4th Sunday of Easter
Thieves, robbers, wolves, strangers with strange voices. Creatures of malice and deceit, trying to steal the Lord's sheep from his sheepfold. It's nothing new. It's been going on since the beginning. How the wolves and robbers attack the flock differs from age to age. But their intent is the same: the destruction of the flock. Early on, it was the Judaizers, demanding that Gentiles be circumcised before being baptized. There were dozens of Gnostic sects – exclusive, expensive, occult – that appealed to the elite social class in the Church. More recently, the flock has been attacked by wolves pushing their death-cult ideologies – abortion rights up-to-birth, transgenderism, neo-pagan eco-terrorism, and, of course, the ever pervasive and pernicious Wokeism that's metastasizing through our institutions. It's nothing new. In it's essentials, none of this is new. It's all just the Serpent's Lie using updated vocabulary. Jesus says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved...A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” So, how do we enter through the gate of Christ?
Peter and the Eleven tell us. Preaching to the crowds in Jerusalem – this is on the day of Pentecost – Peter proclaims, “Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made [this Jesus whom you crucified] both Lord and Christ.” The text tells us that when the crowd hears this proclamation “they [are] cut to the heart,” meaning the truth Peter speaks slices through their hesitation, their fear, their worry, all of those years of religious indoctrination; everything and anything that pads their consciences from feeling the full force of God's Truth. Their next question is obvious: “What are we to do, my brothers?” Peter's answer is simplicity itself: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you […] and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” How do we enter through the Gate of Christ? “Repent and be baptized...” How do we re-enter the Gate of Christ if we have allowed ourselves to be deceived by a wolf in sheep's clothing? Repent. How do we re-enter if we have abandoned the flock through serious sin? Repent. How do we become a sheep again if we ourselves chose to be a wolf among the lambs? Repent. The Good Shepherd's voice never changes, never wavers, never speaks an untrue word. So long as we have ears to hear, we are welcomed back through the Gate of Christ in repentance.
Repentance – turning around and running back to Christ – is how we answer the wolves that try to seduce us. Peter preaches: “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” The generation he's warning us about is every generation from the birth of Jesus to the Second Coming. Any generation a Christian has lived in, is living in, or will be living in is a corrupt generation. It is the nature of the world to be corrupt. From this we might conclude that it is better for us that we run to the hills and live in caves until the End. That's not our mission. Our mission is to sanctify the world not abandon it. We're charged with preaching and teaching the Good News of Jesus Christ to every nation. We can't do that if we're hold up in a bunker or running scared from the agents of the Enemy. Nor can we complete our mission if we see those agents themselves as the Enemy. They aren't. We cannot confuse the advocates of evil with Evil Itself. Those advocates can repent. Evil cannot. Our charitable witness can “cut to the heart” of persons who do evil. Our mission is to bear witness to them – in the way we live our lives – to the divine mercy we ourselves have received. They can still hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. As sinners ourselves, we are tasked with being Christ's hearing aids!
I know the temptation well. We want to fight. We want to conquer; we want to prevail, achieve a final victory over the enemies of the Church. That's not the goal of the Church in this age. Christ won the last victory on the Cross. From all eternity, the Enemy is defeated. And he knows this. He wants to take as many as he can down with him. Our mission as a Church is to be the sacrament of reconciliation and mercy in the Enemy's world. Our mission is to remain steadfast in the flock while going out into the world to show the wolves that we are free. To show the wolves that they are the ones chained to misery, deceit, and temporary power. Our mission is to show them that death is defeated. That sin is self-chosen-defeat. That this world is both beautiful and passing. And that coming to Christ, coming back to Christ is always an option. Ask yourself this: am I speaking, acting, thinking like a shepherd looking for the Lord's lost sheep? If not, maybe it's time to repent. It's time to turn around and start over...again.
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