April 15: Third Sunday of Easter

Being witnesses to the nations

Acts 3:13-15, 17-19; Ps 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9; 1 Jn 2:1-5a; Lk 24:35-48

“All roads lead to Rome” is a medieval proverb meant to convey that ultimately everything converges and ends up in the same spot.  

A somewhat different perspective recurs in the Gospel of Luke and in the Acts of the Apostles — readings that fill much of our Easter season, as is true of this Sunday. Luke’s proverb, if you like, goes in a different direction. Everything “begins with Jerusalem” and spreads out to “all nations” — even to the “ends of the earth.”  

These are the words of the Risen Jesus to his disciples in his final appearance to them in Luke’s Gospel: “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are the witnesses of these things.”

Luke’s entire two-volume work — the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles — moves in this outward direction. From the outset Luke shows that Jesus emerges from the heart of Judaism, surrounded at his birth by beautiful examples of Jewish faith: Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zachary, Anna and Simeon. 

The infant Jesus is brought to the Jerusalem temple and there received with joy and faith. “Now my eyes have seen your salvation,” Simeon declares, holding in his arms the infant Jesus. It would be to Israel, God’s people, that Jesus first directs his mission of healing and teaching. In Jerusalem his life begins and in Jerusalem he would suffer crucifixion, resurrection and ascension.  

Of course, as we have been celebrating these weeks, the story does not end there. Propelled by the power of the Spirit sent by Jesus, the men and women of the early church would bring the good news of God’s forgiving love to the wide world. Just as Jesus in his lifetime reached out to those on the margins, and from the moment of his first sermon in the synagogue of Nazareth called for justice for the poor, so his disciples would be challenged to reach out to those beyond the boundaries of Israel, bringing healing and justice.  

The Acts of the Apostles charts the ever-widening circle of the Christian community in the Mediterranean world — Jerusalem to Samaria to Gaza to Antioch to Asia Minor to Greece and onto Rome and beyond. 

This is a familiar story but its implications pose a sharp challenge for us as Christians today. The dynamics of the church are to be both centripetal and centrifugal. Centripetal, that is, concerned about building up the cohesion of our common life and identity as Christians: caring for each other; supporting each other; striving to make our parishes and our communities vibrant and strong. But we are also to be centrifugal, that is, not turned in on ourselves, but reaching out with compassion and a spirit of hospitality and justice to the world around us.  

If anything, the Easter readings push harder on the need to reach out — to turn our attention to the “nations” rather than simply to focus on ourselves and our needs. 

Here, it seems to me, is where our deepest Christian instincts run against the grain of powerful forces in our culture and in our political life, not just in the United States but in many other countries as well. We speak of “America first” and find ourselves, even as a nation of immigrants, struggling to strike a balance in welcoming refugees to our shores. 

When we experience the need for economic restraint in our national life, the first to feel the brunt are those most vulnerable. Some of our political rhetoric caricatures people who strike us as different in race and economic class and nationality. 

Concern about this cannot be reduced to a partisan issue. There are a variety of ways thoughtful people can tackle society’s authentic needs. But the dynamic force of Jesus and his Gospel propels us outward beyond ourselves and only our concerns, to be witnesses to the nations.