Third Sunday of Easter 2020 Message Celebrating new Life in the Risen Christ during the COVID-19 Crisis Gospel Reading: Luke 24: 13-35
On that first day of the week, the day of Christ’s resurrection, a lot happened in a brief span of time. Christ appeared first to Mary Magdalene, then to Simon Peter and, later, to the disciples behind closed doors. In today’s reading from the end of Luke’s Gospel, on that afternoon he appears to two disciples in the country, on the road to Emmaus.
More than just a consoling story and perhaps my favorite reading from all the four Gospels, today’s account delves deeply into several aspects and fruits of the Resurrection of our Lord. In truth, the Emmaus story marks a transition in faith and a new way of experiencing and knowing Christ.
Allow me to give a brief summary: Christ is there and in person, walking along and teaching and at the table. During their repast, he is made manifest in the breaking of the bread and, suddenly, he vanishes from sight. The next thing the disciples know, Christ is everywhere; he continues to be present.
A similar dynamic occurs earlier that day, Mary Magdalene encounters the tomb of Jesus with the stone rolled back and empty. The first visible sign of the Resurrection was one of absence. The body of Jesus was no longer there; but, he was not gone, for he continued to be present.
Such details were and are obvious, but they quietly and simply point to deeper truths. The Resurrection is Christ conquering death, but it is not about returning to life as we know and experience it daily. Death is a harsh fact of our existence, but it is not the truth of our lives nor our destiny. The Risen Lord teaches us that life is not restricted by the confines of existence as we know it. He calls us to inform our earthly sojourn with eternal truths, especially his love and mercy.
Salvation is real and true, but our limitations result in partial understanding. The Resurrection, the vanquishing of the apparent finality of death, is the action of God making it possible for us to not only hope beyond death, but, in Christ, truly live out that hope.
Resurrection is the fruit of the encounter of earthly life – in the person of Jesus – with the eternal truth of God’s love and fidelity. The result of such an encounter is life, not mere existence, but much more than we can fully comprehend. Death might bring a sense of closure to things and to an earthly existence, but in faith we intuit much more. Oftentimes, memory is the vehicle for such assurance; a start, but not complete.
St. Augustine, in his profound reflection of the meaning of memory, writes, “We do not say we have found the thing which was lost unless we recognize it, and we cannot recognize it if we do not remember it. The object was lost to the eyes, but held in the memory.” After thinking they had lost Jesus to death, Christ accompanied those two disciples and walked with them. Still, as St. Luke recounts, “their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.” They remembered Jesus, but their memory was not enough for recognizing Christ. Their memory of the “object” of their faith – Jesus – had to be purified and transformed.
They could not recognize the Risen Lord. Perhaps grief and fear had obscured their spiritual sight; perhaps it had to do with their incomplete hopes, the partial understanding of Christ’s mission and message. They exclaimed, “We were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel.” What they defined as hopes were more like expectations; what they expected the Messiah to do. Such perspectives, even though sincere, needed transformation. To be honest, the same conversion often needs to occur within our minds as well.
Christ came along and healed their memory, to introduce them to his truth, and the truth of their own lives and ours. The hearts of those disciples, as well as ours, needed to be purified by the fire of love. Christ came along and started a “burning” within them.
The transformation continues at table. In the breaking of the bread, Christ both disappears and is made manifest to the disciples. Calling to mind Augustine’s insights, it seemed that Christ had vanished, but now they held him in memory more than ever before. However, in that moment they might have thought briefly that they had lost him, but the bread that remained – the element of that first Eucharist after the Resurrection – became his way of making the memory a living hope to be celebrated and eaten as heavenly nourishment, but on earth.
We, too, hold Christ in our memory, and under the form of Eucharistic bread, receive him as food. Christ longs to sustain us in our thoughts, memories and actions. Christ vanished only to continue being present. Go find him; go discover him, go and share him.