FAITH IN HIS REAL PRESENCE

EASTER WEDNESDAY   

Acts 3:1-10; Ps 105:1-4,6-9; Lk 24:13-35

The Real Presence of The Risen Lord

The crucifixion of the Son of Man formally ended the fulfilment of the promise God made to Abraham that pertains to his children according to the flesh. We have highlighted this fact in our previous reflection. The exclusive mission of the Word to the physical descendants of Abraham that inherited his promise is intended to act as a physical or visible foundation for the universal mission of the Word to all peoples that formally commenced with the resurrection of the Son of Man. Hence, we have seen that all who had encounter or will have encounter with the Risen Lord must possess the gift of faith. Without faith, the Son of Man would appear to us as any other Jew. But once a person exercises faith, he or she sees the Risen Lord. The Risen Lord is not limited by space or time, which makes him present to every soul that longs in faith to encounter him. This is the answer to the prayer he said to the Father before his passion, that God the Father would grant him the glory he shared with him from the beginning. In other words, that the Father may grant that his human nature may enter the divine glory, which would make it available or present to all who seek the Father through him. To be ubiquitous belongs to God alone. So, to be present to all who believe in the word of God and seek an intimate relationship with God means the divinization of the Son of Man.

The implication of this understanding is that God is now formally in our nature and our nature is also formally in God. Each of us who shares the same nature with him has express access to God through faith in Jesus Christ. This truth is well explicated by the letter to the Hebrews 10:19. The only inhibition is our lack of faith in Jesus Christ. This is a mystery we cannot completely comprehend here on earth. We read of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. “Two of the disciples of Jesus were on their way to a village call Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking together about all that had happened. Now as they talked this over, Jesus himself came up and walked by their side; but something prevented them from recognising him.” These two believed in Jesus Christ, for they were disciples. But they closed their minds to the definitive information about his resurrection. Without faith in the resurrection of the Son of Man, one cannot enter his real presence, which makes us Christians. He therefore came physically to open their minds to believe. After illuminating their minds with the light of the word of God, he represented his real presence to them. “Now, while he was with them at table, he took the bread and said the blessing; then he broke it and handed it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognised him; but he had vanished from their sight.” He vanished from their sight by removing the physical form he used for his completed mission to the Jews; he remains with them now in his real presence.

The Risen Lord took some time to help his disciples make this transition from the way they knew him before to the spiritual form in which he now exists after his resurrection. Saint Paul emphasised the need to make this switch in his second letter to the Corinthians 5:16: “So from now on we regard no one from a physical point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.” This means that faith transforms us and gives us a new sight with which we see Jesus Christ, every other person, and things in God. The Holy Spirit we received at our profession of faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ begins this transformation within us. Saints Peter and John experienced this transformation, enabling them to see Jesus Christ always with them, and they understood what they could do to help the crippled beggar at the Temple gate. “Both Peter and John looked straight at him and said, ‘Look at us.’ He looked at them expectantly, hoping to get something from them, but Peter said, ‘I have neither silver nor gold, but I will give you what I have: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, walk!’” Faith enriches us in every ramification, but more in our spiritual possession.

Let us pray: O God, who gladden us year by year with the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection, graciously grant, that, by celebrating these present festivities, we may merit through them to reach eternal joys. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.