3rd Sunday of Easter B - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2012

I remember in the old days when visiting the hospital how some people would want to show me the incisions resulting from their surgery. I am not sure people do that these days: with the advances made over the years in surgical techniques, the incisions are usually so small they are hardly worth showing to anyone.

What was the risen Jesus up to in showing his hands and his feet to the alarmed and frightened disciples? Was it simply to prove that he was real, that he had indeed risen or perhaps something more … ?

I think it might have been to show the connection between his death and his resurrection, between his historical experience and his now risen state. He carried the wounds of his death with him - into eternity. Those wounds were the concrete illustration of that death that he had endured as the price of his deliberate commitment in love to the project of the world's salvation.

That love in the face of torture and death had shaped Jesus … the Jesus who was raised and who lives now into eternity. Those wounds will be with him forever.

Likewise the responses that we make to the experiences that come our way during life shape the persons we are now and how we shall continue to be into eternity. We bring with us, as it were, the wounds that give testimony to the choices we make and the persons we become.

Every source of suffering across our lives provides the opportunity to somehow respond, to choose, and, in the process to shape ourselves now and into eternity.

Jesus suffered rejection, abandonment, hatred, torture and death.

He could have lost hope, become bitter, refused to forgive – and each of those responses would have shaped who he was becoming. But he chose to trust, to continue loving those who hurt him, and to forgive.

Jesus' first words to his terrified disciples who had denied and abandoned him in his moment of need was simply "Peace be with you!" He chose to meet hostility with forgiveness.

In the process, as the Epistle to the Hebrews put it, he became perfect through suffering.

Personally, I live a pretty charmed life. I don't suffer much. I have very few specific hurts to forgive. What gets at me is more diffused and on-going. It's not personal.

What hurt me are the attitudes and actions of certain people, often those in positions of authority, especially in the Church but also in the civic arena. Simply, I disagree with them, as they, no doubt, disagree with me.

How to respond? I can become hostile, recklessly critical, passively aggressive, cynical, withdrawn … or I can try to live peacefully with difference, to respect those I disagree with, to relate responsibly as adult to adult, to work for change where I can, to acknowledge and to forgive the hurt that I feel.

The choice is important, because it shapes the kind of person I am and the person I shall be into eternity.

Will the wounds that I bring into eternity witness to love and to trust … or to opportunities missed, and to resentment and bitterness?

Some of you, I don't doubt, have profoundly deep and personal hurts to cope with. One way or other, how you choose to respond will shape the person you are now and the person you will be in eternity.

We struggle and we don't always succeed. Perhaps, success is not the issue, but rather what, deep down, we really want – despite our reluctance, our confusion, our weakness, and the cost involved.

In this Eucharist today, as we encounter once more the risen Jesus, may we each hear him say to us in our brokenness: Peace be with you!