2024/04/14 SCRIPTURE REFLECTION
Third Sunday of Easter
- Leo Rubinkowski, Manager of Events & Ministry Engagement
“…they were still incredulous for joy…” – Luke 24:41
Joyful people do joyful things, and in this most joyful season, there is no more appropriate time to do joyful things. Not for one day. Not for eight days. Not for fifty days. No…in every moment of our lives in Christ, we can say “now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2) and, for that reason, do joyful things.
As we see in Luke’s account of the Lord’s first appearances to His disciples, though, being guided by joy isn’t strictly automatic or instinctual. Sometimes, and perhaps more often than we might readily admit, our response to joy can actually be restraint and doubt! While news is still spreading among the disciples of the disappearance of Jesus’ body from the tomb, suddenly He is among them, showing them the wounds in His hands and in His feet. According to Luke, the disciples were “incredulous for joy.” To paraphrase one commenter on this passage: how often is it that we hear good news, even from a trusted source, and then actually restrain or deny our joy because we’re afraid there’s been a mistake and we’ll lose it? That’s just what the disciples do. Jesus—their teacher, companion, and friend, whom they acknowledged as God’s Anointed One—is standing right in front of them after having died a brutal, public death, but they can’t bring themselves to believe wholeheartedly that He’s alive. The circumstances are too foreign, too unbelievable, too inexplicable! The risk of losing the joy they feel in the shock of His presence is too great!
Of course, we know that they don’t remain in their disbelief. We know they don’t continue to doubt the joy they felt in that moment of amazement. Reflecting on the particulars of Luke’s account, though, we also know they didn’t embrace joy on their own, as though their senses cleared and just as suddenly as they’d doubted, confidence came to them. No, Jesus leads them to embrace their joy. He invites them to touch Him (“a ghost does not have flesh and bones”), eats their food (a ghost does not eat), and, finally, demonstrates to them that what seems unbelievable isn’t, in fact, inexplicable (everything written of Him “must be fulfilled”). No wonder we hear Peter confidently exhort Jerusalem to be converted in the first reading and listen to John counsel confidence in the love of Christ in the second reading. These disciples had received joy from Christ Himself, and so they did joyful things!
Do you and I do joyful things? If, as we ought to believe, we have received the same joy (cf. John 15:11), we ought to do similarly joyful things. Indeed, if we ought to believe, do we believe? If we struggle with belief, do we ask Christ to guide us to belief?
Just two weeks from the celebrations of Easter—the joy of which I struggle to encompass with words—asking these questions of myself is off-putting. Their accusatory air feels more penitential (indeed, more Lenten), but that’s not alien to the Easter season at all! What is the joy of Peter’s message? “Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.” John announces the same joy: “if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father… He is expiation for our sins…” The joy of Easter is the joy of forgiving and of receiving forgiveness.
This Sunday, this Easter, and as often as you wonder whether you really live with joy becoming of a Christian, I hope you’ll reflect with me on the fact that recognizing sins and asking forgiveness are the activities of joyful people. When Peter and John share the joy of Christ’s victory, they don’t tell us to repent and then rejoice. They tell us to rejoice because we can repent; they tell us to rejoice by repenting.
Day-to-day, what might that mean for you? For me, I know what it’s meant in the past and what it could mean in the future: a brief examination of conscience and/or an Act of Contrition before bed, contemplating God’s forgiveness of venial sin and protection from more serious sin through Holy Communion, and making the Sacrament of Reconciliation a scheduled activity for myself, rather than something I do when I feel like it. Now, are these the sorts of activities that always make me feel good? Is walking out of Confession on an average Saturday in September likely to feel comparable to the elation of Easter Sunday? Am I the sort who can always pay close attention to Mass? Have I ever been eager to make an examination of conscience? On all counts, the answer is No, so I have a second desire for you and for me this Easter season and beyond. Since we know Christ calls us to joy through Him at all times, I hope that we will trust Him enough to do this joyful thing—to ask and receive forgiveness from Him, especially through the Sacraments—at all times, even when we aren’t feeling singularly joyful.
The desire to make a habit of trusting Christ is an expression of trust in Christ, and the habit of trust in Christ is a habit of being open to Christ’s guidance, to belief in His promises, and to the joy that only He delivers. Now, on this day of salvation, we don’t need to restrain our joy for fear of being mistaken. We can lean in, commit, and act with confidence because there’s no mistaking what has happened: Christ is risen, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins is preached in His name to the whole world…to you and to me! Rejoice and be glad, alleluia, for the Lord is truly risen, alleluia!