May 1, 2022 – Third Sunday of Easter

Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050122.cfm)

To be a credible witness, one must have a hands-on experience of the incident. For a witness to be reliable, one must have a personal encounter & experience of what was going on & had happened as the event unfolds. In the same way, knowing movie stars on scene is far different from knowing them in person or knowing them personally.

Our readings today are all about personal witnessing & being personal witness.

People in our first reading in the Acts of the Apostles believed not only because of what Peter & John preached & proclaimed about the risen Lord Jesus Christ, whom they condemned & crucified in death but also because they themselves saw for themselves the cured lame man & the miracle happened to him. People repented & believed because they personally witnessed for themselves God’s miracle, as witnessed by the apostles in curing the lame man happened right in front of them. And as the people became witnesses to these events, it has caused deep commotions, distressed & above all conversion to community of Sanhedrin & Jewish community.

In the same way in our gospel today, the disciples came to believe because they themselves personally experienced the risen Lord appeared before them. It is the Lord in person, who showed himself to them – with His wounds, hungry for food, & whom they fed & listened to anew to His message & challenge of faith, repentance & discipleship. Because of their first & hands-on experience of the risen Lord in person, they are now as Peter proclaims: “Witnesses of all these things”. The people & the disciples believe because they witness in person for themselves & now become as personal believers and witnesses of our risen Lord Jesus Christ.

We cannot give what we do not have. We can only share what we have. In the same way, we cannot be credible witnesses if we have not witnessed for ourselves personally the revelations of the Lord’s presence in our daily lives now.

By their experience of Jesus in the Last Supper of bread & wine, & encounter of the risen Lord Jesus Christ in the first breakfast of bread & fishes, the apostles now became sincere believers & devoted witnesses of the Lord’s resurrection to people. By their personal encounter of the risen Lord, the apostles once again & anew heard the Lord’s call: “Follow me”, that inspired them to proclaim the Good news to the whole world at all times.

Same way as the witness & witnessing of the apostles, people came to believe in the risen Lord, so also, by the testimony of our personal faith-witness & witnessing now of our faith, other people in effect will also believe & experience for themselves the risen Lord in our lives today.

We now are witnesses of the Lord’s resurrection to the world. Since we are gifted now with the witness & faith in the risen Lord, we are now proclaimers & sharers of God’s salvation through the life & resurrection of our risen Lord Jesus Christ in our world today at all times & seasons – whether ordinary, pandemic, or new normal moments of our lives.

May these Easter Season make us more aware of the appearances & revelations of our risen Lord in our lives now, so that we may share anew His messages & graces to our world today, especially during these pandemic times. So Help Us God. So May it Be. Amen.