OUR HOPE IN RESURRECTION


FRIDAY, SECOND WEEK OF EASTERTIDE   

Acts 5:34-42; Ps 27:1,4,13-14; Jn 6:1-15

Our Participation in His Cup

The Son of Man is heavenly and earthly constituted and speaks our earthly language as a means of communicating his heavenly truths. What he communicates through the human language are heavenly truths he learnt from the Father for our salvation. Though he shares our weakness by his communion with us in our nature, he faithfully communicates the mind of the Father to us without any error. His faithful obedience to the Father is the basis of his passion and death. He faithfully endured suffering and death to fulfil the word of God that pronounced judgment on Adam and Eve after their disobedience. The faithfulness of the Son of Man proved his unity with the Eternal Word. Thus, united with the Word, his human nature is seen to belong to the Word that is immortal and invincible. The Eternal Word, which is shown to be the heavenly component of the Son of Man, raised his human nature to life again. Every human person who is also united in faith with the Son of Man will share the same resurrection. Their faith connects or links them to the humanity of the Son of Man, who is united to the Eternal Word in the Person of the Son of God. Hence, the resurrection of the saints is linked to the resurrection of Jesus Christ as parts of a chain are linked to the head; drawing the head of the chain necessarily draws all the parts.

What we have explained with respect to the resurrection of the saints and that of the Son of Man applies even in our daily living. It is in our daily lives that the bond connecting us to the Son of Man is forged through faithfulness to his Gospel. As Scripture confirms that the Son of Man learnt obedience through suffering (Heb 5:8-9), we learn obedience by remaining faithful through daily trials and difficulties. Just as the world recognised and acknowledged that the Son of Man is the Eternal Word, and came from the Father through his passion and death, the world recognises the Christians as possessing the company of Jesus Christ, and, therefore, Jesus Christ, through their faithfulness to the Gospel. This was the cause of the great rejoicing of the disciples after they were flogged. “They had the apostles called in, gave orders for them to be flogged, warned them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and released them. And so they left the presence of the Sanhedrin glad to have had the honour of suffering humiliation for the sake of the name.” Our strength in every adversity lies in our faithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So, our prayerful attention on the Son of Man is even more necessary than life itself, for it is the principle of both our natural and spiritual lives. Gamaliel’s advice is based on this deep insight. “If this enterprise, this movement of theirs, is of human origin, it will break up of its own accord; but if it does in fact come from God, you will not only be unable to destroy them, but you might find yourselves fighting against God.”

Just as the Jews crucified the Son of Man, and he rose as the Son of God, the killing of a Christian will cause him to rise as Jesus Christ. The innermost desire of man to live united with God is what the psalmist expresses: “There is one thing I ask of the Lord, for this I long, to live in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life, to savour the sweetness of the Lord, to behold his temple.” God put this desire within us as the foundation of the indwelling of His Word within us, which is the cause of the union we speak of above. The Son of Man demonstrates that the word of God is spiritual food for man by feeding the crowd of five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. “Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and gave them out to all who were sitting ready; he then did the same with the fish, giving out as much as was wanted. When they had eaten enough, he said to the disciples, ‘Pick up the pieces left over, so that nothing gets wasted.’ So they picked them up, and filled twelve hampers with scraps left over from the meal of five barley loaves.” The miracle was a demonstration of the sufficiency of the word of God for our temporal and spiritual needs. When we keep the company of the Son of Man, nothing can break or destroy us; even sin and death, for we share his resurrection.

Let us pray: O God, hope and light of the sincere, we humbly entreat you to dispose our hearts to offer you worthy prayer and ever extol you by dutiful proclamation of your praise. 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. 

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