5th Sunday of Easter
ACTS 14:20b-26
Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and exhorting them to remain firm in the faith, telling them that it is necessary to endure many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.
In each church, they appointed elders, prayed, fasted, and commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
They passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. They preached in Perga, went down to Attalia, and from there they sailed to Antioch, from where they had been sent, with the grace of God, to the mission they had just completed.
Upon arrival, they gathered the community, recounted what God had done through them, and how He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.
It is fitting to place this reading in its context. Up to this chapter, the Book of Acts has told us, in a first part, about the birth and the first persecutions of the Church, from the Ascension of the Lord to the martyrdom of Stephen.
In a second part, the first missions begin to be recounted, of Philip and Peter, the conversion of Paul, and the baptism of the first pagans. Barnabas and Paul work in the church of Antioch. Thus, we arrive at the third part, in which the church of Antioch, moved by the Spirit, sends Barnabas and Paul on a mission through the nearby cities. The passage we read shows the end of that mission.
As we saw last Sunday, it is very significant that during this mission Barnabas and Paul first preach to the Jews in the cities they visit, but are rejected and extend their preaching to the pagans.
This will provoke a serious controversy in Antioch, because the Christians converted from Judaism demand that the Christians coming from paganism be circumcised and obey the law of Moses. This is what compels Barnabas and Paul to go to Jerusalem to discuss the matter with the Apostles. This will be the theme of the so-called “Council of Jerusalem.”
Thus, the fundamental thesis of the book of Acts is raised: Jesus is not of the Jews, nor preferentially for the Jews; He is for all, and it is not necessary to go through Judaism to adhere to Jesus.
Paul and Barnabas were sent on a mission by the community of Antioch, and upon returning, they give an account of their mission to the same community. A fact repeatedly offered in this book: the community is the protagonist, the one that makes the decisions. A community in which the teachers, the prophets, are servants, not masters.
No one in the Church has yet declared that they have power. Will we ever return to these deep roots of the Church, without money, without power, without social prestige?
REVELATION 21:1-5a
I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying:
– “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And he who was seated on the throne said:
– “Behold, I am making all things new.”
We find ourselves near the end of this mysterious Book, attributed in ancient times to the apostle John, and today rather to one of his disciples’ circle, written, as we know, to comfort Christians already subjected to terrible persecutions.
In this part, seven visions of the battle and the final victory of the Lord are narrated. After the final Judgment, in which Death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire, the new Creation emerges, represented in a Celestial City, which shows the triumph of God and the liberation of the chosen ones from all evil.
It is striking that expressions from the Book of Exodus and Leviticus are repeated almost verbatim: God dwells definitively among men, and this is the cause of the absence of all evil.
It is, like the entire Book, a symbolic vision, not an announcement of what will happen. It does not announce future historical events, but religious realities: the final triumph of the Good, of God, in his Children; the realization of human fullness in God.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.