Robert Barron - Agents of Divine Mercy
Peace be with you. Friends, we are continuing our celebration of the Easter season on this Second Sunday of Easter, Mercy Sunday. Divine mercy. What's mercy? St. Thomas Aquinas says it's compassion in regard to someone else's suffering. So to speak of God's mercy is to say his compassion reaches out to us precisely in our suffering. Now, I want you to keep that in mind as we walk through this extraordinary passage that's our Gospel for this week. It's from the Gospel of John, and it's the account of Jesus appearing, the risen Jesus appearing to his disciples. Look how it begins: "On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews".
Move into that fear for a second. We can forget it, I think, too easily. Jesus has just been brutally put to death in this horrific way. His disciples fled, and we get it. They were afraid for their lives. And there they are cowering because they know the next move of the authorities could well be to track them down, crucify them. They symbolize here, everybody, all of us in our fear. So take whatever it is that frightens you right now. What are you afraid of? In terms of your family or your career or your health or whatever it is. And then move into the space of the disciples. They're locked in fear, unable to move. Well that's all of us to some degree. But despite the locked doors, Jesus came and stood in their midst.
The risen Christ, here's the point everybody, the risen Christ is more powerful than our fear, more powerful than anything that frightens us. That's the good news of Easter, the good news of Christianity. On the cross we looked right in the face of all those things that frighten us, and in the Resurrection we know that God's love is more powerful than any of those. So he breaks through the locked doors of our fear. He said to them, "Peace be with you". Now, behind that "peace be with you" in English is "eirēnē" in the Greek, and behind it from the mouth of Jesus would've come that beautiful word "shalom," which is so central to the Jewish theological and spiritual tradition. Shalom. It means peace, yes, but full flourishing.
It means every type of blessing. Shalom, shalom. It's what God has always wanted to give his people, and Jesus speaks this word to them. But then we hear this, and this is always the coupling we find in these Resurrection narratives: "When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side". In other words, his wounds. Now, this is the combination it's so important to get right, because if it gets out of balance, we're going to miss the spiritual power here. Jesus shows them his wounds. That means he's showing them their own sin. The Lord of life came, and we killed him. That's a basic New Testament insight.
The Lord of life, the Author of life, God came among us. And you'd say, well naturally everybody would be overjoyed, right? Everybody would respond positively. Well, on the contrary. What's he met with? Betrayal, denial, hatred, flight, people at best running away; at worst they're nailing him to a cross. Therefore, in the wounds of Jesus we see our own dysfunction, and that's exceptionally important. If you start living the spiritual life in such a way that you overlook your own sin, you're going to miss it. We are a salvation religion. There's a Savior who's come to save us from something. If you listen to the voice of our culture, which is always exculpating, right? "Oh no, I'm not to blame. Oh no, it's not my fault. It's someone else's fault. It's their fault. No, no, I'm beautiful in every way, right? I'm okay, you're okay; everything with me is fine".
No, no, then you're not going to live a healthy spiritual life. The wounds of Jesus are a reminder, they're a judgment if you want, a judgment on our own sin. But then there's the shalom. Yes, God came and we killed him. That's how off we are, that's how messed up we are, that's how deep our sin is. And as Dostoevsky saw so clearly in "The Brothers Karamazov" and that famous scene of the grand inquisitor, Jesus comes back in our own time and we do the same thing to him. Don't pretend, "Oh, no, no, I'd never do that. I'd never crucify the Lord. I'd respond to him". No, no, no. In the wounds of Jesus, we see our own dysfunction. But then we hear shalom. We killed God but God returned in forgiving love. And that means that nothing can finally separate us from the love of God.
Paul saw that, didn't he? Neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor height nor death nor any other creature could ever separate us from the love of God. This is why; that's how he knows it. Because we killed God, our sins are on full display, and nevertheless we are forgiven. Now remember Thomas Aquinas here. What's mercy? What's mercy? It's God's compassion in regard to those who suffer. See, who are those who suffer but all of us sinners? We see in the wounds of Jesus in a way our own woundedness, our own sin. And in answer to that sin we hear the word shalom. That's the divine mercy. That's the whole of Christianity.
Now watch, everybody, this keeps going, the intensity of this encounter. Put yourself there; you're there in your fear and Christ has come anyway. He's shown your own sin, but he says shalom. Now continue, you're there: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you". And then he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit". He's been sent into the world as an agent of God's mercy. "As the Father sent me," right? "God so loved the world that he sent his only Son". The Father sent the Son into the world as an agent of divine mercy.
Now, the extraordinary truth, everybody, the extraordinary truth is that same Christ breathes on us, that means he gives us the Holy Spirit, and now sends us into the world with the same mission. What if you woke up every day and said, my task today is not primarily to get through school or to get a good job or to make more money or to accomplish some worldly goal? What if you woke up and said, my goal today is to be an agent of the divine mercy, to bring the shalom of God to places where people suffer? There it is, there is the Christian life. There's discipleship. "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained".
Yes, indeed, this is about Christ empowering the priests of his Church to forgive sins in the sacramental sense. That's true, I think. But maybe broaden that out too to apply to any Christian. If there's a sinner there in your life who stands in need of forgiveness and you can be an agent of that forgiveness, well then they're going to receive the shalom of God. You don't offer forgiveness, you don't offer mercy, they're not going to receive it. You see what he's saying is that so much depends upon us. He's entrusting us with this great mission, this great task. You right now in your life, be a bearer of the divine mercy. If you are, people's sins will be forgiven; if you're not, they won't. It's the tremendous privilege and responsibility of all of us in the Church.
Now, just a last, few-minute reflection on the next part of the story, which is about doubting Thomas. And I found over the years of preaching that so many people respond to this story of Thomas. "Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came". And so the other disciples told him, "Hey, the Lord has risen from the dead and he came". Thomas said, "Look, I don't buy it. I don't believe it. Until I put my fingers in the wounds in his hands and my hand in his side, I don't believe it".
Here's a first reflection. How come Thomas didn't believe? Well, because he was outside the Church. What allows us to see and experience the risen Lord? It's our solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the Church. It's staying within the confines of the Church that enables you to sense the Resurrection. So when a week later he's with the Church, okay, now the risen Christ again appears. And he doesn't just upbraid Thomas; he says, "Look, put your fingers in my wounds. Put your hand in my side".
See, again it's the instinct for the wounds. It's the instinct for the wounds. In the wounds of Jesus we see our own sin. So he doesn't discourage Thomas there; he encourages him. I always think here of that marvelous Caravaggio painting that shows Thomas probing the wounds of Jesus. It's so visceral; it's so physical. But that's the proper instinct, and he encourages it. Thomas comes to believe because Jesus also says shalom, "peace be with you". Same rhythm, the wounds followed by the shalom. And with that Thomas gives voice to the greatest confession of faith in the New Testament. He kneels down, that's the sign of worship, and he says, "My Lord and my God"!
People throughout the Gospels have different understandings of Jesus: he's prophet, he's teacher, he's healer, even he's Messiah. But it's Thomas, who probed the wounds of Jesus and heard the shalom, who gives the greatest profession of faith in the Scriptures. So can I say a word there to the doubters out there? If you're like Thomas, maybe he's a patron saint for you, okay, don't give up. But allow that doubt perhaps to lead you to a deeper encounter with Christ. And he gives, greater than any of the Apostles, greater than anybody, the most profound profession of faith. We're afraid, every one of us. I know we are. We're like the disciples in the upper room.
Don't lose heart. Jesus can come through locked doors and windows and walls. He overcomes our fear. And the way he overcomes it, making us confront our sin. Yes, we're not talking here about cheap grace. You come to terms with your sin. If we're a salvation religion, you've got to know there's something you need to be saved from. The wounds of Jesus reveal that. But then the shalom of the risen Christ, that's our redemption. That's our life, that's our salvation, that's our hope. That is the expression of the divine mercy, God's compassion for us precisely in our suffering. That's what this Gospel is meant to make us feel. And God bless you.