The Burning Joy of Jubilation
Third Sunday of Easter
Acts 3:13–15, 17–19 / Psalm 4:7a /1 John 2:1–5a / Luke 24:35–48
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Reflecting on the Word
By Dr. Karla J. Bellinger
Jesus is risen! Joy, exultation, a grand hurrah! And resounding alleluias! The disciples running back to Jerusalem are jubilant! As they run, they shout to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us when we walked on the road with him?” Jesus is alive!
Teresa of Ávila, the mystic, felt that jubilation, too. In her autobiography, she described that an angel thrust a long spear, tipped with fire, into her heart. As the point was being drawn out, she was left all on fire with a great love of God. That painful but sweet caress of love left her in bliss for many days.
Do modern day folks ever feel that inner burning? I wonder . . . On occasion I’ve had a bad cough and my lungs felt like they were burning. But that is not it.
When something is deeply unjust, the heat of righteous indignation can fire up the gut to do something to make things right. But that is not it either.
What is this burning of jubilation?
A young man once shared with me that he had experienced that burning in his heart one time, as he watched his bride come up the aisle. Happiness and gratitude and love all rushed together to create a fiery jubilation inside.
A mother described the touch of the tiny fingers of the two-day old child who so recently had been inside of her. Her heart swelled with the warmth of jubilation.
A husband has talked of how his heart burned with joy when his wife came home from the hospital, healed. Gratitude and love and relief all flooded together into the jubilation of having more days together.
This burning of the heart in jubilation is the opposite of Good Friday’s burden of the heart in sorrow. It is a foretaste of heaven. Death is not life’s final answer. Jesus is risen! We too will be raised! God be praised!
Consider/Discuss
- Some scholars suggest that the second of the disciples on the road to Emmaus is unnamed in order to allow us to be that traveler on the road. When have you been that disciple, and felt your heart burning with jubilation within you?
- Resurrection is more glorious than we could ever imagine. Yet sometimes we allow ourselves to be satisfied with just a bland or dulled hope. How could we grow more fervent in living new life?
Living and Praying with the Word
Jesus, we taste the sweetness of your blessed fire so rarely. Though the joys of heaven are never ending, maybe the reason that we don’t feel that more often is that we couldn’t handle more glory on a regular basis. But thank you for the moments when your joy breaks through into our lives. Thank you for love and friendship and the sharing of bread and the little touches of ways that you reveal to us the glory of heaven. Come, be with us now. Our hearts want to burn with your love.