[stephenkhoo]

Scripture Reflections
19 April, 2012, Second Thursday of Easter
THE CONVICTION TO WITNESS TO CHRIST

SCRIPTURE READINGS: ACTS 5:27-33; JN 3:31-36

To be brought before authorities and face charges is indeed a most frightening experience. Those who have gone to court to face charges or simply to witness their loved ones being tried will tell us of their harrowing experiences. Indeed, just waiting for the trial or the judgment after the trial will cause anyone to lose sleepless nights. Anxiety and fear of the punishment awaiting an accused will debilitate the person long before the actual trial begins. And yet today, we see the apostles standing before the Sanhedrin without fear for their lives. Instead of compromising and humbly accepting the high priest’s warning, Peter and the apostles defiantly said, “Obedience to God comes before obedience to men.” In fact, they even incurred the wrath of the officials further by accusing them of killing Jesus who had now been raised as leader and Saviour.

My first question upon reflection of the first reading was: What was it that gave them such courage to witness to the crucified Jesus? The answer of course is their encounter with the Resurrected Lord. But this is not the complete answer. What is even more important is their theological reflection on the resurrection of a crucified man. Their conclusion of the resurrection of Jesus is that He is indeed the Saviour. How is that so? Because if Jesus had been raised from the dead, it means that the Father has identified Himself with the cause and the life of Jesus. Consequently, John’s reflection, which has probably been cast as the words of John the Baptist, concluded that Jesus must have come from above and therefore could understand God and speak God’s words, since He knew God intimately.

But most of all, the implication is that since the Father had identified Himself with Jesus in His resurrection, it means that He has entrusted everything to the Son. Everything that Jesus said and did, receive its legitimacy and verity only because of the resurrection. If the Father has raised Jesus from the dead, one who was condemned as a criminal and shamefully put to death on the cross, it means that the Father endorses the words and deeds of Jesus. Hence, John said, “The Father loves the Son and has entrusted everything to him. Anyone who believes in the Son has eternal life, but anyone who refuses to believe in the Son will never see life: the anger of God stays on him.”

In other words, the Father who gave Jesus His Spirit without reserve demands that we are called to believe in Jesus. Since the functions of the Spirit are to witness to the Truth and lead people to recognize the truth, necessarily to know God, one must accept the witness of Jesus. Acceptance of Jesus brings about life. This, then, is the choice given to us today. Life can only be found if we accept Jesus because in Jesus we can be certain of who God is and what life is. It is this realization that Jesus is the leader and Saviour that gave Peter and the apostles the courage to willingly risk their lives for their testimony of Jesus.

But what about us? Do we have the courage to stand up for Jesus or for our faith? The truth is that many of us lack the moral courage to do so. It is a fact that many of us do not mind living a good life by being kind, charitable and loving towards others, serving the poor and the Church. But it is another thing to demand from Catholics that they speak out for justice and for morality in the world. Many of us are afraid of being marginalized or considered old-fashioned by the world. In moral issues, many of us prefer to remain silent rather than to speak and act on behalf of the truth. When it comes to standing up for Jesus, especially for the Christian Faith, many of us, in the name of religious harmony and sensitivity, are quite ready to compromise our beliefs, suggesting to non-Christians that all religions are the same and it is a matter of personal choice and preference and not so much based on the divine truth that has been revealed to us in Christ. Perhaps we need not even consider witnessing to Jesus’ resurrection, when quite a good number of our Catholics would so easily give up their faith simply because they had a tiff with their parish priest or their ministry leader! So how can we speak about dying for our belief in the resurrection of Jesus? How then can we have the same faith that enabled the apostles to die for Jesus?

Firstly, we take note that we suffer from certain disadvantages. We have never encountered the historical Jesus in person. Consequently, we have nothing much to reflect about Him. At least if we have encountered the historical Jesus, we might have been able to see the presence of God in Him, just as many people today could recognize the presence of God in the late Blessed Mother Teresa. Of course, we must be fair in saying this because it does not mean that we are completely unaware of this historical Jesus. We still can come to know Him through study, reflection and most of all, contemplation. For this reason, the mystical tradition of the Church encourages us to contemplate on the humanity of Jesus. All great spiritual writers tell us that this is the path to come to know the resurrected Christ. St Ignatius, St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila all followed the same path. Our faith in Christ is not reducible to a cosmic Christ.

Secondly, while a physical encounter with Jesus can lead to a personal encounter, it does not mean that we are deprived of a personal encounter with Jesus even if we have not seen Him physically. In fact, even though many have had a personal encounter with Jesus, not all believe in Him as the Lord. So whilst it might be good to know Jesus as a historical person, it is no guarantee that we will have a deeper faith in Him. But even here, the Easter encounter of the apostles is radically different from ours. They had a special encounter with the Risen Christ which cannot be repeated. At most, our encounter with Jesus is a personal one, non-corporeal but nevertheless deeply personal. This can come through contemplation or through those who manifest to us His love. It would be worthwhile also to visit the Holy Land as it can help us to bring the gospel to life and enable us to know how Jesus lived during His time.

Even with these apparent two disadvantages, we actually have a certain advantage over the apostles. For the apostles, they were required to make an act of faith before they could see the risen Lord. For us, it is easier to make this act of faith because we have the courageous testimonies of the apostles. The apostles surrendered themselves completely to the risen Lord, placing their entire trust in Him. They were not disappointed. Like the psalmist, they have confidence that God will hear the cry of the just man. By surrendering ourselves in faith, we can be certain that we too will come to experience what they experienced. In this sense, the apostolic faith paves the way for our own personal faith and the faith of the Church. Because we know that they are reliable witnesses, we dare to take the calculated risk of giving ourselves to Jesus. But that is not all. By giving ourselves to Jesus and His message, we can verify in our own lives whether the teachings and the message of Jesus is true or not. In living out His message, the truth of the words of Jesus will verify itself. By following the life and teachings of Jesus, we too will experience true liberation and joy in our lives, which are characteristics of the risen life in the Spirit. Only with such a real experience of the effects of the Spirit in our lives, can we then testify confidently both to the resurrection of Jesus and that He is truly our Saviour because we experience Him and His saving works in our lives.

This Spirit is of course given only to those who obey Him as the apostles declared. They said, “we are witnesses to all this, we and the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.” If we want to receive the same Holy Spirit that brought them into a deep intimacy with the Risen Lord and revealed to them the truth about Him, then we too must surrender in obedience to the Lord. Obedience is the expression of one’s total docility to the grace and power of God in one’s life. So long as we do not place obstacles, God will also give us the same Spirit as He gave to His Son without reserve. Through the same Spirit, we will bear witness to Christ with boldness, courage and conviction, disregarding our fears and safety but willing to risk our lives for Christ and the gospel.