Dear Parish Faithful,
CHRIST IS RISEN!
INDEED HE IS RISEN!
"Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship the holy Lord Jesus ..."
In the narrated scene in St. John's Gospel (heard yesterday in church) in which the Risen Lord appears to the disciples even though they are behind closed doors "for fear of the Jews" (Jn. 20:19), Jesus will immediately drive that fear out by his sudden appearance and the calming words: "Peace be with you." (v. 20) After showing his disciples both his hands and his side, we read: "Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord." It has always struck me that this description of St. John's as to the reaction of the disciples to the presence of the Risen Lord, is one of the great understatements found in any of the Gospels! Can "gladness" possibly capture what they experienced on the "first day of the week?" (v. 19)
However, we need not underestimate the biblical use of the expression of gladness. We need to recall that in the Farewell Discourse of Jn. 13-17, we hear Jesus say to his confused disciples as he speaks of his departure: "When a woman is in travail she has sorrow because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world."(16:21) The crucifixion of the Lord was, in a sense, the birth pangs of the Messiah. But when the Lord was "delivered" of his anguish and placed Himself into the hands of his heavenly Father (Lk. 23:46), and then appeared to his disciples, they rejoiced with what we could call a biblical joy/gladness. For the Lord further added: "So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one shall take your joy away." (Jn. 16:22) The disciples were seeing the Lord again as he promised them; and we are left with the distinct impression that no matter what the hardships they were forced to endure in their respective apostolic ministries, their joy was never taken away.
To further strengthen this point, we have the words of the eminent biblical scholar, Raymond Brown, who commented: "In Jewish thought peace and joy were marks of the eschatological period when God's intervention would have brought about harmony in human life and in the world. John sees this period realized as Jesus returns to pour forth his Spirit upon men." So, when the disciples "were glad when they saw the Lord," we can be assured that this was that eschatological (end-time and Kingdom-oriented) joy/gladness that takes us far beyond our usual sense of gladness as a fleeting experience that may expire as quickly as it overcomes us.
Life is too demanding and filled with such challenges that we can hardly expect to maintain that joy so that no one could take it away. But if life is stronger than death in the Risen Lord, then we can trust that it is "there" even when it seems to be absent.