Easter II

Easter II  (John 20:19-31)

“These are written so you may believe…”

Christian faith is substance and evidence.

The substance of faith is Jesus. The supporting evidence is the eye witness accounts of the people who knew Jesus personally.

Our Heavenly Father never asks any one to accept faith as a blind leap into the dark. Neither does he ask us to abandon reason, common sense or fact in order to embrace belief.

Along with Moses and the prophets, the Apostles wrote about what they observed and what they experienced. St. Peter writes: we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power of Jesus Christ.

John, the beloved of the co-eternal beloved writes: these things have been written so you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah. So that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God. So that you may receive a new life and a new way of living in Him.

The truth of these eye witness accounts is sealed in blood. The truth is sealed by the blood of Jesus on the cross. The truth is sealed in the blood of the apostles who died in the truth of their testimony.

The truth of Jesus was not and cannot be sealed by the blood of skeptics, cynics or those who reject the Good News. Jesus never authorized his followers to kill for him. He did say that from time to time they (we) might have to die for him.

The seed of the Church is the blood of her martyrs, not her critics or enemies.

The Apostles proclaimed to their generation what they observed and experienced. They told the story they lived. They told people on three continents that Jesus died on the cross and rose again. They proclaimed the amazing Good News that God is real, God is love, God is personal, God is Jesus Christ. In that proclamation they offered everyone they met, everyone without exception- the gift of divine love in Jesus Christ.

Some received the gift. Others ignored it. Others rejected it. And, some became so angry at the message of the Good News that they killed the apostles to silence them. They did not want Jesus to be true. They did not want people to hear about him or to believe in him.

Absent of fact, the enemies of the Church circulated false information about the church. Some said the Christians were atheists. Others said Christians were subversives. One bizarre accusation was that Christians were cannibals.

They never challenged the historicity of Jesus Christ. They even largely accepted the eye witness accounts of his miracles. Instead, they told people Jesus was an evil magician. They said he was a deceiver, a blasphemer and a traitor to the Empire. And, they rejected the resurrection on the grounds that everyone knows that dead is dead. The dead do not rise. Therefore, the Apostles must be telling lies.

John simply states: we have written these accounts so that you who believe might receive a new life and a new way of living. The new life is the very life of God himself and is therefore eternal. The new way of living is grounded in divine love and therefore is characterized by the unfolding of holiness, kindness and compassion.

Does this make sense?

Through the prophet Isaiah God says: Come. Let us reason together.

Does it make sense that God created us and now ignores us?

Does it make sense that God created us to impose a rigid inflexible and uncompromising set of laws on us?

Does it make sense that the universe, life and our species created itself out of nothing?

Or, does it make sense that if God is real and that if God is the Creator then he would be interested in us? Does it make sense that God himself would visit us? Does it make sense that God offers himself to us to help us?

John, and the other Apostles, wrote and told about their personal experience with Jesus Christ at a particular time and place in human history. They tell us how almost everyone rejected, betrayed and abandoned Jesus. They tell us how Jesus not only forgave them but died for them. They tell us how Jesus rose from the dead to give everyone the gift of a new life and a new way of living in the unconditional universal love of God.

They share with us through their writings what they experienced so we can make a rational choice to believe and receive the Good News of divine love in Jesus Christ.