Sunday Homily for 4th Sunday of Easter year A - 30 April 2023

 

Three weeks ago we celebrated Easter and if you were at the Easter Vigil mass then you would have noticed that in the liturgy there was a moment when we all stood with lighted candles in our hands and renewed our baptismal promises.

The celebrant began by saying “Dear brothers and sisters, through the Paschal Mystery we have been buried with Christ in Baptism, so that we may walk with him in newness of life.

And then he asks:

Do you renounce Satan and all his works and all his empty show?? Do you renounce sin, so as to live in the freedom of the children of God? Do you renounce the lure of evil, so that sin may have no mastery over you?

On this fourth Sunday of Easter Year A the first reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles highlights a very important aspect of our Christian Life - Baptism and our turning to God.

In the reading, we see the beginnings of the first mass conversion movement in Christian history. Filled with the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter preaches to the people. There are two main elements in his preaching. First, the exhortation to repent and second to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.

Slavery and freedom are parallel to death and life. Resurrection overcomes and overwhelms death and slavery. And therefore, through baptism in Jesus Christ, we too walk with him in the newness of life. And what does this newness of life involve? It involves the complete renouncing of Satan and evil in our lives. The experience of the risen Lord requires a change of heart, mind and lifestyle.

Peter declares that the Holy Spirit is promised to all whom God calls— it was not a special gift only for the original community or its leaders — the Spirit will be given to all those who become part of the church.

We also see that Christian Salvation has a communitarian aspect. Three thousand souls were “added” to the community. As many of us were baptised as infants sometimes we are not able to completely appreciate the significance of baptism in our life. Baptism gives us a new identity. Through baptism, we are united to Christ and his work. We are incorporated in Christ’s body on earth, the Church; God accepts us and makes us his own - Baptism is the beginning of acquiring the fullness of life in Christ.

The second reading taken from the First Letter of Peter addresses the theme of unjust suffering and exhorts Christians to do what is right even if it brings suffering. Early Christianity did not see the inherent social evil of slavery. It instructed the Christians to accept authority with reverence because of their consciousness of God. It was considered a credit to endure unjust suffering. This suffering should not be the consequence of one’s own mistakes. But if one has to undergo suffering despite doing what is right, then that person has God’s approval. By doing so, a Christian is only following the example set by Jesus Christ whose action is described here by quoting a hymn from Is 53:4-12. When he was abused, he did not abuse and when he suffered he did not threaten others but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. Further, Jesus bore the sins of humans in his body on the cross so that the humans might live for righteousness. By his wounds, the Christians have been healed. How do we respond when life is not fair? There are times when we can do good and suffer for it. Being a Christian will not exempt us from these times. The Christian life only makes sense in light of the suffering of Christ.

In the gospel taken from John, the focus is on Jesus as the door or gate of the sheepfold. For a majority of the viewers who are staying in cities, the imagery of sheep and shepherds will be difficult to relate with. Hence, I’d like to use a more familiar image, that of a small child. How does a child react when he/she sees a new person or is called by a stranger? The natural reaction is one of fear and discomfort. The small child would not want to be held by a stranger but would instead look for comfort in the arms of the parents. Similarly, the sheep, that’s us know the voice of the shepherd- Jesus and the shepherd leads the sheep to pasture.

There is a difficulty, however. The voice of the shepherd is not the only voice that one hears. There is also the voice of the thief or wolves who seek to harm the sheep. In our lives as well, the voice of Jesus is not the only voice we hear. Many times the voice of the people around us, the voice of the difficult situation around us, the voice of our weaknesses and temptations are louder than the voice of Jesus. And therefore, life becomes challenging. Don’t we warn small children by saying do not accept any sweets from strangers? The same is true for us as well – we must not accept the false joys and pleasures that are promised to us by all these voices that surround us.

So how does one listen to the voice of God amid all these different voices? Picture two people in love – they spend hours on the phone, they go everywhere together, they have meals together and practically spend all of the possible free time thinking about each other. And if they can keep the relationship going for some time, very soon they will instinctively know what the other person is thinking and what that person is going to say before they even say it. It's something similar when we consider our relationship with God. The more time we spend with God, the closer we are to God the clearer we would know his voice. Out of the 24 hours in a day, how much time do you spend with God?

The function of the gate is to keep the sheep safe from thieves and predators and the shepherd helps the sheep to find pasture. Jesus is both the gate and the shepherd at the same time; he guards and protects his sheep from danger, and he provides for their nourishment, for their life in abundance.

During this week let us ask for the grace to be able to spend a little more time each day in silence, prayer and service to grow closer to God and be able to hear the voice of God more clearly in our day-to-day life. We also need to grow more aware of the voices of the wolves and thieves in our lives – those who are more concerned about their own well-being than ours. Let us live out our baptismal promises daily and experience the abundance of life that the gospel promises us. May God bless us all.