By Most Rev Prakash Mallavarapu
Archbishop of Visakhapatnam
The Mystery of Incarnation and the Mystery of salvation being unfolded in this Jesus of Nazareth had to be grasped through a gradual growth of knowledge and understanding, something new they were seeing and hearing in Him.
On all the three occasions of the prediction of His suffering, death and resurrection, the evangelists recorded for us about the lack of their understanding: Just after the confession that Jesus was the Messiah, St. Peter rebukes the Master speaking about his passion, death and resurrection, “And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him” ( Mk 8:32b); as Jesus and the apostles, Peter, James and John, came down the mountain after transfiguration Jesus speaks of his suffering, death, and resurrection and it is said, “They kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead mean” (Mk 9: 10). Here, as members of the believing community should try to find out whether we have understood or do we try to understand the mystery of the suffering, death, and resurrection to the point of being influenced by this mystery.
In order to transcend the bodily sphere of life and live for something higher and nobler, to strive for something that is lasting, the eternal life. Caught up in the mesh of formalism and repeatedly doing things as part of the tradition which we have inherited, living our discipleship with readiness and pay the cost of discipleship can be difficult.
Accepting the Cross and death in order to find life and so enter the glory is what Our Lord is asking of those who want to be or claiming to be his disciples! The Apostles and a large number of early Christians influenced and empowered in their encounter with the Risen Christ, emerged and became ‘bold and courageous witnesses, prepared to live, to suffer and die for the Lord and for His Good news of the kingdom.
Renewed Faith and hope found in the encounter with the Risen Christ: Whenever our Lord spoke to the apostles about the suffering and death that are going to come He said also about rising on the third day: suffer, die, and rise, cross and death to glory! Lost as they were in confusion and uncertainty after the passion and death of their Master, the apostles lived in fear and anxiety not knowing about what to do or whom to turn to. They were even more shocked when the women who visited the tomb at dawn of the third day came with the news of the empty tomb. But, when the Risen Christ appeared, showed his wounds spoke and ate with them, a gradual but a definitive way, they realized that their Lord and Master is alive and they were filled with joy!
Scriptures tell us that only after the descent of the Holy Spirit they came into the open to admit that they believed in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah whom the People of Israel were waiting for: “we are His Witnesses” (Acts 5:32). Our Lenten observance and Easter celebrations is all about this call to a deeper understanding of the mystery of death and resurrection of Christ and a call to experience the Risen Christ, who passed from death to life.
Continued tomorrow