Sunday 3 of
Easter (B-2006): Empty tomb – empty confessional?
Read: Acts 3:13-15,17-19;
1 Jn 2:1-5a; Lk 24:35-48
The fact of the resurrection explains the fact that the forgiveness
of sins is possible.
Jesus did what he did, so that we might be forgiven.
That’s why, in his appearances to the Apostles after his resurrection, he commissions them to go and forgive sins in
his name.
Last week’s Gospel reading from John saw
Jesus breathing on the apostles and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; whose
sins you retain, they are retained.”
This week St. Luke has Jesus say, “Thus
it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness
of sins would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”
The Apostles, then, are given the power to forgive
or retain sins because Jesus made them the chief (but not the only) witnesses of his suffering, death and resurrection.
Our first reading today, from the Acts of the
Apostles, shows that Peter took Jesus’ commission to heart. In speaking to the people, he paraphrases the essence of
what Jesus said to him in the upper room: you killed him, but you did not know what you were doing; through you God fulfilled
what he foretold; but now you must repent and be converted that your sins may be wiped away.
Our second reading, from St.
John’s First Letter, shows that also St. John
took Jesus’ commission to heart. “My children,” he says, “I am writing this so that you may not commit
sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is expiation for our
sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world.”
It is no wonder, then, that last Sunday, the first
Sunday after Easter, was named by the great Pope John Paul II as Divine Mercy Sunday. The Divine Mercy comes to us through
the risen Body and Breath of Jesus.
The mercy we received in going to confession before
Easter was given us in virtue and in anticipation of Easter itself. Lent was the time to “repent and be converted,”
as St. Peter puts it. Easter is the time to rejoice in God’s mercy – alleluia!
Yet, in a very real sense, each day of our lives is a little Lent and a little Easter. Every day we need to repent and to experience Divine
Mercy; on some of those days we need to experience a more intense repentance and a more intense sense of Divine mercy by coming
to the sacrament of confession.
We need that especially when we have sinned in
serious ways, but even when our sins are not so serious, because we can hardly consider any
sin as something we can live with.
Some people may think priests, at least this one,
talk too much about sin and confession.
Well, if we do, it’s because we, too, want
to take Jesus’ commission to heart. We must speak of these things because
we are really speaking about the resurrection of the Lord.
Priests are co-workers of the bishops who are
themselves the successors of the Apostles. We are therefore commanded to be the official witnesses of the Resurrection.
The Resurrection is the power which raises us
from death because it raises us from the cause of death, that is, sin.
The world does not accept its sin, as concept
or as reality. Sin belongs to religion, it says, and state and society are separate from religion. State and society would,
therefore, logically be sinless!
In the world’s view, man is a law unto himself.
But Jesus, creator of the world and source of true religion, would not share contemporary man’s false optimism about himself. Not because
his view is pessimistic.
Instead, he offers him real hope based on a realistic vision of man’s mortality and
of the origin of that mortality, which is sin. That real hope is resurrection which can only be achieved through the forgiveness
of sins.
Jesus is not just an example for us: he is our life! As St.
John says, he is the expiation of our sins!
An example, however great, remains outside of
us as something we can copy by our own will power. In life, we might indeed imitate something of Jesus’ example; we
will certainly experience suffering and die.
But our own will power will neither raise us from
the dead nor take away our sins. That requires another power inside us. The risen
life of Jesus is that power; he enters into us in a depth of union and communion beyond our dreams and understanding.
Certainly, he wants us to use our will power,
that is, our freedom, to accept him, to let him in, to give him freedom of access to our inmost being.
He wants us freely to accept his power to liberate
us from sin and ultimately from death.
He wants us to cooperate freely with his grace
so that we can change those ways of thinking, deciding and behaving which are sinful, that is, which enslave us to evil and
to its destruction of our dignity and true humanity.
If Jesus suffered, died and rose so that we might
all be free from any sin, then it follows that every time we sin we resist the resurrection.
Sin says to Jesus, “what you did was all
very nice, but I’m not interested in it at the moment.” We do this to a greater or lesser degree depending on
what our sins are.
The Lord is of course always ready to receive
us back, but there are two risks we run on this score.
One is that we take Jesus for granted and play
the game of taking neither sin nor mercy seriously. We neither see the pain and damage our sins cause Jesus, others and ourselves
every time we commit them, nor do we truly understand the depth and might of the love and life his mercy gives us.
If we truly understood the pain and horror of
sin and the magnitude of his mercy, we would truly mean it, in words and deeds, when we said, “I will try not to sin
again.”
The second risk is that some day it will be too
late to repent. I don’t just mean the eternal “day” which dawns after death.
I also mean, and more so, the day on which we
come to the conclusion that sin “does not matter” because Jesus “will forgive me.”
I mean the day which is the straw that breaks
the camel’s back, the day on which all the previous days of indifference we have had to sin and forgiveness end in a
hardened heart.
That day we risk succumbing to the great illusion
of believing we have no sin and thus need no Savior. That would be as if we were Lazarus, dead in the tomb, but deaf to the
voice of Jesus calling us out.
On that day we would be both deaf and dead to
the Resurrection.
My dearest friends, we must never put off repentance
and confession, and we must encourage everyone we know and love to do the same.
If you habitually procrastinate the confessing
of sin, you risk empowering sin to procrastinate for ever your salvation.
Do not resist confession and you will not resist
the resurrection.
Sin will convince you that death is sweet; confession
will give you the fruit of eternal life.
Cohabit with sin and it will laugh with you all
the way to hell. Make confession your habit and divine grace will exalt you to the throne of God.
Don’t let false counsel, cheap human philosophy
or the Trojan horse of self-complacency fool you.
Listen only to Christ!
Confess to the priest!
And you will for ever sing alleluia!
Msgr. Peter Magee
Sunday, April 29th,
2006
Annunciation, DC: 10.00 am
