Christ is Risen! He Has Given Us His Own Authority and Sent Us on Mission to Get His World Back

Fr. John Riccardo

May 12, 2021

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18).

“And [Jesus] said to them, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you’” (Luke 10:19-20).

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’” (Mt 28:18-20).

Last week, we saw how one of the results of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead was His defeat and triumph over the dark powers that hold our world in slavery. Today, flowing directly from that, we turn our attention to how Jesus has not only entrusted us with the mission of continuing that liberation but equipped us with His own authority to do so. 

 As has been said by a number of authors, the message of Easter is not so much, “Jesus has risen, you will rise too” (although that’s true, to be sure). The message of Easter is more like, “Jesus has risen, there is work to do!” Easter Sunday is the beginning of the re-creation of the universe that God made out of love, and for which He became flesh and went to the cross. One day the Lord will return in glory and He will make all things new, and there will be no more death or crying or pain (cf. Rev 21:4). 

 However, until that glorious and real day, His disciples are called to continue His mission of re-creation. In order to do that, we need some tools, some help, some power. And Jesus has given us these things. We are not on our own in this work; we have been given power for this work, always mindful, of course, that our lives will follow the same pattern as the Lord’s—that is, suffering and the cross will be an integral part of how we carry out the mission. 

Let us reflect for a moment on the above passage from Matthew 16, one that many of us know so well—perhaps so well that it’s lost its punch. I think many people read this and interpret it to mean that no matter how bad things get, the Church will always be left standing. Now, there’s some truth in that, but I don’t think that’s the point.

Quick question: have you ever been attacked by a gate? 

Gates aren’t offensive measures; they’re used for either keeping people inside or for keeping people outside. The Lord is commissioning Peter, the Apostles, and us, to go on the offensive, armed with His very own authority and power, to liberate those held in bondage by the dark powers, the same powers that He has gloriously triumphed over (cf. Col 2:15). 

In his commentary on Matthew, Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis observes that Jesus is telling Peter that His Church will be “the dwelling-place in creation of God’s life and power, built by Christ and endowed by God with the task of confronting and defeating all principles of death and destruction. The Church’s ‘gates of life’ are called to destroy Hades’ ‘gates of death’. We may say that here Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, is admitting Peter (and, through him, the other apostles and all Christians) to a vision of the cosmic forces of annihilation and at the same time endowing Peter and all in communion with him with the might to overpower such forces” (Heart of the World, Fire of Mercy, Vol 2, 526, italics mine).

Without being naive or optimistic, we need to pray for the Lord to give to us the hope, courage, and joy that filled Peter and the other witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection. Are things challenging right now? You bet. Might they get much worse? It sure looks like it. But regardless, mindful that Jesus has triumphed over Sin and Death and Hell and Satan, we need to engage in the graced mission Jesus has entrusted to us with utmost confidence in Him and His power at work in us, weak as we are. For far too long and for so many reasons so many of us in the Church have acted with a defeated mentality. But it is the power of Death that has lost! And the power of Sin! And Hell itself!

As the author of From Christendom to Apostolic Mission: Pastoral Strategies for an Apostolic Age, puts it: 

“The Church...needs to have the same confidence in the power and goodness of the message she bears, in its life-changing potency, in the Church’s power of regeneration and growth. In a particular way, those in positions of influence and authority need to be convinced that Christ is the answer to every human ill, the solution to every human problem, the only hope for a dying race. They need to be convinced of the bad news: that the human race has by its own rebellion brought a curse upon itself and has sold itself into slavery to the prince of darkness, and there is nothing we can do under our own power to save ourselves. At the same time, they need to be equally convinced that of the Good News: that God in His mercy has come among us to set us free from our sins and from slavery to the devil, and for those who turn to their true allegiance, the nightmare of life apart from God can be transformed into a dawn of eternal hope. They need to know, from their own experience, that obedience to the Gospel is perfect freedom, that holiness leads to happiness, that a world without God is a desolate wasteland, and that new life in Christ transforms darkness into light” (37). 

 As Mary on our team repeats over and over again, “Rescued people rescue people.” That’s who we are as disciples: rescued people. And that’s our mission until the Lord returns: to rescue others. Let’s ask the Lord this week to fill us with greater confidence in the One who lives in us, and to use us to rescue those most in need.