THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR. FERNANDO ARMELLINI

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A good Easter to all. 

The Gospel passage proposed to us on this feast of the Ascension of Jesus is the final section of the Gospel according to Mark, the last verses. When you reach the last page of a book, the story is over. The Gospel of Mark is no exception; it tells us how the life of Jesus ended: not in the darkness of a tomb, as those who executed him believed, but in the light of heaven, in the glory of the Father. In the eyes of people, Jesus was a failure, a loser, but at Easter the heavenly Father pronounced his sentence, the one that matters. Jesus is glorious, victorious. 

This is how the Gospel according to Mark could end, but the evangelist adds a verse at the end, one we are going to hear, which marks the beginning of a new history. From that point on, everything the evangelist Mark told before is preparation for this second part, in which we also find ourselves today. Thus, today’s feast, which marks the end of Jesus’ life in this world, is nothing more than a passage of time, a transition for the disciples who had participated in announcing Jesus’ new world during the three years of his public life. 

Now the disciples are tasked with building the new world that Jesus began. In this second story, we are involved today. The baton is ours. We are the ones who must follow Jesus’ project. Let us first listen to how the risen one has manifested himself to these disciples: 

The Lord appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who had seen him after he had been raised. 

What the evangelist Mark mentions is not a marginal detail. The disciples see the risen Lord seated at the table. The other evangelists also recall this. Luke tells us that the disciples on the road to Emmaus opened their eyes and saw the Risen One at the breaking of the bread as they sat at the table. John, at the lake of Tiberias, also reports that the disciples recognized the Risen One when he offered them bread. This is catechesis; it is the moment when the community gathers on the Lord’s Day, and at the moment of breaking the bread, our eyes are opened and we see the Risen One. Now we are the Eleven. 

The Risen One speaks to us. Let us look at the Eleven, one by one. Who are they? They are us. It’s a wounded group. It should be 12, but one was lost; even Jesus could not include him in his proposal to build the new world. Judas preferred to continue believing in the old world and allied himself with the guardians of the kingdom of darkness. The others are frightened, fearful people. One of them, Peter, even denied the Master. 

The evangelist Mark is very harsh in describing Peter’s actions. He uses a powerful verb: ἀναθεματίζειν, meaning ‘anathematizing.’ Peter began to perjure himself and to curse Jesus. The other evangelists do not use this verb, which appears only here in the Gospels. To protect his life, Peter began to curse the Master. What does the risen Lord do? He rebukes them. He also rebukes us. But not because they ran away, nor because they have denied him, nor because they are afraid. NO. He rebukes them because they are unbelieving and hard-hearted. 

In the last chapter of the Gospel according to Mark, there is strong emphasis on the difficulty these disciples had in believing. It is said that they did not believe Mary Magdalene or the two disciples of Emmaus, who had met the Risen One. Why does Mark insist so much on this lack of faith among the disciples? Let us clarify what it means to believe, and then we will not be surprised by the difficulties the Eleven had in believing, because it is the same difficulty we have today. The Eleven received the testimony of those who had experienced the Risen One; they had seen him: Mary Magdalene, the two of Emmaus… and the Eleven did not doubt their sincerity, but this is not yet the adhesion of faith; it is the conclusion of logical reasoning. 

The Eleven certainly listened to Mary Magdalene and the two from Emmaus; they were reliable people. They had no reason to lie. Their testimony is true, and what they say is very reasonable. True faith presupposes reason; it must be reasonable. Otherwise, it is imprudent, but it is not reduced to an intellectual assent to a truth. To believe in Jesus is a choice of love. 

It is not enough to be fascinated by his person or his life proposal. One must decide to unite one’s life to his, and this is difficult because Jesus’ proposal contradicts what our human nature suggests. The disciples found it hard to believe because if Jesus is risen, if the Father has received him in glory, then he was right. He was right when he said that whoever keeps life for himself loses it, but he who gives it finds it in fullness. 

If Jesus is risen, then the successful person is not what the disciples have in mind, but rather the one who gives all of himself or herself for the joy of the brother or sister. Then, if Jesus is risen, all the dreams of glory that Peter, Andrew, James, John, and we have cultivated in our minds must be put aside. That is the difficulty in believing. If these doubts do not arise, if we do not feel this difficulty in giving our adherence of faith to Jesus of Nazareth, it means we have not understood what it means to believe in Jesus. The hardness of heart and the doubts of these disciples are ours. 

Many times, we also doubt and ask ourselves, could it be true that by giving my life as Jesus did, I can keep it? Wouldn’t it be better for me to do what everybody else does? If I give up enjoying life, won’t I regret it? That is the difficulty in believing. It means giving adhesion to the proposal Jesus makes to us. And let’s notice that Mark wants us to feel close to these eleven. It doesn’t say that after the reproaches he made to them, Jesus showed them signs to induce them to believe, as he did at other times, in the manifestation of the resurrected one: look at my hands, my feet, or to Thomas, put your finger in my side… NO. He does not give them any sign; he leaves them in the condition of the one who is called to believe in the testimony of the one who has seen the Risen One. 

And today, we believe the testimony of these eleven, whom we thank for giving us Jesus and his Gospel. Despite their frailty and weaknesses, they carried out their mission, and if today we have the fortune to know Jesus and discover the treasure of the Gospel, we owe it to these eleven witnesses, people of little faith. After rebuking the Eleven for the fragility of their faith, we would expect that, before entrusting them with a complex and demanding mission, Jesus would demand a sign of repentance, a recognition of their unworthiness. Instead, let us listen to what he asks of these weak and fearful disciples, and what he asks of us today. 

Jesus told them, ‘Go into the world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.’

“Go,” said the Risen One to the Eleven. They must go out and start moving. He who goes away departs from a certain place, a certain people, and a certain environment. What has this Eleven left? Their little Palestinian world and their religious traditions, to which they were very attached because they had learned them from their parents. They must go to new lands and cultures to sow their religious traditions and the Gospel. 

Let us be clear about what the Risen One asks of us today: to announce the Gospel. For a long time, the mission Jesus entrusted to us was interpreted as the task of proselytizing; everyone had to become a Christian… a little like the Pharisees who traveled the seas and mountains to make proselytes. We already know what historical events led to these conversions. Unfortunately, coercion was also resorted to. 

We have sometimes heard preachers complain, saying: “In this world, in this society, no one can be converted….” And who asked you to convert anyone? The Risen One asked you only one thing: faithfully proclaim the Gospel. Converting, changing the heart, is not the preacher’s task; the Spirit works these conversions. You must faithfully announce the word of the Gospel and then trust in the divine power present in this seed. Let’s remember the parable that Mark alone tells us in Chapter 4: The sower casts seed into the ground; whether he sleeps or watches, night or day, the seed sprouts and grows; how? He does not know, because it does not depend on him but on the divine power in the seed of the evangelical word. When this seed is sown in someone’s heart, they can no longer get rid of it because it is not a human word, and it produces extraordinary fruits. 

The content of this message: The Gospel is well summarized in the word we know so well, its meaning: Good News. And what is the Good News that must be announced? Only one: the unconditional love of God for the person. The divine life that Christ brought to the world. It is not that God is good to the good and severely punishes the bad; that’s what everybody has always said before. We must announce that God loves everyone, even the wicked. This is the newness, and this must be announced to everybody; everybody must know it. 

And this announcement of the Gospel must be made to all creation. We would expect it to be proclaimed only to people, but the Gospel must not only change people’s hearts. What does this mean? Let us observe what has happened. How have human beings handled creation? Did people move according to the Creator’s plan, understanding it well and therefore knowing how the earth’s goods were to be administered? NO. They were moved by their judgment and selfishness, and so they allowed themselves to be driven by their greed. Because of their insatiable greed, they ceased to be gardeners and custodians of creation, becoming despots and predators. They manipulated nature at will, bending it to their selfish designs and wild projects. And we know what creation has been reduced to. They have reintroduced chaos and made the world unlivable. 

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, says that all creatures are waiting for the benefits of salvation that the Gospel brings. The light of the Gospel frees people and leads them to establish a new relationship with creation, placing respect for creation at the service of every person. 

And the Risen One goes on to say: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Beware of this oriental language that always contrasts black and white; there are only two options: life and death. “Whoever believes” refers to those who adhere to this Gospel, to the proposal of a new man and a new world made by Jesus. They are saved by this word. 

‘Saved’ does not mean ‘taken to paradise.’ There, they are all welcomed into the arms of the heavenly Father. “Saved immediately” means that, if one adheres to the Gospel, they realize their humanity in fullness; if, on the other hand, the person does not adhere, they are not saved, do not allow themselves to be saved, and therefore do not become humanized, because the one who builds a life on proposals different from that of Christ does not build their existence in fullness. And baptism is the sign of this total immersion as branches in the vine, immersion in the Spirit of Christ. Let us now listen to the images Jesus presents us with the change of the world that takes place when the Gospel is accepted: 

These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name, they will drive out demons and speak new languages. They will pick up serpents [with their hands], and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and the sick will recover.

 We hear a question from unbelievers: ‘What good is your faith for? What does it produce?’ They say: ‘We see believers going to implore some saint when they are sick, in the hope of receiving a miracle. We trust in science, not in saints.’ A certain credulity, understood as faith, produces nothing, even if it has many followers. Faith, understood as a request to the Lord to perform a miracle to solve our problems, is only alienation. 

But in today’s Gospel, Jesus answers precisely the question non-believers ask us: What does your faith produce? If it is credulity, it produces nothing. Jesus says: ‘If you trust the Gospel, that is, the proposal of man and the world that I make, you will witness prodigies, unexpected and extraordinary events that you did not expect.’ If all the wars in the world were to disappear immediately, if everyone were to treat each other as brothers and sisters and help one another, if the strongest were to help the weakest, the world would change. We would call this an unexpected miracle. If this does not happen, it is precisely because we do not adhere to Jesus’s proposal. Jesus says that wonders will not accompany the preachers as miracles to prove them right. This is an apologetic interpretation of miracles that Jesus has consistently rejected. “This is a perverse and adulterous generation that asks for these miracles” (Mt 12:39). 

Unfortunately, it was at the end of the second century that the miracle was interpreted as proof, and we have inherited this conception: the proof that the Christian religion is true is that miracles are performed. Jesus rejected this interpretation. He said: Proclaim the Gospel, adhere to this proposal, and you will witness wonders. He introduces these wonders, called signs, using five images from the Bible. Let us try to interpret and understand them. 

The first of these signs is: “In my name, they will drive out demons.” Let us set aside the exorcisms with their rituals and accompanying formulas, and let us not confuse the pathologies treated by physicians with the demons with which Christ confronted and of which the Gospels speak to us. Demons are a very concrete reality. We all know these unclean spirits that ruin us. We all experience them, and they have clear, specific names. The demons of pride, greed, greed for money, and attachment to possessions. Demons that dehumanize us. Resentment, the desire to make those who hurt us pay for it. Moral evil, selfishness, falsehood, anger, and jealousy. These are the demons that dehumanize us and make us violent, cruel, and insensitive to the needs of the poor. They make us less of a person and even a bit of a beast. These demons are cast out not with holy water but with the Gospel. 

When the Gospel arrives, these demons disappear. If a family is divided by envy, attachment to possessions, moral licentiousness, or sometimes by division between husband and wife, and the Gospel comes, these demons disappear, and we witness unexpected prodigies. Brethren who have not spoken to each other in 20 or 30 years, because of a badly distributed inheritance, realize, when they accept the Gospel, that they are called to the relationships that Christ proposes. 

“They will speak new languages.” What languages have people always employed? The language of force, the one continually used today. And when politicians must deal with their problems, the loudest voice wins. It is the voice of the possessed. Demons possess them through pride because they are stronger. These demons suggest the language of insult, and then they speak no more, letting the weapons speak. The language of retaliation, revenge, and answering a crime with another crime. 

This is the language of the old world. The new humanity needs a new language, the one suggested by the Gospel, the Gospel of love, of forgiveness, of reciprocal, unconditional service; and the disciples must be able to speak this language well. This language must be natural to them by their very nature as sons and daughters of God. In the same way that when speaking a language, one does not have to remember the rules of grammar and syntax, it is natural to speak a certain language. The disciple imbued with the Gospel’s message naturally speaks this language of love. 

“They will pick up serpents with their hands.” This is also a biblical image. We remember how the psalmists and the prophets employed images of animals fighting each other and making peace in the new world. Through these animal images, the kingdom of God is indicated, where there would be no more room for hostilities, rivalries, and aggression between people. And these serpents are an image we find at the beginning of the Bible. The serpent tells people to turn away from God. Jesus says that the Gospel immunizes you against these serpents. 

The disciples should not be afraid because the strength they have received from Christ and his word makes them invulnerable. Let us remember, as Luke reminds us in chapter 10, the words of Jesus: “I have given them the power to walk over serpents and scorpions and all the powers of the enemy; nothing can harm you.” 

Another comparison: “If they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.” There is a lot of poison circulating in our society. They spread poison that trivializes the sacredness of love and marital fidelity; they spread poison that no longer distinguishes between what is good and what is evil, between what is true and what is false, and for whom everything is valid and its opposite. In the end, one does not know what to do. The norm becomes doing what I like. Thus, poison is scattered; it suggests, as a norm of life, the unconditional pursuit of pleasure as the highest good. These are the messages poisoning the new generations. 

Despite everything, we have to drink some poison. Jesus says the Gospel immunizes you. You may feel a little dizzy and even think what the media tells you is true, but if you have absorbed the Gospel message, you will realize they are not the ones who are right. It is Jesus of Nazareth who tells you the truth about the person. 

And then: “They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” It does not say they shall be healed. The Greek text says: καλῶς ἕξουσιν = ‘kalós hexousín’ = will benefit from this laying on of hands. Physicians perform healing. But the reception of the Gospel helps you understand and gives meaning even to these moments of weakness and fragility that are part of our human condition. And when you reflect on this reality with serenity and accept this condition, it also helps you derive greater benefit from the medications the doctor prescribes for you. 

And now the handover takes place: Jesus has completed his mission, and it is our turn to carry it out. Let us listen: 

After he spoke to them, the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. They went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs. 

According to people’s judgment, Jesus was a loser—a loser who ended up in a tomb. Then they rolled a huge stone in front of the tomb, and that was the end. We also say, ‘To cover something with a stone,’ meaning it’s all over. The evangelist Mark says at the end of his Gospel that things did not end like that and presents God’s judgment on Jesus of Nazareth. He presents this judgment using the cultural criteria of his time. He says that his story did not end in a tomb but that he was taken to heaven and sits at the right hand of God. Heaven is not the atmosphere; it is the abode of God, the Father’s house, not in the grave but in the glory of the Father’s house. 

And then he “sat down at the right hand of God.” This image recalls the customs of the Oriental courts, where subjects who had shown loyalty to their lord were seated next to the king in the presence of all the people. Before all, the great king seated them at his right hand. Let us remember the words of the psalmist, who addresses the king of Israel on the day of his enthronement: “The Lord says to my lord, sit at my right hand.” That is, it is an invitation to all the people to regard this king of Israel as a protégé of the Lord. 

The evangelist wants to tell us that Jesus of Nazareth, the defeated one, has been proclaimed by God as his faithful servant. For this and his faithfulness, the Lord has exalted him. He has given him a name above every other name, as the letter to the Philippians says. “To him has he subdued every creature,” as Paul’s letter to the Corinthians says. 

The conclusion: 

The disciples went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them, confirming the word through accompanying signs. 

The final message is that the disciples should not feel alone; Jesus, who traveled the roads of Palestine and was physically present with his disciples, has not gone away. He is no longer where he was then, but where we are today. He is always with us and accompanies our announcements with signs. 

Let us keep this in mind and ask ourselves: Does the word we proclaim produce these wonders and signs? If these wonders do not occur, we must ask whether the Gospel we proclaim is authentic, because the Lord said that adherence to his words would produce great signs. I wish you all a good Easter and a good week.