“To obey God instead of men.” Yes, Peter and John the Apostles faced the chief priests and the Sanhedrin who questioned them about teaching in the Name of Jesus and testifying in His Name, and even under pressure from them to stop, the Apostles did nothing of the sort and instead continue to step up their teachings ever further around Jerusalem and beyond to the ends of the earth just as commanded by Christ, that they be the progenitor of conversion into the faith in Christ, by testifying on the Good News and Christ Himself, on the Risen Christ who conquered death and on God the Almighty.

The chief priests, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Sanhedrin, who are respected members of the society at the time, rejected the testimony of the Apostles and were openly hostile against them, just as they had opposed Jesus, and brought Him to crucifixion through false charges. This was because mainly of their human jealousy against Jesus, that Christ had usurped from them the authority to teach the Law. But in fact, that teaching authority was not even theirs to begin with, if not given by the Father in heaven, just as Pilate had no authority over Jesus, if it had not been given him by the Father.

The Jewish priests preferred human love to the love of God, preferring the praise of men and the approval of fellow man and their Roman masters to the approval that comes from God. This was why they were against Jesus from the very beginning, and earned Jesus’ rebuke as hypocrites almost every time He was referring to them, and even after His death and resurrection, they would not let the Apostles now to do what they like, as to them, the fact that they are teaching about the resurrection usurped their ‘authority’ ever more and also placed the blame on them on having crucified Christ the Messiah, rejecting Him and putting Him onto the cross.

The Sadducees were mentioned in particular, because they were a faction most stubbornly against any notion of resurrection from the dead and the life in the afterlife. They had confronted Jesus before His Passion on the resurrection, and when confronted with the Apostles, and their teaching that Christ had risen from the dead and showed Himself to them was an unacceptable fact to the Sadducees. The mental block against the truth of Christ had been deeply embedded within their minds, just as the block of pride and arrogance that were within the minds of the chief priests and the Pharisees, that they saw themselves as paragons of virtue and ideal of the faithful, where in fact they had corrupted the faithful people of Israel, and misled them in their path towards God.

Human pride had always been a very difficult hurdle to be overcome, and the sin of pride was indeed what made the evil one, once known as Lucifer, mightiest among angels in heaven, to fall, and in his fall, brought a third of angels in rebellion with him, and in his treachery, tempted Adam and Eve, our ancestors into rebellion against God as well. It is our human pride that prevented us from returning to God, and from humbly submitting ourselves to God’s love and mercy. It also prevents us from opening our hearts and minds to receive the Lord and to listen to His words.

Therefore brothers and sisters in Christ, let us strive in this Easter season to lower our human pride and sharpen the edge of our humility and our love, that we will reach out more to others and spread the Good News through our actions infused with love that is of the Lord. Open our hearts to receive the Lord, and do not harden it against Him. Forgive one another and support one another in times of joy and sorrow. May God bless us all. Amen.