Faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is much more than simply
believing in an amazing fact. Each of this Sunday’s readings reminds
us that belief in Jesus’ resurrection is accepting and
participating in a relationship that can enliven every part of our
lives—now and forever.
John may speak of Jesus appearing simply to “the
disciples,” unnumbered and unnamed, to help us later readers
include ourselves in the picture. To enable those disciples to be sent
as Jesus was sent, Jesus breathes on them and says, “Receive the
Holy Spirit.” When we recall that this remarkable action is
occurring near the end of a book that began with the words, “In
the beginning,” it is not hard to see in this breathing an
allusion to the creation of Adam.
Easter enables a new creation: a frightened people are empowered to live out Jesus’ mission of sharing the life of God with others through their own self-giving in imitation of Jesus. If the beatitude, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed,” is not clear enough for us, the author's own statement of purpose is crystal clear: ‘These [signs] are written that you may [come to] believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name” (Jn 20:31).
If we want a concrete illustration of what “life in his name” entails, we need look no further than the cameo picture that Luke provides in today's First Reading from Acts. Although vowed religious communities have, through the centuries, taken this summary as a model for their community life, the context of this passage in Acts suggests that Luke intends this to be a portrait of Christian community generally. The details are worth pondering.
They devoted themselves to the teaching [didache] of the
apostles, to the communal life [koinonia], to the breaking of
the bread and to the prayers. We recognize here the perennial
ingredients of Church life. The apostolic “teaching”
would, no doubt, include the sayings of Jesus and the interpretations
of his life by way of texts from the Hebrew Scriptures. The
“communal life” includes the generous sharing of
possessions mentioned later in this description. The “breaking
of the bread” seems to be, as in the Emmaus account in Luke's
Gospel (Lk 24:13ff), the celebration of the Lord's Supper. And “the
prayers” likely include continued engagement in the Temple
liturgy.
Awe [phobos] came upon everyone. Some translations interpret
this as a description of outsiders’ response to the apostolic
“wonders and signs,” but the statement can just as easily
be taken as a description of the community itself. If so, it likely
refers to that fear of God which the Hebrew Scriptures name as the
beginning of wisdom. Belief in the resurrection of Jesus, repentance,
baptism, and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38-41) have revived in these pious Jews an awe for the presence and power
of the Creator.
And many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.
“Wonders and signs” (with its peculiar reversal of the
usual order “signs and wonders”) echoes the wonders and
signs mentioned in the quotation from Joel and applied to Jesus’
healing actions in Peter’s Pentecost speech (Acts 2:19, 22). By using the same phrase here, Luke underscores the fact that the
apostles continue the divinely empowered ministry of Jesus (soon to be
illustrated by the healing of the lame man through Peter and John [Acts 3 ff]).
All who believed were together and had all things in common; they
would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all
according to each one’s need. This spells out part of what is
meant by the earlier mention of communal life. The very phrasing
suggests that such sharing of goods is a spontaneous expression of the
Easter faith. When one takes the Creator personally, one uses
creatures differently and more generously.