{"id":1586,"date":"2015-04-12T15:02:20","date_gmt":"2015-04-12T19:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1586"},"modified":"2015-04-12T15:02:20","modified_gmt":"2015-04-12T19:02:20","slug":"2nd-sunday-of-easter-year-b-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/2nd-sunday-of-easter-year-b-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"2nd Sunday of Easter, Year B – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

2nd<\/sup> Sunday of Easter, Year B<\/a>
\nActs of the Apostles 4:32-35
\n1 John 5:1-6
\nJohn 20:19-31
\nApril 12, 2015<\/p>\n

The disciples are scared.\u00a0 Jesus their leader has been arrested, beaten, and crucified.\u00a0 They fear the same thing could happen to them so they gather together behind locked doors.<\/p>\n

Not only would they have been scared but probably confused.\u00a0 The tomb has been found empty.\u00a0 In their minds, what has happened to Jesus seems impossible.\u00a0 So they are greatly troubled.\u00a0 In the midst of their troubles Jesus appears to them and says \u201cPeace be with you.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

He knows their troubles and He wants to help them.\u00a0 He knows they don\u2019t understand.\u00a0 No one has risen from the dead before so they don\u2019t know what to think about the empty tomb and the report that He is risen.<\/p>\n

Knowing this, Jesus shows them His hands where the nails were driven through and His side that was pierced by the lance.\u00a0 He does this to show that He is not just a ghost or apparition but that He is risen, body and soul.<\/p>\n

In doing so, He shows what the Resurrection will be like for us.\u00a0 Some early heresies in the church taught that the body was evil and that in death we would be set free from our bodies.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 Resurrection appearances show us that we rise body and soul.\u00a0 Both our body and souls are created by God and are fundamentally good.<\/p>\n

The disciples would have found great comfort in seeing Jesus.\u00a0 I know I find comfort in knowing that He has risen and that I can share in the Resurrection so everything doesn\u2019t end with physical death.<\/p>\n

Jesus came to the disciples in their fear but there was one who wasn\u2019t there, Thomas.\u00a0 When he hears of Jesus\u2019 appearance, Thomas says he will not believe unless he sees Jesus for himself.<\/p>\n

For this we call him Doubting Thomas but I doubt we would have been any different.\u00a0 No one had risen from the dead before.\u00a0 Why now?<\/p>\n

Jesus had first appeared to Mary Magdalene alone.\u00a0 With just one person seeing it, it would be very<\/em> easy to think she was imagining it but then, without Thomas present, Jesus appears to the group<\/em> of disciples.<\/p>\n

Hearing it from the group, Thomas could have believed.\u00a0 We believe today without having seen the Risen Jesus for ourselves.\u00a0 How do we believe?\u00a0 In part it is through the Holy Spirit but it is also because of the community<\/em> of believers who did see the Risen Jesus and, through the Scriptures, shared their experience.<\/p>\n

They say \u201cseeing is believing\u201d but we realize we are never going to see everything<\/em> there is for ourselves.\u00a0 We have to willing to accept the testimony of others but not just anyone.<\/p>\n

The Acts of the Apostles<\/em> tells us how the early Christian Community held everything in common.\u00a0 They went so far as to give everything they had to the community and trusted in the community to provide for them.<\/p>\n

While the sharing of material wealth was part of the early Christian Community, community is not just about sharing material wealth.<\/p>\n

To be a community is to be one mind and heart, to share what our faith means to us, to trust one another.\u00a0 Community also helps us to discern together what is really going on.\u00a0 One person might have imagined seeing Jesus but the whole community?<\/p>\n

So, Thomas should have believed what the other disciples had told him but it won\u2019t have been easy.<\/p>\n

What does being part of a community of faith mean to us?\u00a0 Is Church just something where we all come to the same place to receive Communion?\u00a0 Do we think we know best what is right and wrong or do we seek to learn from our community of faith what God teaches?<\/p>\n

Now, it is not the community of faith that decides what is right and wrong?\u00a0 We don\u2019t vote on what is right and wrong but we count on the community of our faith, not just today but the whole Church over 2,000 years of history to help us understand what God says is right and wrong.\u00a0 The community is the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

Doing what is right is not easy.\u00a0 We need the support of the community to do better but we also need to know about God\u2019s Mercy.\u00a0 Today is Divine Mercy Sunday.\u00a0 God\u2019s forgiveness and mercy are part of what we believe in as a community of faith.\u00a0 We need to be welcoming and forgiving to people who come here.<\/p>\n

Community\u2026..\u00a0 what does it mean for you?\u00a0 What do we need to do to be the community that God calls us to be?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2nd Sunday of Easter, Year B Acts of the Apostles 4:32-35 1 John 5:1-6 John 20:19-31 April 12, 2015 The disciples are scared.\u00a0 Jesus their leader has been arrested, beaten, and crucified.\u00a0 They fear the same thing could happen to them so they gather together behind locked doors. Not only would they have been scared …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘2nd Sunday of Easter, Year B – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[29,82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-pA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1587,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions\/1587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}