THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER
Year B : 22 April 2012
The disciples, Cleopas and possibly his wife
Mary, in their hurt and disappointment had been
going away from Jerusalem to Emmaus; Jesus had
joined them as they walked, and had dined with
them, and, after recognising him in ‘the breaking
of bread’, they have rushed back in the dark,
overjoyed, to Jerusalem to tell their story
to the disciples, who also were changed because
Simon had seen the Lord, an apparition we know
nothing else about beyond the fact that St Paul
confirms that it happened. They had not time
to discuss the meaning of it all before Jesus
stood among them.
Although he greets them with the traditional
greeting: “Peace to you”, (his first words as
the risen Lord), they react in panic and are
not pacified at seeing his scars but only when
he eats. The reality of resurrection is more
difficult to handle than is talking about it.
This was understandable, for life after death
to the Jews meant a sort of shadowy existence
in Sheol, so that anyone alive after death could
only be a shadow of himself, a pale ghost. They
want to believe but find that they cannot do
so. Jesus sets his mind to calming them down
by proving that he is real and the same but
different. After all he did not come in the
door. It is probably part of St Luke’s purpose
to meet the charge the authorities were sure
to make, that the disciples were either making
it all up or too eager to get carried away by
their imagination. There was also a very early
heresy called Docetism that asserted that the
divine Christ descended on Jesus at his baptism
and left again at the crucifixion and so denied
the reality of Christ’s human life. This may
also have influenced Luke to show that it ignored
the actual facts.
He then goes through the three sections of
the Jewish Bible to show where the events were
foretold and had now come to be fulfilled. The
plan of God drawn up before the time of Moses
and gradually presented in the Bible has now
reached the stage of accomplishment. The purpose
of his death and resurrection was so that all
nations would hear about repentance and the
forgiveness of sins, made visible and possible
in Christ Jesus. The preaching of this comprehensive
plan of God would begin from this room in Jerusalem
and from the small group in the room who would
bear witness to it. Such was to be their mission,
if it were also their choice.
• “You are witnesses to this” is addressed to
me too since I know from prayer, sacrament and
the Word of God that Jesus is alive. The group
in that room had a bigger challenge than me,
yet the message has reached me.
• Cleopas and Mary (probably) “recognised Jesus
at the breaking of bread” together. Mary had
been at Calvary, but the couple were ‘ordinary’
disciples who practised hospitality and were
singled out for an extraordinary moment of discovery,
which they allowed to change them.
• “The breaking of bread” suggests the Eucharist
to us. How well does my ‘recognition quotient’
function at the Eucharist?
• Sacred Scripture as I listen introduces me
to the plan of God, set in train for us long
ago. All help is available but no one is forced.
My limitations are understood and taken into
account, since the forgiveness of sins is only
necessary for those who sin. In a sense my sinfulness
is my first qualification -- if I recognise
it.
