20260409 THE RESURRECTION ESTABLISHED JESUS AS THE CHRIST
09 April 2026, Easter Thursday
First reading | Acts 3:11-26 |
You killed the prince of life: God, however, raised him from the dead
Everyone came running towards Peter and John in great excitement, to the Portico of Solomon, as it is called, where the man was still clinging to Peter and John. When Peter saw the people he addressed them, ‘Why are you so surprised at this? Why are you staring at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power or holiness? You are Israelites, and it is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, who has glorified his servant Jesus, the same Jesus you handed over and then disowned in the presence of Pilate after Pilate had decided to release him. It was you who accused the Holy One, the Just One, you who demanded the reprieve of a murderer while you killed the prince of life. God, however, raised him from the dead, and to that fact we are the witnesses; and it is the name of Jesus which, through our faith in it, has brought back the strength of this man whom you see here and who is well known to you. It is faith in that name that has restored this man to health, as you can all see.
‘Now I know, brothers, that neither you nor your leaders had any idea what you were really doing; this was the way God carried out what he had foretold, when he said through all his prophets that his Christ would suffer. Now you must repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, and so that the Lord may send the time of comfort. Then he will send you the Christ he has predestined, that is Jesus, whom heaven must keep till the universal restoration comes which God proclaimed, speaking through his holy prophets. Moses, for example, said: The Lord God will raise up a prophet like myself for you, from among your own brothers; you must listen to whatever he tells you. The man who does not listen to that prophet is to be cut off from the people. In fact, all the prophets that have ever spoken, from Samuel onwards, have predicted these days.
‘You are the heirs of the prophets, the heirs of the covenant God made with our ancestors when he told Abraham: in your offspring all the families of the earth will be blessed. It was for you in the first place that God raised up his servant and sent him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.’
Responsorial Psalm | Psalm 8:2,5-9 |
How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth!
or
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
How great is your name, O Lord our God,
through all the earth!
What is man that you should keep him in mind,
mortal man that you care for him?
How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth!
or
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
Yet you have made him little less than a god;
with glory and honour you crowned him,
gave him power over the works of your hand,
put all things under his feet.
How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth!
or
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
All of them, sheep and cattle,
yes, even the savage beasts,
birds of the air, and fish
that make their way through the waters.
How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth!
or
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
Sequence |
Victimae Paschali Laudes
Christians, to the Paschal Victim
offer sacrifice and praise.
The sheep are ransomed by the Lamb;
and Christ, the undefiled,
hath sinners to his Father reconciled.
Death with life contended:
combat strangely ended!
Life’s own Champion, slain,
yet lives to reign.
Tell us, Mary:
say what thou didst see
upon the way.
The tomb the Living did enclose;
I saw Christ’s glory as he rose!
The angels there attesting;
shroud with grave-clothes resting.
Christ, my hope, has risen:
he goes before you into Galilee.
That Christ is truly risen
from the dead we know.
Victorious king, thy mercy show!
Gospel Acclamation | Ps117:24 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
This day was made by the Lord:
we rejoice and are glad.
Alleluia!
Gospel | Luke 24:35-48 |
It is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead
The disciples told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised Jesus at the breaking of bread.
They were still talking about all this when Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you!’ In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost. But he said, ‘Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet; yes, it is I indeed. Touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have.’ And as he said this he showed them his hands and feet. Their joy was so great that they still could not believe it, and they stood there dumbfounded; so he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ And they offered him a piece of grilled fish, which he took and ate before their eyes.
Then he told them, ‘This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms has to be fulfilled.’ He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘So you see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.’
THE RESURRECTION ESTABLISHED JESUS AS THE CHRIST
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ACTS 3:11-26; LK 24:35-48]
The question that preoccupied the disciples of Jesus when He was still on earth was the identity of their Master. They could not quite put their finger on who Jesus really was. Was He the prophet Elijah, or one of the great prophets come back to life, or was He the Christ? Jesus confronted them head-on at a critical stage of His ministry by asking them point-blank, “Who do men say that I am?” It was Peter, on behalf of the apostles, who answered, “You are the Christ” (cf. Mk 8:27-30). But having the right answer did not mean that they had the right understanding, because almost immediately, Peter could not accept the passion prophecy of Jesus regarding His imminent suffering, death, and resurrection. Obviously, this prophecy went over their heads, for Peter’s reaction was one of disbelief and dismay. Jesus, in turn, rebuked him and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men” (cf. Mk 8:31-33).
When Jesus died, this question came back to haunt the disciples. Who could this man be? He was a good man, and as we read in the Gospel yesterday: “He was a great prophet by the things he said and did in the sight of God and of the whole people; and how our chief priests and our leaders handed him over to be sentenced to death, and had him crucified. Our own hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel free. And this is not all: two whole days have gone by since it all happened; and some women from our group have astounded us: they went to the tomb in the early morning, and when they did not find the body, they came back to tell us they had seen a vision of angels who declared he was alive” (Lk 24:19-24). It was difficult to believe that Jesus had died such a tragic death.
However, we read that after His death, He was seen by the disciples. Furthermore, the Gospel clearly establishes that the Risen Lord was no figment of the imagination. He was not a ghost or some kind of hallucination. It was not a magical performance. The Risen Lord is identified as Jesus of Nazareth. To put all doubts to rest, the Lord said, “Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet; yes, it is I indeed. Touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones, as you can see I have.” And as He said this, He showed them His hands and feet. The Risen Lord truly has a body, though it is a transfigured body.
Now that He had been raised and seen by the disciples, this question again came to the fore. It could not simply be ignored: Who is this man? Who could this Jesus be, who was condemned as a criminal and is now raised to life? Indeed, the early Church had to ask this question and determine the identity of Jesus.
To answer this question, the apostles had to return to the Scriptures. Did the Scriptures say anything about the Messiah? All along, they had been expecting a military and political messiah. But with the death of Christ, their hopes were shattered. With the resurrection, however, they returned to the Scriptures once again. This time, with enlightenment from the Risen Lord, they began to see that the suffering, passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord had already been prophesied. Jesus said, “This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets, and in the Psalms has to be fulfilled.” He then opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, “So you see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in His name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.” We, too, must return to the Scriptures if we want to find faith in Him.
Indeed, Jesus was the One whom Moses himself prophesied in Deut 18:15-20. St Peter said, “Moses, for example, said: The Lord God will raise up a prophet like myself for you from among your own brothers; you must listen to whatever he tells you. The man who does not listen to that prophet is to be cut off from the people. In fact, all the prophets who have ever spoken, from Samuel onwards, have predicted these days.” The prophecies in the Scriptures all refer to Jesus as the Suffering Messiah. Psalm 22, Isaiah 50:6, and Isaiah 53 speak of the Suffering Servant. They show that God intended the Messiah to suffer and die for His people, rather than to be the triumphant and political figure they were expecting. His resurrection was also prophesied in Psalm 16:9-11 and Isaiah 53:10f.
With this fact established, what then should our response be? Given such indisputable evidence — especially the testimony that the crippled man was restored to health not by the power of Peter and John, but by Christ — what does this mean for our response to Him?St Peter asked, “Why are you so surprised at this? Why are you staring at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power or holiness? You are Israelites, and it is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, who has glorified his servant Jesus, the same Jesus you handed over and then disowned in the presence of Pilate, after Pilate had decided to release him. It was you who accused the Holy One, the Just One, you who demanded the reprieve of a murderer while you killed the Prince of life. God, however, raised him from the dead, and to that fact we are the witnesses; and it is the name of Jesus which, through our faith in it, has brought back the strength of this man whom you see here and who is well known to you. It is faith in that name that has restored this man to health, as you can all see.”
Since Jesus was raised by the Father and continues to do the work of healing through the apostles, who performed this miracle in His name, it means that the Lord Jesus is living in their midst. If that is so, then He must be the Christ, the One predestined by God, since the Heavenly Father has endorsed His work and His life. He has sent us “the Christ he has predestined, that is Jesus, whom heaven must keep till the time of universal restoration, which God proclaimed through his holy prophets.”
In the face of such facts, we cannot remain indifferent any longer. Before we knew the truth, we could ignore the person of Jesus. We were then ignorant, and God readily forgives us. St Peter said, “Now I know, brothers, that neither you nor your leaders had any idea what you were really doing; this was the way God carried out what he had foretold, when he said through all his prophets that Christ would suffer.” But if God has raised the crucified One from the dead, it means that “now you must repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, and so that the Lord may send the time of comfort.” It is no longer tenable or permissible to remain unconverted in the light of God’s revelation and the testimony concerning His Son.
We must accept Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We are now called to follow Jesus, who is the Messiah who leads us to salvation.Jesus, therefore, is our Saviour. From today onwards, we rely on His name and His power alone, for He makes all things possible. “This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, but which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:11f).
In turn, we must become His blessing to others by being His witnesses, as the apostles were. St Peter urged them, “You are the heirs of the prophets, the heirs of the covenant God made with our ancestors when he told Abraham: in your offspring all the families of the earth will be blessed. It was for you in the first place that God raised up his servant and sent him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.” In the same vein, Jesus commanded them, “In his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.” Living the new life of Christ, we proclaim the resurrection of Christ.
Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections
- Encounter God through the spirit of prayer and the scripture by reflecting and praying the Word of God daily. The purpose is to bring you to prayer and to a deeper union with the Lord on the level of the heart.
- Daily reflections when archived will lead many to accumulate all the reflections of the week and pray in one sitting. This will compromise your capacity to enter deeply into the Word of God, as the tendency is to read for knowledge rather than a prayerful reading of the Word for the purpose of developing a personal and affective relationship with the Lord.
- It is more important to pray deeply, not read widely. The current reflections of the day would be more than sufficient for anyone who wants to pray deeply and be led into an intimacy with the Lord.
Note: You may share this reflection with someone. However, please note that reflections are not archived online nor will they be available via email request.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
