There is an exuberant confidence that we hear in the Easter stories of the disciples as they begin to preach the Gospel to the earliest communities that would listen to the Good News. The power to heal and to be released from imprisonment tempered with the rejection and adversity that comes along with delivering the message is well documented in the Acts of the Apostles.  Yet amidst this high tide of excitement and fervor for the experience of the Risen Lord and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are reminded today (1 Pt 5:5b-14) of the always larger context of life that is included in this Risen Life:

Beloved: Clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another…

The God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory through Christ Jesus will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you after you have suffered a little…

Be sober and vigilant…knowing that your brothers and sisters throughout the world undergo the same sufferings.

The broader context stands, in a way, outside of time, or at least the idea of time that we normally consider. We sanguinely bound forward toward outcomes that we naturally expect, only to be thwarted with the reality of roadblocks and rejections.  For all the best of intentions and even willing actions, we still face adversity and suffering.  We feel that our piece of the Good News is not heard and rejected, perhaps because we aren’t getting the response that we expect.  This can lead to a sense that nothing has really changed.  Peter is telling us today to clothe ourselves with humility and, though not explicitly mentioned, to be patient!

When we get caught up in the revelry of excitement, many times we lose the bigger picture. Endorphins can get in the way of noticing everyone else around us.  We may need to pause and see that everyone is not where we are, or where I am.  People’s experience of life can be very different than our own.  When we speak, we sometimes must listen first.  This is the humility and patience that Peter is speaking about.  Being passionate is wonderful so long as it does not trample over those around us who may not see things the same way as us.

Peter tells us in our suffering to keep in mind “…that your brothers and sisters throughout the world undergo the same sufferings.  This is not a misery loves company statement.  It is a statement of solidarity.  And how true is it right now in our world, as the suffering resulting from the Corona virus pandemic is truly global. We must not forget that, while suffering is a shared experience, it is not the suffering itself that truly connects us, but indeed it is the meaning that can be found in and through the suffering that can be part of our connection in the Good News!  The Good News is not that we all suffer, but that we all undergo life in a pattern that involves vulnerability which necessitates humility.

The shared experiences in life are the bigger picture, which we must strive to keep before our eyes in the midst of all the diversity and sometimes seemingly threatening differences that we encounter. The meaning of suffering in diversity can be transformed within community, so that diversity and differences no longer need be feared as threats but can be embraced as life-giving enhancements for all of us.  The bigger picture can open up the possibility for a new way of seeing, engaging in and living this life in communion.  Is this not the meaning of Easter’s Good News? Is not this what the bigger picture in terms of the pandemic may be asking us to consider?

The Franciscan contemplative priest, Richard Rohr, recently spoke at a conference a few years ago on the Trinity about what he called  the share–ability of God as that grace that we can encounter when we surrender ourselves up to the greater context or bigger picture which goes beyond private agendas and personal outcomes. This surrender – many times involving suffering and always involving humility – is a gateway into the connection that we all have in the Divine Life of God through the Holy Spirit in Christ!  It’s a Divine presence that we can enter into together.  In a way, it is a pilgrimage through the tomb and out into the Light.  But it is a journey that we take together.  Any other way is literally a dead end.

The Gospel today (Mk 16:15-20) speaks of Jesus’ Easter proclamation to his disciples to “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” Immediately following this commission comes the ascension of the Lord:

Then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven… But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them  

What feels like absence often can be simply a symptom of a new way of seeing and living. The ascended Jesus ultimately means the coming of the Holy Spirit of Christ in the world in a new and creative way.  Easter seems to be about finding the Christ, i.e., finding the New Life in the ordinariness of our own lives.  Presently we are even experiencing the absence of all what we considered to be the ordinariness of our own lives.  However, even in this absence, the Newness comes when we begin to see that God is with us and never left us.  We just may have to look in different places to find God!  Those different places are very often right in front of our eyes. And it requires a new way of seeing with humility and patience that can afford the surrender of outcomes and expectations and open up the space for new sight.

What if the Good News is us? What if the Gospel is really when we can find God in the Holy Spirit of Christ as each one of us uniquely presents!  When we can see each other as presenting God, then we are indeed in God’s presence.   This is a way of presence being the present (gift)! It is a process though, for sure.  Could this be what Mark may mean when he says :

“…they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs”

We spread the Good News by receiving it as we reverence it in each other. When we listen to each other with our hearts, we allow the Lord to work with us.  Then any idea of preaching operates in all directions and includes a spirit of humble openness that engages diversity in a truly Divine way while simultaneously granting inexhaustible new meaning to life and love!

Peace

Thomas

(posted April 25, 2017)