Wednesday in the 2nd Week of Easter
Freedom!

Readings: Acts 5:17-26; Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; John 3:16-21
Picture: CC bsamp

It’s quite plain to see that at the center of the prayers and readings for Mass today is an awesome miracle. But what is perhaps far less obvious is the true nature, the concrete implications, of this extraordinary event. It’s tempting to let our gaze rest and remain focused only on the surface, since the details that we find there are already so fascinating. At one moment, the apostles are locked up in the public jail, their message muzzled, their fate uncertain. But then, just as the darkness of night engulfs them, an angel ushers them out of captivity and commands them to take your place in the temple area, and tell the people about this life… Amazing!

And yet, there is something even more mind-blowing here, something that we begin to appreciate only when we probe beneath the surface. For the wonderful miracle experienced by the apostles actually points beyond itself to the marvelous mystery that we ourselves continue to celebrate, especially in this season of Easter. More than just an interesting historical account, the story in the first reading is really an invitation to us to penetrate more deeply into the effects of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the difference it can make in our own lives. We might begin to respond to this invitation by pondering several key aspects of the miracle.

Consider first that public jail in which the Apostles are held. Is it only by accident that it is described as public? Or does this place not rather signify the many different dark dungeons into which we sometimes find ourselves thrown as helpless captives? The first reading shows us what one of these places looks like by speaking of the jealousy that fills the Sadducees, prompting them to reject the Good News and to place the Apostles under arrest. And we have probably only to look within our own experience to find other examples, other places of darkness, in which we tend to be imprisoned, jails such as greed or grief, anxiety or ambition.

But the Good News proclaimed by Jesus and the Apostles, both in word and in work, is that God has set us free. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the dark doors of our respective prisons are now thrown open and there is a possibility for us to step out into the light. The opening prayer speaks of this new freedom in terms of a restoration of humanity to its original dignity. If this sounds too abstract, Jesus helps us to understand better by speaking about stepping out of darkness into the light. But what is this light? What is this dignity? What is this new freedom? Here we reach what is perhaps the most mind-blowing aspect of all. The light into which Christ’s resurrection draws us is nothing less than that love by which God refused to condemn the world, but instead gave to it – to us – his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. This is the original dignity that is being restored to us: a share in the very nature of the God who is love.

And isn’t this what we see too in the actions of the Apostles after their release? Fearlessly they proclaim to all a message not of condemnation but of love and hope. They speak of what they themselves have experienced, that the Lord does indeed hear the cry of the poor, that he does indeed deliver us from all our fears. On our part, what we need to do is to believe in the miracle of the Lord's death and resurrection, to step out into the light.

How are we experiencing this same miracle in our own lives today?