What do you believe?
John tells us that
his Gospel is written that you might come
to believe and have life in Jesus’ name.
But our journey to belief can be an arduous one. Even after Jesus appears to the disciples in
the upper room when the doors were
locked, and says to them, Peace be
with you, they are still afraid; the doors remain locked until Jesus comes
again the following week to appear to Thomas:
do not be unbelieving, but
believe! Only once the disciples
believe that Jesus is the risen Messiah who has come to save all through his death
and resurrection will they unlock the door and believe that there is, indeed,
nothing to fear anymore. In the Acts of the Apostles, the community bears witness to a shared faith, a shared belief,
and thus to a shared identity in Christ, an identity which allows them to share
all they have: they had everything in common, Luke tells us. They know, as Psalm 118 will foretell, that
Jesus, the stone that the builders
rejected, is their cornerstone, their
strength, their hope, their courage; they can be one body as a result.
And, as the First Letter of John reminds us, faith and love are inseparable. The victory
that conquers the world is our faith, our belief that Jesus is the Son of
God, sent by God as a sacrifice for our sins, who, through his death and
resurrection, has redeemed us and gathered us into that very community
celebrated in Acts. For everyone who believes that Jesus Christ is
Lord is begotten by God: they are the children
of God, ready to embrace the belief in the power of Jesus’ death and
resurrection to heal us, sustain us in God’s love, our life force, the force
that drives us. We need to live inside this creed, this belief, this
faith.
What is the test
of our faith? What do we believe? And how strongly does it work as a driving
force in our lives? Can we discern when
it does and when it doesn’t, when it ebbs and flows? Belief is something we must live, day to day. We can be of
one heart and one mind, as Luke describes.
How? If we believe that Jesus forgives us, we
too must be forgiving -- we must have mercy on others and God showers his divine mercy on us. Faith makes it
possible for us to experience all that life has to offer, but we must be driven
by Christ, driven by his love for all.
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordle.net
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