Keep in Mind…
Jimmy was a good boy and obedient as any six year old could be. His mother had always felt that teaching him responsibility was one of her main tasks as a parent. One day she reminded him to come right home after school since friends would be coming to dinner and she had some errands for him to run. When three o'clock arrived, no Jimmy. Four o'clock and his mother began to worry. At five o'clock a neighbor mentioned that he had seen Jimmy sitting with a friend on the steps of a house a couple of blocks from the school. Now his mother was getting angry. Finally, Jimmy arrived home. "Where have you been?" "With Susie.""You know you were to come straight home." "But Susie's puppy was hit by a car. And she was just sitting there crying. I had to do something." His mother's anger began to give way to pride as she asked, "What did you do?" "I couldn't think of anything. So I just sat down and cried with her."After his resurrection Jesus asks his disciples to touch his wounds. He wants them to embrace his suffering and death. His reason is simple. Touching the pain, becoming one with the suffering, can bring healing to others and at the same time bring reconciliation to ourselves. What Susie needed was someone who could understand her grief. What she needed was someone who was willing to enter her pain without explanations, without apologies, without words.In this third week of celebrating Resurrection, the Scriptures are asking us to remember the Cross. In our enthusiasm for Easter, we shouldn't forget Good Friday. So the Acts of the Apostles asks us to remember how Jesus was betrayed by the people and abandoned by his friends. John tells us to remember that Jesus was an offering for our sins. And Luke graphically points out that Jesus asked his disciples to remember by touching the wounds in his hands and feet. Celebrate the Resurrection by touching the pain of Good Friday.How might we touch Christ's wounds so that we remember?If we are really Resurrection people then little Jimmy’s story can be our story. If we want to celebrate the very roots of our faith we must learn to so reach into the hurt of another that we become one with that pain -- just as Jesus entered our brokenness so completely that he became, in John's words, "expiation" for our sins. By his death he brought reconciliation to our relationship with his Father. He asks us to do the same; we are to preach to all nations the forgiveness of sins; we are to be his healing peace to the world: "You are witnesses of this."We can do this concretely when we touch the anger of a spouse, embrace it, share in it so that the other may find peace (even when we are the cause of that anger). We can touch the disappointment of a friend so that encouragement might transform that disappointment into hope. We can touch the physical suffering others by our willingness to visit the sick and the elderly, bringing a healing medical science could never effect. We can touch the cycle of poverty experienced by our brothers and sisters in depressed areas of our cities and our world by a determined commitment to address the systemic causes of their plight.If we could only learn little Jimmy's understanding of reconciliation -- of bringing peace to the troubled and the broken-hearted by entering their pain. Jesus invites us, his Resurrection People, to the Eucharistic table each week to remember.. He asks us to touch the wounds of Good Friday, to remember what he has told us in word and example. He invites us to eat, remembering when he gave us the sacrament of himself for our reconciliation. We gather around this table to "do this in memory of me.” We give ourselves, freely, without reservation so that others may be reconciled, so that others may enjoy the peace of Christ.We pause this Sunday to remember that through that act of self-giving Christ was glorified. And to the degree that we witness that self-giving in our own lives we will be gloried. That's what RESURRECTION is all about! That's what we call EASTER JOY! Keep in mind that Jesus Christ has died for us
and is risen from the dead.
He is our saving Lord.
He is joy for all ages.
