Dear Reader,
I am on vacation the next couple of weeks so I get a break from preaching (Alleluia!). Thank you for all who have subscribed and/or read my posts on “Substack”—I find it more enjoyable and peaceful than other social media sites. So, I have arranged instead to send out a homily “from the vault” these next weeks from previous years. Have a blessed Easter!
April 18, 2021
St. John the Evangelist, Severna Park, MD
Acts 3:13-15, 17-19; 1 Jn 2:1-5; Lk 24:35-48
The role and responsibility of the Apostles is to be witnesses of Jesus. In Peter’s speech from Acts, at Solomon’s Portico in Jerusalem, he tells the people, “The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.”
To be a Christian is to be a witness. Christians witness Jesus to the world. But the world witnesses Christians. We’re being watched.
You may encounter people who say they want evidence, cold, hard, historical or scientific facts for faith. But I’ll tell you a secret- that’s not really true. Despite what they may say, most people aren’t looking for evidence; they’re looking for a witness. A faithful witness. Belief is only credible when there is a credible witness.
The truth is, belief is hard. It’s hard to believe. Faith is hard. We’re saved by faith, not by works, but it takes hard work to have faith. Faith without community is dead in the water. Love without commitment is dead on the vine.
The closest thing in this world to faith in Jesus, the courage to believe, is marriage. I’m not married; but, from what I’ve witnessed, marriage is the human experience that best approximates what happens when you give your life over to Christ.
It is no accident that Jesus interpreted his own sacrificial death as his wedding vows to the Church, his Bride. “This is my Body, given up for you.” His last words from the Cross: “It is finished,” in Latin, Consummatum est, “it is consummated.”
Choosing to follow Jesus is much like choosing to marry someone; you think you’ve gathered all the evidence to make a vow, but in truth, you haven’t got a clue where that promise will take you. It really doesn’t matter how in love you think you are, how much you think you’ve figured the other person out, got all the “facts,” the decision to profess exclusive love to one human being for the rest of your life is an act of faith, plain and simple.
The marriage preparation program for engaged couples we follow at St. John’s is called Witness to Love. Witness to Love is built on a couple-to-couple mentor model because that’s the kind of model Jesus used to form his disciples. Like the path of marriage, discipleship boils down to training credible witnesses to love.
Being a witness to love, as in a successful marriage, is not, in fact cannot be about predicting the future, a calculated process of determining the outcome ahead of time. It’s by design full of surprises.
Love is a revelation, a mystery of faith that we place in another person. Lovers never stop learning, including things about the other you wish you never knew, which goes to show you don’t choose to marry someone just because you are in love with them, but because you are willing to commit to the adventure of discovering what love is. So, the best possible outcome for a couple is to one day look back on a life and say, “it was hard, but it was love. We are witnesses to that.”
The disciples in our Gospel look back on what happened to Jesus—his life, his death, his Resurrection—learning to re-read their scriptures with Jesus in mind, in order to act as witnesses to the world: whatever just happened to Jesus was difficult to watch, but it was love.
The risen Jesus himself, appearing to the disciples, tells them:
“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”
The risen Jesus seeks a credible witness to his love for the world. A credible witness to love is like the way you have learned to tell the story of how you met your spouse. How many times have you told that story over your life? What makes it real, credible?
When did you fall in love with Jesus? Are you as familiar telling that story as when you met your spouse? How did you know Jesus wasn’t just an idea, a fiction, a pious legend, but the one and only Lord and Savior, the true and faithful friend? The Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton said, “Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.” And as we all know, our world loves love affairs.
The mission of the Church, the community of believers, the Bride of Christ, is to be a witness to love because only love is credible.[1] If you feel ready to witness your love of Jesus, to renew your vows to be his disciple, I invite you to stand:
Dearly beloved, you have come together into the house of the Church, in the presence of the Church’s minister and the community. And so, I ask you to state your intentions: Are you prepared, as you follow the path of Jesus, to love and honor God and one another for as long as you live? [I am].
Then repeat after me:
I, N., take you, Jesus,
to be my God.
I promise to be a faithful witness to you,
in good times and in bad,
in sickness and in health
to love you and to honor you
all the days of my life.[2]
Amen.
[1] See Hans Urs von Balthasar, Love Alone is Credible, trans. D.C. Schindler (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004).
[2] See The Order of Celebrating Matrimony.