Luke 24: 13-35
Dear Friends, The Easter Season is a time we desperately need to let the overwhelming truth of the resurrection to penetrate our being. Today on this Third Sunday of Easter we have the wonderful story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Like all of the Resurrection stories, this beautiful passage invites to enter into the mystery of the Risen Christ. It is a journey from the head to the heart.
Today’s story is especially heartfelt. The two disciples tell the story to Jesus. For them it is a profound tragedy. They are frustrated and floundering in a world of shattered dreams. Their story conveys pain and hopelessness. In particular, they pass over the message of the women with the account of the empty tomb and the angels.
Jesus takes their story and transforms it into a message of hope and life. He showed that the mystery of the Cross unveiled the deepest and most gracious level of reality. In God’s wisdom, weakness gives way to true power, emptiness expresses the fullness of God’s presence and death gives way to life everlasting. “Then they said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while He spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?’” (Lk 24:32) This is the story of the Alleluia!
In the disciples’ experience, we have a fundamental insight into the Christian life. We need to measure the Gospel story against our life experience. Sooner or later, we experience the common human fate of the two disciples: broken dreams, love rejected and the multiple consequences of our mortality. Much of our life’s efforts struggle to cover all the contingencies but in the end we are not ready for what life has in store for us. Who could ever really envision the depth of the broken division of partisanship in our country, the coronavirus and its impact on our world? Or who could believe the number of mass shootings being greater than the number of days in the year? We are like the disciples engulfed in dreams of great things coming from Jesus, the one who would be their savior. Yet, like them, our vision of life holds little room for the rejection and Passion and Crucifixion on that fateful weekend.
Luke uses the phrase “opened eyes” six of the eight times It appears in the New Testament. It is always about the journey from the head to the heart. “While he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.” (Lk 24:31-32) When we recognize Jesus in faith, we begin to see the Resurrection for what it is. The victory of love over all the evil the world has to offer. All is not lost. Indeed, the victory is ours when we walk with Jesus. This is the story of the Alleluia!
Thomas Merton has a beautiful definition of prayer: Prayer is yearning to be in the presence of God, a personal understanding of God’s Word, knowledge of God’s will and the capacity to hear and obey. This is what happened to the disciples in their encounter with Jesus. They were walking away from life. They were fleeing the difficulty of their broken dreams. Jesus drew them into the presence of God. God’s grace opened their eyes to the fire of love that was there all the time. This happened when Jesus released the Word of God for them. Now, they were ready to do God’s will.
Comparable to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we have to bring faith to our story. With faith, we enter the story of the Scriptures and slowly we see that God is with us all along. This is the story of the Alleluia!
In Jesus telling the story over again, hope and faith replace the despair and pain that dominated the disciples’ experience of the story. Like Jesus’ version of the events, we need the Word of God to give us direction on our road to Emmaus so we too can find our way back to Jerusalem. God has a loving plan for us.
The power of deep personal prayer can open this way of love and new life for us. We can begin to see reality as pregnant with hope and new possibilities once we encounter the Risen Christ. This is the story of the Alleluia!
Faith lets us see Jesus turning the story of the two disciples and our story upside down as he did with so many experiences in his gospel teachings. Through the mystery of the Cross, he unveiled the deepest level of reality. In this revelation of God’s wisdom, weakness gives way to true power, emptiness expresses the fullness of God’s presence and death opens the way to life that is everlasting. This is the story of the Alleluia!
In our celebration of the Eucharist, we remember in a most powerful way Jesus breaking the Bread. We need to let our hearts also burn with the recognition of Jesus’ presence. As we travel our journey of life with Jesus, he is once again retelling the story that is our life. This is the story for the Alleluia!
Today’s story is especially heartfelt. The two disciples tell the story to Jesus. For them it is a profound tragedy. They are frustrated and floundering in a world of shattered dreams. Their story conveys pain and hopelessness. In particular, they pass over the message of the women with the account of the empty tomb and the angels.
Jesus takes their story and transforms it into a message of hope and life. He showed that the mystery of the Cross unveiled the deepest and most gracious level of reality. In God’s wisdom, weakness gives way to true power, emptiness expresses the fullness of God’s presence and death gives way to life everlasting. “Then they said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while He spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?’” (Lk 24:32) This is the story of the Alleluia!
In the disciples’ experience, we have a fundamental insight into the Christian life. We need to measure the Gospel story against our life experience. Sooner or later, we experience the common human fate of the two disciples: broken dreams, love rejected and the multiple consequences of our mortality. Much of our life’s efforts struggle to cover all the contingencies but in the end we are not ready for what life has in store for us. Who could ever really envision the depth of the broken division of partisanship in our country, the coronavirus and its impact on our world? Or who could believe the number of mass shootings being greater than the number of days in the year? We are like the disciples engulfed in dreams of great things coming from Jesus, the one who would be their savior. Yet, like them, our vision of life holds little room for the rejection and Passion and Crucifixion on that fateful weekend.
Luke uses the phrase “opened eyes” six of the eight times It appears in the New Testament. It is always about the journey from the head to the heart. “While he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.” (Lk 24:31-32) When we recognize Jesus in faith, we begin to see the Resurrection for what it is. The victory of love over all the evil the world has to offer. All is not lost. Indeed, the victory is ours when we walk with Jesus. This is the story of the Alleluia!
Thomas Merton has a beautiful definition of prayer: Prayer is yearning to be in the presence of God, a personal understanding of God’s Word, knowledge of God’s will and the capacity to hear and obey. This is what happened to the disciples in their encounter with Jesus. They were walking away from life. They were fleeing the difficulty of their broken dreams. Jesus drew them into the presence of God. God’s grace opened their eyes to the fire of love that was there all the time. This happened when Jesus released the Word of God for them. Now, they were ready to do God’s will.
Comparable to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we have to bring faith to our story. With faith, we enter the story of the Scriptures and slowly we see that God is with us all along. This is the story of the Alleluia!
In Jesus telling the story over again, hope and faith replace the despair and pain that dominated the disciples’ experience of the story. Like Jesus’ version of the events, we need the Word of God to give us direction on our road to Emmaus so we too can find our way back to Jerusalem. God has a loving plan for us.
The power of deep personal prayer can open this way of love and new life for us. We can begin to see reality as pregnant with hope and new possibilities once we encounter the Risen Christ. This is the story of the Alleluia!
Faith lets us see Jesus turning the story of the two disciples and our story upside down as he did with so many experiences in his gospel teachings. Through the mystery of the Cross, he unveiled the deepest level of reality. In this revelation of God’s wisdom, weakness gives way to true power, emptiness expresses the fullness of God’s presence and death opens the way to life that is everlasting. This is the story of the Alleluia!
In our celebration of the Eucharist, we remember in a most powerful way Jesus breaking the Bread. We need to let our hearts also burn with the recognition of Jesus’ presence. As we travel our journey of life with Jesus, he is once again retelling the story that is our life. This is the story for the Alleluia!
