"The People of God Given Freedom"
April 7, 2013
THE SECOND SUNDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN SEASON OF THE PASSOVER
Acts 5: 12a; 17-22; 25- 29/Psalm 111/Revelation 1: 9 - 19/John 20: 19 - 31
His Eminence
The Most Reverend Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines D.D.
Archbishop of Manila
and
Primate
of the
National Church in the Philippines
and
the Territorial Church of Asia
International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church
The lectionary says this is the Second Sunday of Easter. However, the gospel that we read today is not happening in the second week of Easter, but the main portion of it happened in what we call Easter Sunday. It is a powerful time God shares with us as Jesus appears before His disciples. It is a ministry of the compassion He had upon them.
Jesus had taken the sin of man. He went to the cross, after having been beaten, mocked, and brought to great shame. He died, was buried, has gone to hell, conquered hell, and released the prisoners. And on this third day, He still has enough energy to appear before His disciples. The disciples were in fear. According to the rumors, the guards, the Pharisees, and the scribes had connived the story about the disappearance of Christ having been instituted by the disciples – that they stole the body of Jesus. The disciples were in fear because perhaps they will be also crucified or killed so they are in hiding in a locked room.
Christ appears in this room, in the midst of them. Sometimes we look at this and say how awesome that Christ could enter the room when the doors are locked. How did He get in? We try to figure it out and it doesn’t work. Why would we be so concerned about that? Why would it be a challenge for us? Is He not the same One who, weeks ago, walked on the water? Is anything too difficult for Him?
We sometimes see Him in a manner that is not totally attributing to Him all the power that God has given. He enters this room and experiences the fact that the apostles are in fear. Scriptures says that He speaks to them and says, “Peace be to you.” I have spent some time meditating on this. I was here Friday evening towards Saturday morning and much of the time, I spent my time in the Sanctuary in prayer for these Scriptures. If we pay attention to what God speaks to us, we lose our fear. We lose our intimidations and we rise in new strength.
We are told that Easter brings to the Church new life. We are told that Easter takes away all that held us down and gave us a freedom that we have not experienced before. But if I look at the Church worldwide today, I don’t see a Church that is free, but a Church that is intimidated and threatened by the world around them. I see a Church bowing down to governments who are anti-Christ. What happened to the strength of Easter that God gave us? When Christ spoke, “Peace,” to the disciples, was He saying, “Calm down, relax, take it easy?” I don’t believe so. I don’t believe that was what He was saying to them. They were in fear, but He understood why they were in fear.
Christ wanted them to understand something. He spoke to them in a word perhaps which in our interpretation today is not according to what it really meant to say. In the Greek, the word, “Peace,” does not mean an absence of frustration or conflict. It means the same thing that “Shalom” in Hebrew means. “May the best be for you! May there be health, welfare, prosperity for you; every kind of good; every kind of wish.” Christ was the Son of peace. After He said, “Peace,” He said, “Come, look here are the wounds in My hands; here are the wounds in My sides. I have paid the price. I have won the victory. I have destroyed the power of the enemy. There is no need for anything other than joy, victory and thanksgiving.” Christ was encouraging them. He wasn’t saying, “I feel sorry for you. I pity you. Don’t be anxious. Relax. It is going to be okay.” Instead, He was saying. “Look, I destroyed the forces of evil. It is Me.”
Can you imagine this is on the third day in the way they count the days, and yet obviously, His wounds were healed? They were not bleeding. We are told that basically, the skin had been torn off His back. The liquids within His body were oozing out and He was losing tremendous water. The spear in His side, the nails in His hands and feet. Can you imagine the pain and the anxiety? For most of us, with just a hang nail, we go to the hospital and have a prescription for pain.
Christ has gone through all of these – gone to hell, conquered the enemy; and yet, He still comes to comfort and proclaim His victory to the disciples. He was being a witness to the power of God. He was being a witness of His conquering, of His overcoming. He wasn’t holding back. He wasn’t feeling sorry for Himself. He was not resting. He was letting it be known. “I have won the battle. I have conquered the enemy and I have set you free. There is no need for fear. Look at My hands. I am the One who went to the cross. Put your hand on My side, if you wish. I want you to understand that I did what I would said I would do. It is complete. You need no longer have anxiety or fear. You need not be stress.”
The incorruptible, that Who now knew no sin at all, that Who was eternal, and that Who was divine now says, “Touch My body.” He wanted them to comprehend and understand. I believe that He was speaking to us also, “We are not waiting for something to come.” He was already bringing this to us in the flesh – victory, deliverance, conquering for us.
Humanity yet divine. Sown, physical, but raised spiritual. He reveals this humanity, “Touch My wound, but He then proclaims the divine, the spirituality, “Peace.” The work of Christ was complete. Christ does not do things half-way. God is a God of excellence, of perfection. In the work of Christ, and He was proclaiming it to the disciples. He wanted them to understand that He has conquered the forces of evil. Yes, they had crucified Him. Yes, He supposedly had died, but now He is alive and He has conquered death. Death is no longer ruling and reigning. Death has been destroyed. He wanted them to understand this. He wanted them to have an understanding of what He had done in their behalf. He was being a witness of His victory. He was not in hiding or in fear. He was proclaiming the work complete that which He had done.
Then again, Christ said to them, “Peace.” After He showed them the wounds, again, He reiterated it, “I did this for your good. I did this so you no longer have to grapple through life. You no longer have to face these issues and let them conquer you. I have won the victory for you. I have given to you new life.” Twice, He has spoken. He wanted them to understand the finality of that which He had given. Then, He breathed upon them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Why will He breathe upon them and say, “Receive the Holy Spirit?”
This is something that I had to allow the Spirit to open my eyes to see. I went back to creation, and in creation, God breathed the breath of life into that dust and that dust became a living being. He breathed into the dust and it became alive. When He put man in the Garden, He told him, “You can eat of any of the trees of the Garden except the one in the center. The day you eat of that fruit, you will die.”
Man disobeyed. Death entered. Death reigned. Even those who have not committed sin as in the same category as Adam did was still in bondage of death. They could not rise up because of death. At the time of Moses, blood on the doorpost covered Israel so that they would not be subject to death. But up until this time, death reigned.
Christ had gone into the realm of death. He had conquered death by His resurrection. Death no longer was reigning and ruling. Death had lost its power. Some call this death, “The Original Sin” that has kept man down and in bondage and slavery. Man had really little chance to rise above it that is why Christ came. Now, Christ has destroyed the power of that sin, that death, and so He renews the breath. He breathes upon them this breath, giving back to them that life that God had given in the beginning. He says to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Man is now restored to a new level of life; a new potential; a rising above the power of sin, hell, death and the grave. No longer are these things ruling and reigning. Now, life has been given.
Man has been stifled because of his disobedience to Christ. This breath had been held down, but now this breath restored gives to us a newness of life; a life that can have hope and assurance and confidence because of God. What hope we have in Him!
Romans 5:15 -17 tells us that death had reigned. “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one, transgression resulting in condemnation; but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.” This is why Paul tells us, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation,” because Christ destroyed the power of that death over our lives. He gave us new potentials and new abilities.
“For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” We are not in subject under the control and in bondage of sin any longer. God has given us new hope to us. Verse 19-21, “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. And the Law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
This is Easter; the message of Easter. The power of that sin has been brought to nothing. It cannot control or overpower us because Christ has confronted it, conquered it, and destroyed its power. What hope we have in Him! What ability is ours. This is why Christ said to His disciples, “Peace. Now you have this thing that has held you back gone. Now, you can rise. Now, you can move forward and come against above all these things that has held you in slavery and in bondage in the past.
This is the hope of Easter. This is the hope of our lives. We need to renew our minds and prove the will of God. We are supposed to be witnesses; we are supposed to be ambassadors for Christ. As Christ came to prove the power of God and the ability of God over sin, hell, death and the grave, He came before the disciples and said, “Look, I paid the price. I conquered. Now, I am ruling and reigning. I am not dead. I am alive!” He was witnessing for the sake of the people so that they would rise up and realize that they had hope, ability, and new life. No longer in condemnation because of failure, but now, because of grace, lifted up and a new life.
Scriptures says, “Walk in the newness of life. Set aside the other things that say, “I can’t do it. I can’t make it.’ We now can because of Christ. “I now have this potential and this ability. I can rise up and I don’t have to be slain and downcast with the oppression, the fears and the anxiety. God will turn all things to good if I put my faith in Him. No need to be fearful or anxious. We have new hope in Christ.
This is Easter. Christ breathed this new life into His disciples. He proclaimed that they should receive the Holy Spirit because He was going to send them out to be His witnesses. He had proven who He was. He had proven that the prophecies had been fulfilled, that had been ushered generations prior to this. He has fulfilled them and He wanted His disciples to have this faith. It has been done; it is finished. No need for uncertainty and the wavering any longer because Christ has conquered the sin, hell, death and the grave. He has given new life to us.
Christ says, “Peace!” When we say, “Peace be unto you,” we are not talking about absence of frustration or absence of conflict. We are talking about the kingdom of God rising within us that it proclaims to the world the greatness of our God. No longer fearful or anxious. No longer hovering in the covers of darkness, but rising up in the ability of life to say, “We have hope in Christ.
We have the answer in Christ. We have deliverance in Him. No need for our fears, our oppressions and divisions and our separation.” Christ has given newness of life to us. The provision of the greatness of our God. Yes, He paid the price. Yes, He went to the cross. Yes, He was buried in the tomb. Yes, He went to hell, but He conquered every step that He went through for you and for me. He knew no sin but He who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God, in Christ.
This is what God has given to us. His provision and His covenant for us. We are His people. He is our God. We need to understand and know that. The reason that we come to His Table is to be reminded that He paid the price for us. The Eucharist says, “Declare His death. Proclaim His death until He comes back again.” Why do we need to proclaim His death? Why do we need to declare His death? This is because His death set us free. In His death, we are in freedom even in the midst of the darkness and the oppression of the world. We don’t fall into their trap. We have been lifted because of what He did. He died and delivered us.
This is what Easter is all about. This lesson from John came on Easter Sunday. This was the day that Christ had come out of the tomb. This is the day that He had resurrected. He did not wait for His disciples to go through their problems of fear and anxiety and wondering what had happened. He immediately was concerned for them. He wanted them to know, “I did this for you. I paid the price for you. Look, here are My hands. Here are my sides.”
We have been set free. It is time for the Church to rise up. It is time for us to begin to declare our freedom. It is time for us to proclaim the kingdom of God. Not being intimidated and threatened with government that passes laws that are contrary to the kingdom of God. We don’t follow them but we follow what Christ has done. In Acts, the apostles told the leaders, “We hear what you are saying, but we don’t obey man. We please God.”
This is our task – please Him. I would encourage and challenge you today to realize that He saved you so that you could be a witness. He delivered you so that you could proclaim how great His love is for you. Each of us has this responsibility, a commission, a commandment: proclaim the kingdom of God. Proclaim His excellence. Declare and live it so the world can see we are different because of Christ, of what He has done for us.
This is Easter. This is our deliverance. This is our freedom. It is time for us to throw out the chains. Unlock the doors and rise up in the greatness and the provision of God’s grace and mercy.
Problems may come. Don’t let them be that which brings you down. In the midst of that problem, God proves His commitment to you and He strengthens you to overcome. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Hold your faith in Him and proclaim His victory in your behalf.
LET US CONTINUE OUR REFLECTION
WITH
CARDINAL OF HOLY MOTHER CHURCH
AND
VENERABLE PRIMATE
OF THE PHILIPPINES
THROUGH
THROUGH
THE WORD EXPOSED
Walang komento:
Mag-post ng isang Komento