GOOD NEWSReading: Luke 24: 35-49
Have you ever been filled with doubt and joy and wonder all at the same time? You desperately want to believe that something is true and you feel a sense of overwhelming wonder beginning to invade you and a joy starting to bubble up from deep within your being. Then the impossibility of what you are witnessing or experiencing begins to take over and the shadow of doubt creeps through you again threatening to quench the joy and stamp out the wonder. That’s the way the disciples and other followers of Jesus were feeling on the evening of that first resurrection day. They had lived through the trauma of Jesus’ crucifixion, were plunged into grief, fear and guilt and then the utterly impossible but startling news of resurrection – all within the space of three days! Is it any wonder they were confused, disoriented and wondering what on earth was happening? Gathered in the upper room that held so many memories, they had just been regaled with the latest ‘sighting’ or encounter with Jesus by the couple from Emmaus who had left them a few hours previously in despondency and despair and had just now come rushing back, transformed and breathless with their news. Before they had finished telling their experience, Jesus appeared again among them as he had done so often before, using the familiar greeting, “Peace be with you.” They were absolutely terrified and it took quite a bit of reassuring on Jesus’ part to convince them that it really was he. What clinched it in the end for them was when he asked them for something to eat. He ate a piece of broiled fish in front of them, and then they knew. Ghosts don’t eat!
Having now got their full attention and conviction that he was alive and was not a figment of their overwrought imaginations, Jesus came to the real reason for this particular appearance. He had something very important to communicate to them. He had done so many times before during the three years prior to his death, but somehow it hadn’t sunk in. Their spiritual understanding hadn’t developed enough for them to receive it. But on this very special Sunday evening, he told them again how everything written about him by Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms had to come true. And this time they began to get it! Luke says ‘he opened their minds to understand these many Scriptures.’ When he saw that light was beginning to dawn for them, he then came to the core of what he needed to tell them. It was a commission for the rest of their lives and for all those believers who would come after them. “With my authority, take this message of repentance to all the nations.” And what was this message, this good news? Simply yet incredibly this: “There is forgiveness of sins for all who turn to me.” That was what the world needed to hear and still desperately needs to hear. The friends of Jesus on that first Easter Sunday were commissioned to go into all the world, starting in Jerusalem and moving out from there. They were to be witnesses to Jesus. What he had done for them he would do for others because of their testimony. For many of them it would cost them dearly, even their very lives. The word ‘witness’ comes from the Greek word for martyr. But they were not going in their own strength. They were going with the authority of Jesus himself. Not only were they anointed with his authority. They were also to receive power from heaven in the form of the promised Holy Spirit, the Spirit who would enable them to do the same things as Jesus had done – and greater. They were to heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, cast out demons and announce that the Kingdom of Heaven was near. The signs of the Kingdom included all these things and not just the preaching of the word. Isn’t it sad that over the centuries we in the Church have largely confined ourselves to the latter? It is very important, but people’s minds will be opened to understand much more readily if that word is accompanied by signs and wonders. Perhaps our faith has grown tired. Perhaps our belief systems have lost their expectancy. One thing is certain, the authority of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit haven’t changed or diminished or grown weary.
If we have really experienced the hospitality, the ‘welcome back’ of God through forgiveness of our sins, then we won’t be able to stop ourselves from being witnesses – no matter what the cost. The early disciples preached the message of repentance and forgiveness with great power and authority. Everyone could see the transformation in them. They knew that they had been with Jesus not only by the authority of their words but by the miracles they performed and the love that pervaded everything they did. They were truly a forgiven and forgiving people. They were witnesses to what the power of love and forgiveness can do in someone’s life. They literally took this good news to the nations.
Maybe we need, after so many years, to have our minds opened to understand afresh who this Jesus really is, crucified and risen, ascended into heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father, constantly interceding for us – that we might, in all humility, pick up his mantle of authority and, empowered by the Holy Spirit, begin in our particular ‘Jerusalem’, our home place to be witnesses to this, the greatest of all good news, “There is forgiveness of sins for all who turn to Jesus.” And maybe we don’t need to be using as many words as heretofore, but be witnessing by our lives. Greater than any other healing is the healing that flows for a person when they know that they are forgiven, loved, accepted, that they, too, are members of God’s family, a God whose love is so high and wide and long and deep that, even if we lived for a thousand years, we would never be able to fathom it. There are many ways other than by sermons or homilies, (although these also have their place) to take this message of repentance to ‘the nations.’