Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them
It is said: “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” And then Jesus says that if two agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them. This really is the key not only to building a living Church as the basic cell but also to true unity where Jesus is in the midst and where it is necessary for both of the believers to become powerless, i.e. to deny themselves and take up their cross, and then Jesus can show His power. If we do not obey the principle of self-denial and if we refuse to carry our cross, Jesus is paralyzed.
In the reflection on Jesus encountering the Emmaus disciples, we read: “Grant to me, O Lord, that I may see You both in me and my brother who is praying with me.” We see Christ neither in us nor in our brother. Jesus wants us to look with the eyes of faith.
When Jesus spoke with the Emmaus disciples, talking about the things of God, namely the suffering that the Messiah had to endure, their hearts burned. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him. It is interesting that before their encounter with Jesus the disciples talked together about all the events that had happened. They talked about Christ, evidently recalling how He raised to life Lazarus who had been dead four days, and they also recalled other events, and mainly Good Friday. The centre of their conversation was the cross. Surely, the cross and those thoughts made them somewhat upset because they had not yet attained such degree of faith as to fully believe the testimony which they heard that morning and which spread throughout Jerusalem: many of the women were at the tomb and the tomb was empty; and they even said that they had met Jesus. However, Jesus had not yet appeared to the Apostles. So it is not enough to have faith in Christ crucified, but we also need faith in Christ risen. That is why the Apostle Paul says in Romans, chapter 10: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” So both are needed, not just one of these things. Both lead to the true, saving faith and both should motivate us to follow Christ – Christ crucified at first by being crucified with Him, which should then motivate us to believe that Christ will also show the glory of His resurrection. There should be a balance of the two. We should have grief in our heart, a pierced heart, perceive our own miserable state as well as the miserable state of our neighbours, which painfully hurts Jesus, but at the same time we must have faith like the Apostle John. He stood by the cross and lived every minute of Jesus’ suffering together with the Mother of Jesus. But when he saw the empty tomb, it is said briefly – he believed. He believed in God’s Word, he believed that Christ rose although the other Apostles and Peter were overwhelmed with darkness of sadness and disbelief.
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