Third Sunday of Easter

Jan 30 2025

Recognizing the Lord

Recognizing Jesus as the risen Lord seems to have been something of a problem. Mary Magdalene didn’t; she thought he was the gardener. The disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t; they took him for a stranger who had heard nothing about the recent events in Jerusalem. And even in today’s Gospel, the apostles thought he was a ghost.

It is instructive to note how Jesus reveals himself in each case. To Mary Magdalene, he simply says her name, “Mary.” The two disciples on the road get an instruction on how all these recent events in Jerusalem fulfill the scriptures. And today the apostles are shown his hands and feet, watch him eat, and again, have their minds opened to the meaning of the scriptures. In all cases, Jesus’ words play an important role.

How we come to know the risen Lord runs along the same lines. We come to know him through the word of God. He calls us to be disciples, to be friends, to be children of the Father through the scriptures. We come to the table of the Lord each week, where our minds and hearts can be opened.

We recognize him in the breaking of the bread, both the bread of the Eucharist and the bread of God’s word. Some preparation on our part can be helpful. By spending some time with the coming Sunday’s readings during the week, we are more likely to have God’s word penetrate our hearts when we gather to listen together to the scriptures and the preaching.

Consider/Discuss

Have you had any experience of knowing the presence of Christ and hearing his voice in the readings and preaching at Sunday Eucharist?
Do you appreciate the Sunday Eucharist as a time when the community continues to experience the presence of the risen Lord?

Responding to the Word

Risen Lord Jesus, by our baptism we began to live with your life and received the gifts of faith, hope, and love. We know you have come to draw us into the life and love of the Trinity. Increase our ability to hear your voice and know you through the scriptures.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

Peter stands as a witness to the Resurrection. His attitude toward his Jewish compatriots is hardly a case of anti-Judaism. He is opposed to those who refuse to accept Jesus as Messiah, not to the Jewish nation as a whole. His Christology is rooted in the prophetic tradition of ancient Israel, employing language that is reminiscent of the Suffering Servant tradition of Isaiah. He weaves various thematic threads together, reinterpreting earlier traditions, thus developing his own Christian theology. The power of God to bring life out of death is the point of the passage, not the assignment of blame for Jesus’ death.

The major portion of the second reading goes beyond promotion of righteous living. It offers encouragement for those times when believers stray from righteousness and do in fact sin. In these times, Jesus will be an advocate for them before God. Jesus does not assume the role of comforter, a role traditionally assigned to the Spirit. Rather, he is an intercessor, one who atones for the sins of the world. The knowledge of God discussed here is experiential knowledge, knowledge that results in a relationship with God. To know God is to love God. Both knowledge and love of God manifest themselves in obedience to God’s commandments.

The risen Lord Jesus addresses a group of women and men with the customary Jewish greeting: Peace be with you! They are terrified, for they think that they are seeing a ghost. Jesus rebukes them for having doubts and then calls attention to the marks of the nails in his hands and feet, demonstrating that it is really he. In a final demonstration of his bodily reality, he eats a piece of cooked fish. Although this is not the official ritual meal of the community, it may have eucharistic overtones. Having assured the disciples of his bodily resurrection, Jesus proceeds to explain his suffering and death by turning to the scriptures.

Jan 27 2025

Scripture Study for

The first reading, which features one of several kerygma-based speeches in Acts, follows the healing of a lame man by Peter and John, to the astonishment of onlookers. Peter responds by asking the crowd why they are so amazed, as if Peter and John themselves had performed the cure. No, he says, it was by faith in the name of Jesus that the man was healed. The healing, then, is proof of the truth of the proclamation Peter makes about Jesus. Peter also pointedly remarks that, although the people and their leaders acted out of ignorance in crucifying Jesus, they can no longer claim such ignorance. Just as Jesus announced the reign of God and called for repentance, so now Peter announces the Good News of Christ and calls for repentance.

The First Letter of John begins with an exhortation to accept the message that “God is light” and that only those who walk in the light have fellowship with God (1:5–6). To walk in the light means to turn away from sin and accept God’s forgiveness in Christ. Only those who fail to recognize their need for forgiveness can block this gracious action of God; all others can be assured not only of forgiveness, but that they have Jesus as their Advocate. There can be no greater assurance of being in fellowship with God. John emphasizes that living in fellowship with Christ is above all a practical matter. “Knowing” Christ means obeying his commandments, and obedience to Christ is the royal road to love of God.

Immediately before the present Gospel account, the disciples who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus returned to Jerusalem to tell their story to the Eleven (24:33). Now Jesus suddenly appears in their midst, greeting them with peace. Their terror at seeing what they think is a ghost reflects doubt in the possibility that Jesus has indeed been raised from the dead, hence his invitation to “touch me and see,” and the pointed statement that he ate, something ghosts do not do. The Gospel accounts agree that Jesus’ resurrection was physical, although they are equally clear that his is a transformed physicality. Now that Jesus’ work on earth has been done, it is time for his followers to preach both repentance and forgiveness, not just to Israel, but to “all the nations.”

Jan 27 2025

The Burning Joy of Jubilation

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.

Jan 14 2025

Resurrection Words

The power of words spoken by a person with great conviction can be transformative. I have heard various presidents of our country speak, and many preachers of the gospel. Most memorable were those who offered not only a well-written speech but one communicated with what has been called “fire in the belly.” This does not translate necessarily into a lot of shouting or banging of the podium, but more an experience of word becoming flesh.

Jesus certainly had this ability, as we hear today in the disciples’ reaction: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). The same sense of heat being generated is in today’s first reading when Peter raises his voice and proclaims: “You who are Israelites, hear these words” (Acts 2:22). Peter then goes on to preach Jesus Christ whom “God raised . . . up, releasing him from the throes of death, because it was impossible for him to be held by it” (2:24). This is a far cry from Peter in the courtyard the night Jesus was arrested.

We spend seven weeks celebrating the Easter event so that the awareness of this mystery might occupy a bigger place in our heart. Like the disciples on the road, we may find ourselves losing hope that our belief in Jesus really matters in today’s world, but seven weeks of Easter can help us recover a stronger sense of what we heard in 1 Peter today, that truly our “faith and hope are in God” (1 Peter 1:21).

Consider/Discuss

Can you think of a time when the words of another have transformed how you were thinking or feeling?
What impact do the words “He has been raised!” have on you?

Responding to the Word

We can pray that we will be welcoming to anyone through whom Jesus continues to meet us on the road and bring us to deeper understanding of what his death and resurrection mean for our lives and the life of the world. We pray for liberation from whatever prevents us from recognizing him.