Acts 5:17-26

 

 

In today’s reading, Luke, pulling no punches, tells us in no uncertain terms that the High Priest and the Sadducees were filled with jealousy, which drove them to persecute Peter and John.  They had them jailed, but neither the literal prison nor the chains of jealousy could bind the intrepid apostles.

 

The Holy Spirit rides roughshod over the pettiness of human nature.  He has only one thing in mind: the proclamation of the gospel message.  The angel commands, “Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.” (v. 20).

 

It is the message of new life that sets us all free – from jealousy and from all sin which seeks to entrap us and to reduce our humanity.

 

 

Acts  4: 1–12

 

For the Sadducees life after death was a revolutionary and subversive idea that threatened their position.  Their difficulty was that, “People who believe that their God is about to make a new world, and that those who die in loyalty to him in the meantime will rise again and share gloriously in it, are far more likely to lose respect for a wealthy aristocracy than people who think that this life, this world and this age are the only ones there will ever be . . .” (Tom Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God).

 

The Sadducees held much power; their interest was not in the word of God, but in the maintenance of the status quo, because this was of most benefit to them.  The Sadducees wanted to preserve their own interests.

 

To guard against the same temptation, we can harness the power of prayer.  Perfect prayer is all love.  The key to protecting ourselves from becoming like the Sadducees is to avoid self-interest in the first place, to focus our attention on love.

 

 

 

 

Acts 2:14, 22–33

 

 

The Spirit was Jesus’s greatest gift to us, but we don’t rely on or turn to the Spirit enough in our lives.

 

Brother Lawrence said, "Those who have received the gale of the Holy Spirit go forward even in sleep.”  The Holy Spirit is God’s love poured into our hearts, and filled to overflowing with that love, like the apostles we are sent out to be bold and confident witnesses to the truth of the gospel.

 

Today, give thanks and praise to God for the many gifts that He has given us, but particularly the gift of rising from the dead and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

 

 

John 18:1 – 19:42

 

Jesus’s destiny reaches its climax: Jesus was born to die and his hour is come.  Good Friday is a holy moment.

 

The human race had strayed far from God’s eternal purpose.  We had drunk deeply of the cup of rebellion and had sung into all manner of sin.  Sick and wounded, we wandered in darkness, living aimless and futile lives.

 

Our preference is for self-rule and independence from God.  War, hatred, greed and pride dominate the landscape of human history.

 

God’s remedy is his Son; his solution, the cross.  The cross meets our deepest need – the need to be reconciled to be put right with God.

 

Our sin, our rebellion, hostility and folly are fully embraced by the cross.  The cross becomes for us the source of our eternal salvation.  Jesus’s cross releases us from the grip of death, restoring our dignity.  Heaven is re-opened – the cross becomes the ladder by which we once again enter our heavenly home.

 

Rejoice!  The tree of life transforms the tree of death, reversing the tragedy of the Fall.  Our original wound is healed – we are redeemed, restored, reinstated as children of the Father.

 

 

Matthew 26:14 – 27:66

 

The death of Jesus was the most significant, momentous, important and wonderful death in human history.  Wonderful because through it he redeemed the world.

 

When you read the Passion today you could ask the Spirit to help you rejoice and glory in the events that are unfolding.  The Spirit leads us to see the instrument of torture, this sign of primitive brutality, as the sign of life.

 

The death of Jesus on the cross is not merely an historic event: it is made real and present to us when we celebrate the Eucharist.  But there is also a way in which the Spirit wants to make it real and present to us in our lives.

 

In other words, we can hope to understand it more deeply, enter into its mystery in a new way, grasp its significance and meaning more actively in our lives.  The key is to want this, desiring it and praying for it.  

 

In this way we can come to understand that the cross is a message with power: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

 

 

John 10:31-42

 

St Athanasius put it well when all those centuries ago he said: “He became what we are that he might make us what he is."

 

Today, give praise and thanks to God for believing that Jesus of Nazareth is God.  Rejoice and praise God that the light of faith has been poured into your heart and mind so that you can freely and joyfully accept God’s ultimate mystery and final revelation.

 

 

It is amazing to think that the divinity in Jesus did not overwhelm his humanity, and that his humanity did not corrupt his divinity.  “What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed.” Roman liturgy.

“O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified.  O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us.”  St John Chrystosom

We are called to penetrate this mystery ever more deeply, and we have received the grace to do so.   It is a truth that we will spend the rest of our lives seeking to fathom and understand.  Consider that the One who created the universe, the Lord, the Almighty, worked with human hands, thought with a human mind, acted with a human will and loved with a human heart.

Having been born of the Virgin Mary he has been made truly one of us, like us in every way but one: he never sinned.

Chris

From Bible Alive