Easter 3, April 26, 2009
Acts 3:13-15, 17-19
1 Jn 2:1-5a
Lk 24:35-48
Today’s gospel account from Luke begins with a simple statement that the two disciples who returned to Jerusalem where the apostles and other disciples were, told them how they recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread. That’s a puzzling statement as we just heard it and only the tip of the ice berg. There’s a lot more to it than that.
We are all generally familiar with Luke’s story about Jesus meeting two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Quite frequently it comes up as a Sunday reading during the Easter Season. But not this year. What we get this year is the tiny conclusion to the story of what happened after the two disciples recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread while at table in Emmaus.
The story begins with the two disciples leaving Jerusalem. It is an unhappy, depressing story, filled with nothing but grim news. Worse than the worst soap opera. Jesus was put on trial, sentenced to death by crucifixion, killed on the cross and buried. That’s it. Final. All over.
While on the road to Emmaus the two dejected and disciples talked about the terrible events. That was their focus and it was like a trap from which they could not free themselves - like a terrible depression drawing them into a terrible black hole. They couldn’t get outside themselves and be freed from their misery. They met the stranger on the road but their eyes were blinded by their personal concerns and they didn’t recognize his as Jesus.
They belonged to a larger group of friends who like them also were disciples of Jesus. They had the history of being closely connected to this wonderful group which cared for each other with mutual hospitality. That was one of the virtues they had absorbed into their life style, so even on this day filled with self absorbed sadness, they extended their hospitality to the traveling stranger.
While on the road this stranger reviewed the scriptures with them which pointed to Jesus as the messiah, but they still did not recognize their stranger companion. The journey was over, they had reached Emmaus, and now their hospitality towards the stranger continued as they invited him to stay with them and even eat with them. Their grief continued to spill out as their guest continued his teaching but they still did not recognize him until the precious moment when he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, whereupon he vanished from their sight.
Then they immediately knew that their companion on the road to Emmaus was Jesus. With the vision of Jesus as their companion - as risen Lord - their eyes now opened, their sadness was turned into joy and they got up and quickly returned to Jerusalem where the apostles and other disciples had gathered. Perhaps one may suggest that this was the first Easter gathering of the early church.
I’m a bit carried away with the Emmaus experience because of the homily Archbishop Timothy Dolan gave last week at his installation as Archbishop of New York. His observation was that as long as the two disciples were so absorbed in themselves they couldn’t see anything else except their own problems and troubles.
They could not even notice that it was Jesus who was their companion and who was walking with them. But once their eyes were opened and they realized that they were with the Risen Jesus who broke bread with them, every thing changed and they had to rush off to tell the good news. Once they arrived at Jerusalem they were told by many other disciples that they too had seen Jesus.
In Dolan‘s own words “. . . are we not at times perhaps like those two dejected disciples on the road to Emmaus? They were so absorbed in their own woes, so forlorn in their mistaken conclusion that the one in whom they had placed their trust was dead, so shocked by the shame, scandal, and scorn of last Friday . . . that they failed to recognize Jesus as He walked right along side of them!
. . . are we not at times perhaps like those two dejected disciples on the road to Emmaus? They were so absorbed in their own woes, so forlorn in their mistaken conclusion that the one in whom they had placed their trust was dead, so shocked by the shame, scandal, and scorn of last Friday . . . that they failed to recognize Jesus as He walked right alongside of them!
I say to you, my sister and brother disciples now on the road to Emmaus, let’s not turn inward to ourselves, our worries, our burdens, our fears; but turn rather to Him, the way, the truth, and the life, the one who told us over and over, “Be not afraid!”, who assured us that He “would be with us all days, even to the end of the world,” and who promised us that “not even the gates of hell would prevail,” the one who John Paul the Great called, “the answer to the question posed by every human life, and recognize Him again in His word, in the “breaking of the bread,” in his Church.”
Dolan continued with a nice conclusion to his comments. He said, “For three weeks in July, 1992, I was on pilgrimage in Israel. I had a wonderful Franciscan guide who made sure I saw all the sacred places in the Holy Land.
The day before I departed, he asked, “Is there anything left you want to see?”
“Yes,” I replied, “I would like to walk the road to Emmaus.” “That we cannot do,” he told me, “You see, no one really knows where that village of Emmaus actually was, so there is no more road to Emmaus.”
Sensing my disappointment, he remarked, “Maybe that’s part of God’s providence, because we can now make every journey we undertake a walk down the Road to Emmaus.”
Dolan was encouraging the people of New York to see the many roads and streets in New York as new journeys to Emmaus in which Jesus is the companion of all who believe in him and accept him. The encouragement is to be able to recognize Jesus as their traveling companion.
I would like to pick up Dolan’s spark and tell you that we don’t have to go to New York or to the Holy Land to walk with Jesus. Our journeys here in Amarillo have many roads in which Jesus is our companion and where he encourages us not to be afraid. I among many others need to recognize that he is my traveling companion, in good times and in bad. As we make him present in our words, in what we think, say and do, good is accomplished, the weak are strengthened, the forgiveness of sin is preached and Alleluia is our song. Amen.