4th Sunday of
Easter
Cycle A
Good Shepherd Sunday
What happened to Peter? Who was this guy? In all the
gospels, Peter is quoted only about 25 times, and those are usually short
responses to Jesus or exhortations no more than a couple sentences long. None
of them are particularly eloquent and in some of them he sticks his foot in his
mouth. The longest conversation quoted is actually his denial of Jesus. He had
never preached or taught, he never spoke in public, he wasn’t an intellectual,
nor a particularly peaceful or thoughtful man, definitely not courageous, and
yet he was able to stand up in front of thousands of people and preach his
longest, most eloquent, most persuasive and most theologically deep teaching,
so persuasive that over 3000 people asked to be baptized because of it. There
was a strength and confidence and courage behind it. It’s as if he was a new
man.
But something happened to Peter, and the other
apostles, at Pentecost. Something radical had changed them. Peter was different
because his experience of Jesus was different. Peter had witnessed Jesus every
day for three years, yet he still denied him. But then he experienced the risen
Christ, and was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he was truly a new man. It’s
one thing to know Jesus the man, it’s another to know Christ and allow the
Spirit to transform you. Peter was finally ready to truly become an apostle.
The resurrection changed everything.
And what changed for the people in the crowd? These
were some of the same people who fifty days earlier had cried out for Jesus’
crucifixion. Now, it seemed so easy, too easy, for them to accept him as the
messiah and ask for baptism. They had heard Jesus teach in the temple. They had
seen the proof of his wonderous signs. They had witnessed his suffering and
death. But that was not enough for them to follow him. They had to experience
the risen Christ, if not personally than through the experience of others. The
facts did not convert them, the testimony of those who had seen him alive again
did.
The resurrection changed everything. Now they were
ready.
I always thought it was amazing that 3000 people were
baptized in one day…until I saw it happen in Atlanta last year. And adult
baptisms increased almost 40% in the US alone this Easter to between 45,000 and
50,000. That doesn’t include the tens of thousands of protestants who entered
into full communion with the Catholic Church this year. The total estimate is
120-130,000. Why the resurgence in the Church? Why now are so many people
ready?
Over the past 36 years that Nancy and I have been
preparing people to enter the Church, there have been several times we were
surprised that someone we had been seeing at Mass every Sunday for decades was
not Catholic. They had been coming with their family but never thought it was
time to join, until one day when someone asked them, and the time was finally
right. One man actually was on the parish council and he wasn’t even Catholic. Another
woke up one day and after 28 years of his wife gently inviting him, he decided
it was time. He was ready.
The message hasn’t changed. The call hasn’t changed.
We just have to be ready.
Maybe that’s why so many people are coming to the
Church these past few years. They had known of Jesus for a long time but
now they finally know Jesus. They have been called by God their entire
lives, but now they can actually hear and understand that call, accept that
call. They have finally experienced the risen Christ in his Church.
And maybe that’s why Catholic church attendance has
been growing. Perhaps people are realizing the emptiness of secular humanism
and are searching for the truth. All the old arguments against faith have
fallen flat.
Maybe we no longer need proof. It is time to become a
disciple. It is time to embrace the truth.
And it’s not just happening to converts. Many of us
have heard the scriptures read and preached every Sunday, have received him
body and blood, soul and divinity for years, but one day we’re ready to accept
him for who he truly is. Like Peter, we are willing to be changed.
Today we hear Jesus say that there is no other way to
salvation except through the gate, and he is that gate. That is oftentimes a
difficult saying for people to accept. They have been taught to believe that there
are many paths to God, that they are basically all the same and God doesn’t
care as long as we’re good people. But Jesus never says that. He is the gate,
the only gate. He is the way, the truth and the life. Not a way, a truth, and a
life. No one comes to the Father but through him. St. Peter says that there is
no other name by which we are saved.
They have also been taught that there are many
different paths in Christianity, and they have been going from this church to
that, trying to find one that fits their own particular worldview, rather than
seeking the truth. They see the Catholic Church as just one of many, rather
than the fullness of the revelation of the truth of Jesus Christ, and therefore
the path to salvation.
And that can be a stumbling block for some, because it
requires taking up our crosses daily and following him. And that cross may be humbling
ourselves to the truth. That cross may be changing our lives and acting
differently. That cross may be our repentance for all the years and times we
crucified Jesus with our sins. If there is truly one truth, then one must
follow it, no matter what it demands.
Those 3000 people that day didn’t ask Peter, “what
must we believe?”, they asked “what must we do?” They had just realized their sin
and were repentant. Peter’s words ripped away the veil of their
self-righteousness and exposed their inmost hearts, but they also offered them
the mercy of God through baptism.
That is the same path people travel to Jesus and his
Church today. There are so many ways to study and hear the proofs of faith.
Many people believe but still don’t know what to do to be saved. The answer is
the same today as that first Pentecost. Repent and believe in the gospel, the
good news that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, Jesus
Christ, to free us from our sin and offer us the chance for eternal life.
That message is not just for the newcomers. We could
all use a bit of conversion. We should all renew our baptismal commitments. We
should all become more committed to the truth. We could all use a bit of
repentance. Are we ready?
Because when we are, we’ll find that he has been
waiting for us the whole time.
