Jesus is God’s Sent One to announce the Good News to the poor.  And the Sent One, in turn, does not hesitate to send his disciples.

Jesus tells his disciples that for him to send them is to give them a share in his own mission.  For he says to them, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

And no, Jesus does not hesitate to send his disciples.  Those who are in a house with doors that have bars for fear of the leaders of the Jews.  Though two them, Peter and the disciple dear to Jesus, have early in the morning found his tomb empty.  The last even “saw and believed.”  Yet now fear and doubt, not trust and peace, take hold of them.

But the Teacher still trusts his weak disciples.  That is how he gets others to work with him.  And he does not scold them for their lack of courage and faith.  But in not hesitating to send them, he asks them, in effect, to go out.

That is to say, he does not want them to stay behind closed doors, paralyzed by fear.  He does not want to see them to be at a loss or in the dark.  Not knowing what to do, where to go, and to whom to go that will help and lead them.  In other words, he wants to draw the best out of these ordinary and weak folks.

To send the disciples is to ask them to go out to be the good news that they experience by faith

And so, Jesus comes before those who are full of fear.  He shows those who saw him die on the cross that he is alive.  And in a new way, since barred doors cannot stop him.

He stands, too, in their midst.  He should be back in the center, so they may have back their courage, hope, aim, direction.  And be in the light again.

And he does send them out.  But he does not spell out what they have to do or say.  How they are to behave and carry out their mission.  He knows they were with him as he went about doing good.  So, on the whole, they are to be, out there, what he has been:  the Good News to those who are poor and in need of all kinds.  The Good News of mercy, of peace, communion, of true ties that bind, not fake ties that sneak in to wreak havoc.

He also breathes on them the Holy Spirit.  This Spirit is the one to spell out for them what to say and do, and where to go and how to act.  The Spirit will lead them to all truth.  The Spirit will help them to so believe that they grasp the risen Jesus though they do not see him.  Through the Spirit, their love can turn inventive in an infinite way like Jesus’ (SV.EN XI:131).  Inventive even to the point that they give up their bodies and shed their blood for others.

Needless to say, the question for us who make up the Church, Jesus’ disciples’ community of love, is:  Are we the Church that he wants us to be?  It could be that we are like the snails that are afraid of what is outside their shells (SV.EN XII:81).

Jesus, our Lord and our God, you send us to be Good News, too, for others.  Make us so as we stay true to what you teach us and to the communal life you have shown us.

16 April 2023
Second Sunday of Easter (A)
Acts 2, 42-47; 1 Pt 1, 3-9; Jn 20, 19-31