Third Sunday of Easter, Year B

Third Sunday of Easter  Year B

Acts 3:13-15, 17-19

1 John 2:1-5

Luke 24:35-48

If the point of last Sunday's gospel was on experiencing the risen Lord, the point of today's gospel seems to be on sharing our faith with others. Christ wants his followers to be his witnesses. Witnessing, like a coin, has two sides. One side has to do with seeing an event, having knowledge of something through personal experience and not on hearsay. The other side has to do with being able to give an account of it before others.

That we are called to be witnesses of Christ means that we are called first to have a personal experience of Christ and then to share this experience with others. Many Christians, unfortunately, only go halfway as they focus on knowing Christ more and more without a corresponding interest in sharing the knowledge. Yet, faith is like a flame: the more a piece of wood passes the flame to others the more brightly it burns, but if it refuses to pass on the flame, it stands in danger of losing even its own flame.

The grandfather of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber was lame. One day they asked him to tell a story about his teacher, and he related how his master used to hop and dance while he prayed. The old man rose as he spoke and was so swept away by his story that he himself began to hop and dance to show how his master did it. From that moment he was cured of his lameness. When we tell the story of Christ, we achieve two things. We enable others to experience him and we ourselves experience his power even more. We can see that happening in today's gospel.

There are two points in today's readings that might draw our attention. First, in the Gospel of Luke, we hear the experience of two followers of Jesus, totally disillusioned by his death and burial, really sad and downcast—and yet Jesus Himself came to them. They were on their way to Emmaus, a small village outside of Jerusalem and that name is now known to us because of their experience. The earlier part of this Gospel tells us that they were debating and discussing. Most likely they were debating and discussing about Jesus, wondering if they had been totally deceived by Him.

Part of our Christian experience at times is about disillusionment and being sad, really wondering if God is present in our lives, wondering if Jesus is our Lord and wondering if God cares about us at all. Sometimes we walk through those times and only very slowly does our faith deepen. At other times we seem to be given other gifts of faith that allow us to believe without such effort. Some people even seem to be given extraordinary gifts of faith by which without any effort of their own they are able to remain in the divine presence and rejoice.

In these matters of faith, we can come to trust in God who knows best what truly will help us grow humanly and in divine grace. We can profit by comparing our walk of faith with that of others only if we have complete trust that God chooses us just as we are right now and is there striving to bring about what is absolutely the best for us right in the here and now. Even when we fall and sin, God is right there trying to help us walk in faith once more.

It is as though Jesus Christ is standing right beside us each moment and saying: see my hands and me feet! Touch me! I am truly with you. It is like an echo of that great Easter Homily of Saint John Chrysostom: it does not matter when you come to the Lord, what matters is that you begin to follow Him and He will love just as much as He would have loved you. God’s love is so much better than our own, so much stronger, so much more powerful. Yet we hesitate to believe that God could love us so much.

 
The image of how much God loves us is always Jesus crucified. God is not only willing to die for us, God in Jesus Christ has died for us and gone through the pains and sufferings of a most cruel death. All this has been done so that we can live a new life. We often prefer our old life of sin because of the pleasures and the comfort involved in it. But we are challenged to see that it is not truly life but leads to a death.

The Gospel story begins with the two disciples coming back from Emmaus, very excited because they had seen the Risen Lord. He had walked with them, he had explained the meaning of his death in terms of the Hebrew Testament prophecies and he had broken and shared the bread at table with them.  It was only at the breaking of bread that they recognised him. For them this was an event where Jesus comes unexpectedly into their lives and they needed faith to recognise him.  This is how we encounter Jesus too.  The Gospel tells us that suddenly there was Jesus among them. He uses the same greeting: “Peace with you!” But the disciples could not believe and they think they are seeing a ghost. But it is Jesus who reassures them.  He tells them not to be afraid and he asks them to touch him and feel him and have no doubts. This is the real Jesus, the Jesus they have always known. This is the Jesus who continues his ministry which he was doing before his passion and death. Yes, the two disciples met the risen Lord on the way to Emmaus. They came back to Jerusalem to share their experience with the apostles. We read that "While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you'" (Luke 24:36). Christ makes himself present in the process of sharing their faith experience with the other unbelieving disciples. Now the eleven apostles and their companions are in turn enabled to experience the risen Lord. And it takes no stretch of the imagination to see that for the two who shared their experience this would be a big strengthening of faith, a big empowerment.

What does Jesus do to those who experience him? First, he communicates peace to their troubled hearts. Then he tries to convince them that the same Jesus of Nazareth who suffered and died the shameful death on the cross is the very one who is now alive in glory with God. He goes as far as eating broiled fish which, of course, he does not need, in order to make the point. Then he opens their minds to understand the Scriptures and how they point to him. Finally he commissions them to be his witnesses. "You are witnesses of these things"(Luke 24:48). This is what Jesus did when he appeared in the gathering of the disciples that Sunday morning 2000 years ago. And this is what he does when he appears in the Sunday gathering of the faithful here today.

Notice how active Jesus is. He is the one who gives them his peace. He is the one who strengthens their faith and takes away their doubts. He is the one who opens their minds and explains the Scriptures to them. He is the one who declares them his witnesses. The disciples do not do much in the encounter except open their eyes to see him, their hearts to let in his peace, their minds to receive his instruction. And in the end when he says, "You are witnesses of these things," they would be expected to respond, "Yes, Lord," and then go out and try to be just that.

Today, we read of the return of these two Disciples who walked away to a distant village perhaps out of total disappointment over the events that had taken place about Jesus.  The disciples could not make sense of Jesus’ recent death. Nor did they make out what was going on when Jesus appeared to them.  Jesus has his own way of strengthening the faith of the disciples and like the well known parable of the foot prints on sand; he is able to carry the persons in trouble in his arms. This is a beautiful story of how a friend can convince another and teach the doctrine, by emphasizing the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  Jesus comes to them to teach them, eat with them, give them the mission and the promise to be there with them till the end of times. How do we witness to Christ? Here many wayside preachers get it wrong. It is not by threatening people with eternal hellfire. It is not by arguing with them on controversial theological issues. It is simply, as the two disciples on the way to Emmaus did, by telling the story of our personal encounter with Christ. It is sharing with them why we are Christians. As St Peter tells us, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15).

In the First Reading, “God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.”  Peter says that they all acted in ignorance and in this way the plan of God is fulfilled.  The Old Testament tells us that God will send the messiah and this Messiah would suffer while bringing redemption to people. But to all people there is an invitation to change their lives and repent and listen to the good news which is Jesus himself.

In the Second Reading John says: “By this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commands. Whoever says, ‘I have come to know him’ but does not obey his commands is a liar and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him.” Jesus here invites us to be persons who constantly study and try to understand and enter more deeply in the mystery of the Word of God.  It was only after they understood the Scriptures that the disciples were able to understand the life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus.  He invites us to be a community which shares and cares and in which everything is shared and where none are unnecessarily in need, in particular the sick and the marginalized. He calls us to build unity and peace and bring about the harmony in the present day divided society. That is what is meant by the term God is love.

We discover here something new. There is a reversal of roles from the earlier life of Jesus. During his life time Jesus had given them the meal.  Even at the last supper he broke the bread and gave it to them. Now it is the disciples who provide the food for Jesus. The entire new community is itself the Body of Jesus and it does what Jesus did. Then, as with the disciples going to Emmaus, Jesus teaches them about the meaning of his suffering and death. Then he tells them about the prophets and makes them realize that the mission of the kingdom has been there from the beginning. Jesus now continues the teaching mission but all in a new light, the light of the Resurrection. Therefore Luke says that he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

The disciples have a new mission - to preach in the name of Jesus and to proclaim the kingdom of God. This involves conversion to Jesus’ way and experiencing the forgiveness of their sins. It is a call to experience a total reconciliation with Jesus and his Way, with all their brothers and sisters and with the whole of creation. Finally it is a call to be his witnesses through their lives, words, and actions, manifesting a community of unity and love.  You distribute the Body of Christ when you give a check to a worthwhile charity. When you give food to a hungry person, you are distributing the Body of Christ. In prayer groups, when you share the Good News and tell others about the joy you find in your faith, you are distributing the Body of Christ. Let us go forth with the power of today’s Gospel message firmly implanted in our lives, renewed and reflecting the words of St. Augustine: “You are the Body of Christ. In you and through you the work of the incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken. You are to be blessed, broken, and distributed, that you may be the means of grace and the vehicles of eternal love.”