Are You Ready?

 

4^th 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.