“And all day long, both at the temple and in their homes, they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the Christ, Jesus” (Acts 5:42). Indeed, Jesus is the Christ, the Christos, the Messiah, Meshiach. Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God, true God from true God. He didn’t just rise from the dead. He is is risen and alive!
That’s a lot of words! Isn’t that the risk we run, letting what passes for faith, which we often reduce to mere belief, become mostly or even exclusively words? Words found in Sacred Scripture are given to inspire us, to encourage, to challenge, and to provoke us. This is why faith is a verb, not a noun. Faith is action, not description.
While we should appreciate Gamaliel's balanced approach, it should also be noted that he seemed to raise no objection to the flogging of the apostles. Maybe he thought that would dampen their zeal in proclaiming the itinerant from Nazareth as some kind of savior or as the Messiah. Rather than cool apostolic fervor, the trial, rebuke, and flogging only inflamed the twelve more. But, according to Gamaliel’s criterion, their message must have come from God.
While it’s true that prudence governs all the virtues, prudence should never be used as an excuse not to proclaim Christ. Saint Francis of Assisi, the deacon and great evangelist, who certainly preached Christ in both word and deed, never said, “Preach the Gospel and if necessary, use words.” Francis was ordained as a deacon to gain faculties to preach. Preach he did, as well as engage in selfless works of charity.
Rabban Gamaliel, Medieval Miniature, courtesy of Wikipedia
The other day, driving down Orchard, I was behind a car that had on its back bumper a sticker that read: “If Jesus had owned a gun, he’d still be alive today.” Talk about an exercise not only in missing the point but in missing the most important point. Jesus, armed with power that made and sustains all there is, love, agape, is not dead but is alive!
There is a huge difference between thinking of Jesus as alive rather than someone who lived and died a long time ago, as merely a historical figure. It makes an even bigger difference to have a life-changing encounter with the Risen Lord. This is possible because He ascended and sent the Holy Spirit, who is the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence. It is the Holy Spirit who effects the sacraments.
By gathering, listening to the scriptures, and receiving Holy Communion, you encounter the Risen Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. In each Mass, as the scriptures are proclaimed and Holy Communion is received, the Word becomes flesh in and through us. We are sent forth to constantly proclaim the Christ, Jesus, to be His presence, His hands, eyes, ears, feet, heart.
Make no mistake, Christ is king, but not one in the mold of King David, as the crowd and even His disciples imagined. He is king of a kingdom that, while it is not of this world, is both in and for the world. It is manifested in the world now as a mustard seed, as yeast, as a sign of contradiction to worldly powers, which often chafe at when it is presented.
The power of Christ is the power of self-giving love. There is no better sign, no better symbol, no more meaningful demonstration of this than the sacramentum caritatis, the mysterion agape, the sacrament of self-giving love, that is, the Eucharist.
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