Back to the Future

April 27, 2025

This is the first Sunday after Easter and all three readings reflect on the theme of a new kind of life, a new kind of future, that the world is entering into because of Jesus. The Gospel tells us of the new or resurrected life of Jesus, and how it impacts his disciples. The first reading tells us of the new kind of community that the Apostles subsequently went out and built up. And finally the second reading from the Book of Revelation, speaking in overtly symbolic language, tells us of the new kinds of sufferings that Christians are facing and/or will face and of the new future that will come about.

But what exactly was this  newness that Jesus brought in,  that in his time and in his milieu were so radically different that they so dramatically changed his followers and inspired them enough to be willing to die for him? And yet, at the same time so revolutionary that it created such antagonism among the contemporary religious establishment that they felt he was such a great danger that they needed to kill him off. Let me clarify here that I do not feel the need to insist that Jesus was unique or that he was ‘better’ than any other religious genius found in other times and other places, but there were certainly aspects of a new way of living that he brought in, that were paradigm-shattering for his time and his milieu. 

First, Jesus, like the Buddha before him, completely shifted the focus of religion away from ‘satisfying’ the divinity, to a focus on making human lives better. While the Buddha focussed on overcoming sorrow  (a constant reality for all human beings)  through overcoming desire, Jesus focused on bringing about the kingdom in this world and the next through love of neighbour (Mathew 22:39) and even of our enemies (Mathew 5:38-48) . And towards this end he swept away the rules of purity that powerfully control all worship in many religions (Mark 7:15 etc.); he undermined the importance of  places of worship that seems to be the staple of all religions (John 4:19-23), and even downplayed the laws embedded in the scriptures  (Luke 13:15-16 etc.). According to Jesus, while all these did have value, they were always to be secondary to the needs of other human beings, to the justice and mercy we must bring to our neighbour (Mathew 23:23). This was not all.  He insisted that the true leader was not the one who was served or was obeyed by others, but the one who washes the feet of others (which was a slave’s job) (John 13:14-15), and even gives his life for others (Mathew 20:28).   Again he  completely challenged the notion that God rewards those who are faithful to him and punishes those who transgressed his law, when he showed that even he, the loved son of the Father, ended up suffering and dying on a cross. 

But unfortunately for most of us who have grown up as Christians, and who have heard these things so routinely, the phrase ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ seems to have come true, for these teachings do not strike a note of newness in our own lives.  In contrast when Gandhi, an avowed Hindu read the Sermon on the mount, he said: “When I read in the Sermon on the Mount such passages as 'Resist not him that is evil but whosoever smiteth thee on the right cheek turn to him the other also,' and 'love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you, that he may be sons of your father which is in heaven.' I was simply overjoyed”  So, not only were Jesus’ teachings revolutionary for its time, it would seem that they are radical even now. In fact when looking at the life and works of  Pope Francis, whom we mourn today,  a Hindu admirer wrote about him that he "chose love over doctrine…. compassion over judgment. …. walked with the poor, … knelt before the discarded. … challenged the powerful, not with anger, but with moral courage. …(and) made kindness radical again”. That is almost exactly what Jesus did and it is surprising that living the Jesus way can be radical even in today’s milieu because it would seem that Pope Francis, like Jesus, also deeply upsets those of the Catholic Church's religious establishment who prefer the status quo, - despite the ironic fact that he himself was the head of this same religious establishment.  

Going forward are these teachings going to be outdated? Today, we are on the cusp of a new world that because of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to be very different from the world we have known. For instance, we humans take pride in our intelligence, something that we thought distinguished us from all other living beings on earth, and now suddenly there are creations of ours which are more intelligent than us.  In fact, as we ourselves become more and more machine-like  (with artificial eyes, limbs, ears, parts of our brain being replaced or enhanced in artificial ways etc.),  these creations of ours powered by AI might become self generative and creative, and even have feelings, and all the rest  that we consider as essential to being human, so that at some point there may not even be a clear line between human and machine.   

In such a mind-shattering scenario, where we really don’t know the end point, when I ask myself what I would like to safeguard and preserve for the future, for our children and grandchildren, I find I can only go back to the radical newness that Jesus brought into the world of his time, - the love of neighbour through justice and mercy, the love of enemies and the refusal to retaliate against evil with evil, the practice of the leader being servant, the need to downplay the rules of purity that always tend to exclude people on some ground or other, the refusal to condone or support any kind of worship that takes precedence over this care for the neighbour, - and pray that these things which were radical in Jesus’s time, radical even today, would be safeguarded and carried over into whatever the future brings. 

And finally we need to ask ourselves the question: What is it in Jesus' teachings and life that has really brought about a radical newness in our own lives?

First Reading: Acts 5: 12-16

Now many signs and wonders were done among the people through the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. None of the rest dared to join them, but the people held them in high esteem.  Yet more than ever believers were added to the Lord, great numbers of both men and women,  so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by.  A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all cured.

Second Reading: Revelation 1: 9-11a, 12-13, 17-19

I, John, your brother who share with you the persecution and the kingdom and the endurance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest.  His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire;  his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last and the Living One. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.  Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this.

Gospel: John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”  Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”  Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”