Last weekend I went to see the movie “Risen” with Father Frank Portelli, while he was here to preach for ShareLife. This movie presents the story of a Roman centurion who is given the job of guarding Jesus’ body after the crucifixion so that His disciples will not steel it and say that He has risen from the dead. What I found to be really insightful about this film was the way in which Christ’s resurrection changed His disciples and the manner in which he related so intimately with them as His friends.
The first point that the movie makes is that because Jesus has risen from the dead, His disciples no longer fear death for themselves. They know that because Jesus has truly risen, even if they die as He died, they will rise with Him from the dead. Christ’s resurrection has destroyed death forever. This is an important point in the movie “Risen,” because if Jesus’ disciples had simply stolen His body, they would have no reason not to be afraid of dying. It is only because their friend had risen from the dead and shown them what the resurrection would mean for them that they were not afraid to die themselves. It will be important for us to remember this same joy in the Easter Season when we will read about the transformation that takes place in the disciples as they go from being afraid of the Romans to a courageous group of witnesses who travel the world and are ready to die because of their confidence that Jesus will raise them from the dead.
The second important point that I came away with from this movie was with a sense of the beautiful friendship that Jesus enjoyed with His disciples. As Jesus appears to His disciples after His resurrection, they demonstrate a tremendous joy at being re-united with their friend. In each scene, Jesus is shown hugging His friends, sitting closely with them at table and showing them the wounds of His crucifixion. As the disciples encounter the resurrected Jesus, they speak openly with Jesus, ask Him questions and share their lives with Him. The movie did a beautiful job of portraying what a close friendship Jesus had with His disciples and how closely He desired to relate to them and to be a part of their lives.
The intimacy with which Jesus related to His disciples in this movie struck me because of a conversation which developed in the parish’s Alpha group a few weeks ago. That evening the discussion of the meeting was on the personal relationship that we are each called to have with God. Many people who were attending the Alpha group indicated that they found the idea of speaking directly to God in a personal way to be very difficult. They had said that they were used to thinking of God as a judge who was waiting to condemn them or as a high power to whom they owed prayers and from whom they might make deals in exchange for prayers said and good behavior. Some within the group said that they found it very difficult to accept that God desired to have an intimate relationship with each of us.
The fact that God has a desire to be in a personal relationship with us is a fact seen throughout the scriptures. At the time of creation, God dwelt with Adam and Eve and speaks directly with them. After the fall, when Adam and Eve turned their backs on God, He is constantly trying to re-establish Himself in relationship with His people. Today’s first reading from the Book of Exodus presents us with an important stage in God’s efforts to re-establish His people in relationship with Himself. God speaks to Moses from the burning bush and calls Moses to follow Him. In this encounter, God reveals His name to Moses and Moses openly asks questions of God and about what manner God expects him to follow. This intimate encounter which Moses has with God in the burning bush is so sacred that God invites Moses to take off his shoes as he is standing in the presence of the sacred.
In this encounter we learn some important things about the way in which God wishes to relate to each of us. God tells Moses His name so that we and Moses might speak with God and call upon Him. Moses questions God and struggles to understand God’s presence in His life and what God is asking of him. The conversations that we see people like Moses, Abraham, Noah and the other great figures having with God in the Old Testament are not just recorded in scripture to convey certain facts; they are also intended to show us the way in which we can relate to God. They are a preparation for the coming of Christ, so that all people might have an idea of how to relate to God and speak with Him. As St. Paul tells us in today’s second reading, these things were written down to serve as an example and instruct us about Him who would come in the fullness of ages.
All of God’s conversations with the Jewish people in the Old Testament were intended as a preparation for the coming of Christ. Once Christ has come, God will no longer speak to us through a burning bush, but directly through His Son. For those who knew Jesus directly, the conversation was face to face. For those of us who live now, after the time of the resurrection, Jesus will now speak to each of us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus came among us to be our friend and our companion as we journey through life. We are to speak to Him as a loving friend. He is a friend who is at our side through good times and through bad times. His promise to us is not that we will not know difficulties in this life, but that He will raise us up with Him no matter what we suffer in life. In the movie “Risen,” Jesus dies. His disciples know that they might die like Him at the hands of the Romans for being His witnesses. In the midst of these difficulties, their joy comes from knowing that He is with them no matter what happens and their certainty that He will raise them up.
There tends to be in all of us a rather simplistic view of the world. This view comes from our childhood when we were rewarded if we were good and punished if we were bad. Like those who come to Jesus in today’s Gospel, we think that good and evil happen because God is rewarding and punishing people. We miss the fact that good and evil often happen because humans choose to act in a certain way or cling to life in a selfish manner. All of us are going to have to face the reality of our finite existence. If we do not do so with God at our side, we will see our passing from this world to God, and the passing of our loved ones, as some kind of great depravation or evil. Jesus has come to be with us and by His resurrection sends the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. The season of Lent is a privileged season of God’s patience by which he gives us another year to grow in our awareness of His presence with us. This Lent is a privileged time to understand what it means that Christ has been raised from the dead.
So what does it mean?
The fact that Jesus came among us means that He came to have a personal relationship with each one of us. By His life, death and resurrection, He has destroyed death and ascended to His Father in Heaven. From there He sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts. Through our baptisms, Jesus shares His life with us. In the Church, and through the sacraments, Jesus continues to share His life with us through the power of the Holy Spirit. At each celebration of the Eucharist, Jesus shows us how closely He desires to live with us as His word enters our ears and His body and blood enter our bodies. By the power of the Holy Spirit, God enters into our lives. As Christians, our sacred point of encounter with God is no longer out there, as it was for Moses in the burning bush. For us as Christians, the sacred point of encounter is with God in our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are to speak with God in the secret of our hearts, calling upon Him as our friend, counsellor, Jesus, Father, Creator and Lord. This Lent invites us to give up the God who only speaks to us in the distance in the fire of a burning bush. That was the God who spoke in the Old Testament to prepare us to encounter Him in our hearts. As we prepare to celebrate Christ’s resurrection and the New Testament of Easter, let us open our hearts to the God who wishes to speak to us and be with us through the fire of the Holy Spirit in the intimacy of our hearts as our friend, Saviour and Father.
Fr. Michael McGourty
Pastor, St. Peter’s—Toronto
