Word to the Wise
Wednesday, March 30, 2016 - Octave of Easter - Wed
[Acts 3:1-10 and Luke 24:13-35]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 they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. 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?" [Luke]
Mary Magdalen was not the only person who had trouble recognizing Jesus in his resurrected state. The Gospel of Luke has the wonderful account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus who had left Jerusalem depressed and disillusioned over the terrible death of Jesus. Jesus joins them on the road and pretends not to know what had taken place! A process of learning takes place in which the disciples are challenged to understand the scriptures which would help them, in turn, to understand what happened to Jesus.
Since Luke wrote nearly thirty or more years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, he may have used this story of the disciples to illustrate a process going on at the time of his writing. The early Christian community turned to the scriptures they had - what we call the Old Testament - to help them understand Jesus' life and death and resurrection. They were beginning to gather, read the scriptures and break bread. They were doing this "in memory of" Jesus. The disciples on the road simply illustrated this for all of us.
On Sunday we do the same thing. We ask the Lord to be with us; we hear the scriptures proclaimed and preached (well, I hope); and we break the bread in which we recognize the true presence of the Lord. AMEN
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