Word to the Wise
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - Octave of Easter - Wed
[Acts 3:1-10 and Luke 24:13-35]"O, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures....
The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus and their encounter with the Risen Christ is a masterpiece! It speaks not only of the immediate hours and days after Jesus' death and resurrection, but also of the years of reflection that followed as the new "movement" found its bearings after the sudden and traumatic death of the founder! As the story develops we move from the disappointment and confusion of the two disciples to the moment of recognizing Jesus in the "breaking of the bread." It is much like any grieving process in which one goes from the immediate sorrow of an unexpected death through a slow process of grief and reflection to perspective and acceptance and moving on into the future.
In the case of the Christian community, a vital aid to this process was a collective telling of their individual memories of Jesus and what he said during his ministry, and how this could be interpreted in the light of "Moses and all the prophets" that the "Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory...." From these memories and traditions, a way of understanding the incredible fact of the resurrection develops. Luke makes it plain that the first disciples were very human in their reaction to this news. Jesus' appearances were a challenge to their faith! 2000 years later, we still face the same challenges in proclaiming the resurrection.
Today I want to note only two things out of this incredibly rich chapter of the gospel. This is a story of two different encounters with the Risen Jesus. The first encounter is the one with the "stranger" who joins the pilgrims and gets them thinking about the possible meaning of all that they know and have heard. ("Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?") The second encounter is at the table when "he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread." ("And it happened that, 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 the recognized him...") We who live two millenia after these events still face the challenge of knowing Jesus both in Word and in Sacrament. He is not a dead figure of the past but a living Lord whose life is now our own. We must add our own stories to the Good News! AMEN
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
86 ms
4
