The experience of the meeting.
In recent years, more and more people have given gifts in the form of a future experience. Aging parents often say that they don’t need anything anymore and that they have everything.
Children are wondering how to surprise them, and in the era of active retirees, there is nothing better than trips or stays in spas. On their old knees, fathers, and mothers can get to know a piece of the world or experience procedures they once perceived as a waste of time or an unnecessary luxury.
We are hunters of experiences. Today, even people in rural areas have several options for spending their free time. In the past, the church was the only meeting place and culture for many. Nowadays, the competition is enormous. People travel a lot, go on trips, and attend cultural, sports, or social events. They always want to experience and hear something new. They want to witness.By the way, testimony. Excellent food can be described royally until our saliva flows. However, nothing compares to its consumption. There is a big difference between telling a tasty morsel and experiencing it personally with all the senses.
There is no match for a witness. His strong emotions will somehow transfer to us if he has experienced and described something well. We will desire, be angry, or Love the same way because we believe in him. The witness motivates us to be brave or to be afraid when necessary. From the words of the witness, we know whether something is worthwhile or not.
When talking about doubts Jesus’s resurrection, everyone thinks of the apostle Thomas, who refused to believe until he had his own experience. Interestingly, the others were no different. They were also afraid, disappointed, and frustrated.
The Risen Lord appeared to them so that they would believe and become witnesses. They would not move forward without this personal encounter with the Risen One. Seeing him alive after death was an experience, not only because they had never seen a man who rose from the dead before. The experience was less to see and touch than the meeting itself.
The Risen Lord was not supposed to be a sensation for anyone, which they could brag about for the rest of their lives, but a foundation of faith, without which nothing in the future would have any meaning.
The apostles talked with him and heard his words and messages so they could be convinced that this Jesus, whom they saw dragging the cross to Golgotha and undoubtedly dying on it, was alive. He is the victor over sin and death, asking those who meet him to bear witness to him, as he said to them: “You shall be my witnesses.”
And they were. Being (almost) the sole bearer of an idea and wanting to convince others about it requires guts and strong motivation. How could these simple people think of spreading the message of Jesus in the world at that time?
After all that, we would instead expect a return home and a desire to forget the fiasco. The gospel’s spread from the beginning is the best proof that they met the resurrected Jesus. And that the meeting was an experience that marked them for the rest of their lives.
Meeting the Undead is not a one-time emotion you smoke off your list of exclusive things you’ve experienced.
I wish we all had such experiences. An encounter with the resurrected Lord that would shake us. This is an experience to be desired and should be given to everyone. It is not a one-time emotion you smoke on the list of exclusive things you have experienced.
Meeting the resurrected Jesus is an experience precisely because he answers all our deepest desires for Love, truth, unity, or goodness. It is optional to know everything or understand everything. Reasonable arguments with logic lose power compared to faith in Christ, overcoming the world and bringing peace.
An internally true and courageous person in such a situation will not find a better solution than to give up and be overcome by Love, which, instead of us, accepted and defeated evil with all its power and in all its forms. This will save us.
I believe that every sincere Christian has met the Risen One, not only in the gift of the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist but also in those rare and unrepeatable moments of perception of God’s presence, which have become for us a supporting wall of nascent hope or joy.
Jesus asked the apostles to witness what they had experienced with him. We believe their testimony and add ours to it. And so, our life full of banalities is also a place of unexpected experiences of meeting the Light when the soul understands and transforms us into witnesses.
A brave witness who is not afraid to come out of himself, not afraid to live. It’s a foretaste of what’s to come—the experience of meeting in eternity so that our life and our joy are complete.
Visitors counter: 208
This entry was posted in
Nezaradené. Bookmark the
permalink.