedy that.
Let our acts of love and works of charity make us the preachers in today’s world, spreading the Good News of the risen Jesus so that we can show those who have doubts that Jesus is alive in this world and in this Eucharist. Let us spread the Good News of God’s love and forgiveness by how we live our lives. As St. Francis said: “Preach the gospel always and if necessary, use words.”
“Thus, it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached to all nations beginning in Jerusalem.” This is our Jerusalem. How convincing are we? Are we not His Preachers?