In this Sunday’s Gospel, Christ is giving his twelve Apostles instructions for their first missionary journey. The most striking thing about these instructions is the warning. In this passage, Jesus tells them three times not to be afraid. Yes, three times! He wouldn’t say it if they didn’t need to hear it. But why would they need to hear it?
Because as they go out in Christ’s name to spread the Gospel in word and deed, they are going to run into serious difficulties. Jesus is warning his Apostles that they will meet up with persecution and hardship, just as he will, in a dramatic way, during his Passion. He is warning them that their Christian mission will demand heroic courage, perseverance, and fidelity as they constantly face suffering, calumny, mockery, and opposition.
They are going to run into people who will want to destroy them, humiliate them, and even kill them, just because they bear Christ’s name and are trying to spread Christ’s message. In the verses immediately preceding the passage this Sunday, Jesus was explicit about this. He told them:
- “Beware of men: they will hand you over to sanhedrins and scourge you in their synagogues.
- “Beware of men: they will hand you over to sanhedrins and scourge you in their synagogues.
- “You will be hated by all men on account of my name.”
Those same warnings apply to us, the modern-day disciples, too. Being a Christian is not like joining a tennis club. There is a spiritual battle going on in this fallen world. Whenever we are truly following Christ and building up his Kingdom, the powers of darkness, the devil and his minions, don’t like it, and they try to make it hard for us, just as they made it hard for the Apostles. Much of the secular society don’t want to hear the truth, especially if it involves suffering and not instant gratification.
But, like the Apostles, we need not be afraid. As long as we stay united to Christ, grounded in his friendship, we are assured of meaning, purpose, and everlasting joy — no matter how hard our pilgrimage through time may get. St Paul understood this well. As he said in this Sunday’s Second Reading, even though sin, evil, and suffering weigh upon us all, Christ’s grace is infinitely more powerful: ” If it is certain that through one man’s fall so many died, it is even more certain that divine grace, coming through the one man, Jesus Christ, came to so many as an abundant free gift.”
Jeremiah understood it well too. In the First Reading, after listing his horrible sufferings, he shouts out a cheer of confidence in God: “But the Lord is at my side, a mighty hero; my opponents will stumble, mastered, confounded by their failure.”
The Lord is our mighty hero too. He proved it first when he rose from the dead. He has proven it thousands of times since, in the lives of the saints — those who have been faithful to his friendship. And he proves it every day on the altar, in the sacrifice of the Eucharist. Jesus will never abandon us. He wants to be our strength as we fight each day to be faithful soldiers of his Kingdom.
So, do not be afraid.
