April 29, 2013. Homiiy, Tuesday, April 30, 2013

John 14:27-31a.

Jesus said to his disciples: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard me tell you, 'I am going away and I will come back to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe. I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming. He has no power over me, but the world must know that I love the Father and do just as the Father has commanded me."
The Gospel of the Lord.

Today honors three martyrs - Saints Nereus and Achilleus, and Saint Pancras. But we do not wear red at Mass; instead we wear white. Why, because this is Easter season, the season of the resurrection, the season not of the death of martyrs but of life, the life of Jesus in the resurrection. Thus, we emphasize life. Jesus by His resurrection showed His victory over death. "Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?" The first reading is from Acts 14:19-20 which tells of the Jews turning the crowd against Paul; the crowd "stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered around him, he got up and entered the city." In 2 Cor. 11, Paul tells of his encounters with death: five times Paul received 40 lashes less one; three times he was beaten with rods; once he was stoned. This is that stoning, and the end result of a stoning was death. Paul was shipwrecked three times; he spent a day and a night adrift at sea.

So these readings are about the triumph of life, the life of the Lord (I am the way, the truth, and the life) over death. The death is that brought by "the ruler of the world." Jesus, says, the ruler of the world "has no power over me, but the world must know that I love the Father and that I do as the Father has commanded me." We have the details of the Passion to show what pain the world may apply but we have the death and then resurrection of the Lord to show the power of Jesus over death. over the world and the "ruler of the world".

We are reassured by tenderness of the Lord, by His concern: "Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You have heard me tell you, 'I am going away and I will come back to you.'" He has given us the path to eternal life; he assures us of eternal life. We have hope; we hope in the Lord; our hope gives us the way to eternal life.