Easter Saturday Yrs ABC 2025

Title

They Did Not Believe - Proclaim Anyway

Outline

The world will go to great lengths to deny the resurrection of Jesus

The gospel presentations are legends or pious imaginations or group hallucinations. He lives on spiritually, perhaps, but only spiritually, if at all. They point to inconsistencies in the accounts not noticing that such inconsistencies is what we should expect from surprised eyewitnesses, not from made up accounts.

This should not surprise us, for it has been like that since the first century. Mary Magdalene reported seeing Jesus, and even the eleven did not believe. The two walking to Emmaus reported recognizing him as he broke the bread, and the rest of the apostolic group did not believe until Jesus showed up.

If the Jesus’ resurrection and his subsequent presence was too hard to believe for those who knew him best and had heard his predictions of resurrection, no wonder it is difficult for people to believe now.

But we are to proclaim the risen and ruling Jesus anyway

He commanded, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” There is no “Do it if you find a receptive audience.” It is just, “Do it.” Proclaim a crucified Jesus, but only that crucified Jesus who is alive and exalted at God’s right hand and coming again to judge the living and the dead. Paul will point to this as the core of his gospel in Rom ch 10 verses 8 - 10.

But before we do it, we must first experience it, for otherwise it is just words we have learned from a book, even if the book is the Bible. It must be a Jesus who is alive in and with us. And of course we know that there are dark nights when we do not have any sense of the presence of Jesus, but before such dark nights and sometimes within them there are those times when in the mass and in adoration and in meditation we experience his presence, not necessarily in visions and ecstasies but definitely in our knowing. But we must be patient, for it is a work of God’s grace. We make ourselves available and God decides when the timing and our disposition is right.

We, then, proclaim out of experience as well as scripture and thus do it with conviction. That is why I may tell a person to go to a Catholic Church that is open and sit in the front near the candle that is burning in the red globe. Sit silently for 15 minutes, ideally every day, and lengthen it as you get used to it. I proclaim with confidence because I experience his presence and so am confident that in God’s timing the person I am talking to will too.

So proclaim Christ born of the Virgin Mary, both God and man, proclaim Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate, but always climax with proclaiming Christ risen from the dead, seen by many witnesses, and waiting now to reveal his presence to you. Amen