Let's Not Be Found Trying To Fight God! Series

Friday of the Second Week in Easter Season 2025

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear?” The words of the psalmist are woven into both of our NT readings today. St. Luke and St. John tell the story for us to hear and believe, and the psalmist gives us the words for all of us to use in celebration of the Lord’s light and saving action. And remember, for a first-century Jew, the works of the Lord he was familiar with from Torah and the rest of the OT were not “one and done” historical events, but acts in a drama that began long before he was born, were made present in his day, and would continue going on long after he was gone.

That’s why the key line in this wonderful song-poem tells us “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living!” Because that’s all the Israelites ever saw when they cooperated with God by keeping Torah.

In the life of Jesus on earth, there must have been three or four scenes like what we see in John chapter 6. As He moved through Galilee, and later Judea, “a multitude followed him, because they saw the signs which he did on those who were diseased.” They listened to His teaching, which was a fulfillment of the teachings of Moses during the sojourn in the desert many centuries earlier. Here in John 6, He sat down with His core disciples and noted the approach of Passover. That feast was associated with the escape from slavery in Egypt and featured the eating of unleavened bread. Jesus asked Philip how they would feed the huge throng that were sitting down around them. Philip estimated that it would take over a half year’s common earnings just to give them each a little food. But Jesus blessed the five loaves and two fish contributed by a young follower, and after the distribution and meal for five thousand men and probably eight thousand women and children, the disciples gathered twelve baskets of left-overs. Yes, Jesus confronted and overcame the Law of Conservation of Mass. He is the new and improved Moses for the Israelites.

We then look back to the first reading, which is a jump forward from John 6 to the time when the apostles were following Christ’s command to go out and spread the good news and baptize the world. From the last few days’ Scriptures, we recall that all this transpired after Peter called on Christ to heal a man unable to walk. The man was walking and leaping around like some Isaian dream, and the Temple cops arrested Peter and John and hauled them before the Sanhedrin. The chief Jews could not come up with a valid accusation and were going to trump up a charge and kill these early followers of the Way of Jesus when Reb Gamaliel called a time-out. He’s speaking today and using evidence from recent history to encourage his fellows to let the apostles go. All authorities tempted to persecute evangelists need to memorize Gamaliel’s words: “if this plan or this undertaking is of men, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!" Let’s all tell those we know, and even those we don’t know, about the amazing love of Jesus Christ and the wonderful graces He has left to be administered sacramentally by His Church. Amen.