Third Sunday of Easter

Fr Dominic’s Homily

There is always a balance between sin and grace. It’s how it is in our Christian lives. And if we put too much emphasis on either side then things can easily go wrong. They get out of balance.

We hear in the first reading St Peter giving what is practically the first ever sermon: Peter and John are in the temple have just healed a crippled man and the crowd has gathered.

So Peter says that this healing came not from himself but from Jesus. Peter emphasises that it is Jesus risen from the dead who is the one who gives us healing. So he starts his proclamation with the good news.

We must always start our spiritual lives with the positive - the healing grace of Christ. We must never start with sin otherwise it’s too negative. We must begin with the grace of God.

Peter identifies clearly who God is. He says this is the God of our Fathers - Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Maybe this sounds obvious to us. But at that time there were thousands of views of Gods: - Greek, Roman and Egyptian.

Maybe the same is true of today. People think of God in their own way. If you live a good life and do the right thing you will be ok. You don’t need the Church; you don’t really need confession as long as you tell your sins to Jesus in your heart… There are so many different views of who God is. We pick and choose and make up our own religion. To avoid discomfort.

And if we lose sight of sin we actually lose sight of our Faith because Christianity is a salvation religion. It’s a saving religion. It saves us from our sin.

In the presence of Jesus we know we are sinners. St. John of the cross reminds us of the analogy of light that shines through glass showing up the blemishes on it. Like a car windscreen when you are driving towards the sun. So when you are directed to the light you can see more clearly what the problems are.

In the same way the closer we get to the light of Christ the more we see our own faults. That’s why frequent confession is easier and more effective.

In the Gospel the disciples are speaking about the Lord appearing to them when he appears again. He says peace be with you. He always starts with grace.

The disciples are scared. They think they are seeing a ghost. Maybe they think that Jesus is back for revenge. This is the man that they denied and betrayed and ran from in his moment of need.

Jesus then shows his hands and his feet, the marks of the crucifixion. The Son of God reminds us what we did to him, of our sinfulness. The author of life came into the world and we put him to death. Whenever we are tempted to complacency in our lives and to say that everything is fine - we just need to remember those wounds of Jesus.

But also he is proving that it is really him. And that our bodies will be like that when we rise from the dead. He eats some food in front of them to prove it. He is truly risen from the dead body and soul for all eternity.

He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures. This reminds us that we need God’s grace to help us fully understand the scriptures. To see its full depth. To see with clarity how the prophesies in the Old Testament are fulfilled in the New Testament.

That’s why we should pray before reading scripture. We can get pretty far by ourselves - but nowhere near as far as with God’s grace.

So we can see in today’s readings that we need God’s grace in our lives to encourage us and help us understand scripture.

That we need to be reminded of our sinfulness so that we can convert and repent whilst we have the opportunity.

And we see that Jesus has truly risen from the dead body and soul for all eternity.

Remember that the gift of repentance is free. All we need to do is turn away from sin, repent and believe in the name of Christ.

Let us pray that we can believe and bear true witness as the disciples did to the risen Christ in our lives as we journey ever closer to our own glorious resurrection for all eternity.