Second Sunday of Easter (A) 2014

Second Sunday of Easter (A)

John 20: 19-31

José Antonio Pagola

Jesus will save the Church

Terrified by the execution of Jesus, the disciples take refuge in a house known to them. Once more they are reunited, but Jesus is not with them. There is an emptiness no one can fill. They miss Jesus. Whom will they follow now? What will they be able to do without him? “Night is falling” in Jerusalem and also in the hearts of the disciples.

   Inside the house they remain “with doors shut.” It’s a community without a mission and no horizon, closed in on itself, with no heart to welcome anyone. No one thinks now of going to the highways  to announce the Kingdom of God and heal life. With doors closed, it is not longer possible to reach out to the suffering of people.

   The disciples are full of “fear of the Jews”. It’s a community paralyzed by fear, on the defensive. They only see hostility and rejection on all sides. Where there’s fear it is not possible to love the world as Jesus did, or to inspire courage and hope.

   Suddenly the Risen Jesus takes the initiative. He  comes to rescue his followers. “He enters the house and places himself in their midst.” The little community gets transformed. From fear they change over to the peace with which Jesus fills them. From the darkness of the night they move to the joy of seeing him again full of life. From closed doors they will soon change to the openness of the mission.

   Jesus speaks to them putting all his faith in those miserable men: “As the Father sent me, so too I send you.” He does not tell them to whom they must go , what message they must deliver, nor how to behave all the while. Already they have been able to learn from him along the roads in Galilee. They will be in the world what he has been.

   Jesus knows the weakness of his disciples. He has often found fault with the little, vacillating faith they have. They need the power of his Spirit to  fulfill his mission. So he makes a special gesture for them. He does not place his hands on them, nor does he bless them as he would the sick. He breathes on them and says:”Receive the Holy Spirit.”

    Only Jesus will save the Church. Only he will save us from the fears that paralyze us, he will break the tiresome structures in which we try to enclose him, he will open the many doors we have gone on shutting all through the centuries, he will straighten the many roads that have turned us away from him.

   What we are now being asked is to revive much more in the whole church trust in the Risen Jesus, to organize ourselves to place him fearlessly in the centre of our parishes and communities and concentrate all our energies in listening well to what his Spirit is saying to his followers, both men and women.