Third Sunday Of Easter
Luke 24:35-48 (Acts 3:13-15, 17-19; Psalm 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9; 1 John 2:1-5a)
This Sunday’s gospel reading is a sequel to Jesus’ encounter with two disciples on the walk home from Jerusalem to Emmaus. The risen Lord, whom they had not yet recognized, was sharing a meal with them. When “he took bread, blessed it, and broke it, their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight.” Instead of proceeding home to Emmaus, on that very night they returned to Jerusalem. Today’s gospel reading begins, “The two disciples described to other disciples what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.” The “breaking of the bread” should be understood as the Eucharist. Luke uses the same expression for the Eucharist in Acts 2:42 and 20:7. The same expression for the Eucharist was used decades earlier than Luke by St. Paul in 1 Corinth.10:16. Luke teaches that the risen, living Lord is revealed always in “the breaking of the bread.”
Suddenly Jesus stood among his disciples back in Jerusalem. He gives the same greeting as we saw last Sunday in the Gospel of John, “Shalom alachem!” Theirs was a normal reaction at see-ing alive someone they knew had been “crucified, died, and was buried.” They were terrified and thought they were seeing a spirit. Jesus reassures them, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.” This was an invitation not to see his hands and feet but to see the wounds in his hands and his feet, the wounds of the nails. “Feel (handle, touch) me, and see.” A later letter attributed to the Apostle John gives us a flashback to the disciples’ post-resurrection communing with Jesus, as we read in 1 John 1:1-2, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands…, the Word of life…and we saw it and bear witness to it….”
The Lord Jesus continues, “…a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” He showed them his wounded hands and feet. Then Luke inserts one of his seemingly contradictory statements, “While they were unbelieving out of joy and wondered….” Can one not believe due to joy? Another example: while Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Luke writes, “They were sleeping out of sorrow.” Sorrow usually keeps one awake. Both instances are characteristic of Luke trying to present the disciples more positively than he found them described in the Gospel of Mark. Mark can be brutally frank, making no excuses for them. Luke does. Jesus understands their doubting faith and offers further proof of his reality, “Have you anything here to eat?” They hand him a piece of baked fish, which he ate in front of them.”
A resurrected body eating food? This caused consternation for Church Fathers. Cyril of Alexandria, (died 444), wrote, “The natural consequences of eating by no means followed in the case of Christ, as the unbeliever might object, knowing that whatever enters the mouth must necessarily come out into the drain. The believer will not admit these quibbles into his mind but leaves the matter to the power of God.” Cool, but does it explain anything? We shall leave it at that! No bathrooms needed in heaven! The introduction of the risen Jesus to his disciples is over. Time to go to work. As Jesus had instructed the two Emmaus disciples, so now he instructs those who were closest to him during his ministry. He notes that everything that had happened to him took place because it was so determined by what had been written in “Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms.”
There were then as there are now three major divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures: Torah (thought to have been written entirely by Moses); Prophets (major and minor Old Testament prophets and Books of Samuel and Kings); Writings (whatever did not fit into the other two categories. Chief of the Writings were the Psalms). Thus “Moses, Prophets, Psalms.” As yet, there were no other Scriptures. The New Testament Scriptures were in formation in the last half of the first century and the early part of the second century A.D. The Lucan Jesus gives details of how Moses, the Prophets, and the Writings correspond to what actually happened to Jesus. He begins, “It is written….” In the New Testament that phrase introduces a Scripture quote. What was written? “…that the Christ (Messiah) is to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.”
We do not know exactly what Scripture quotes Luke had in mind when he depicts Jesus saying these words. They include those he uses in the Acts of Apostles. Examples: the resurrection - Psalm 16:10, (quoted in Acts 2:27), “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol (Hades), nor let your Holy One see corruption.” Also Hosea 6:2. The Passion of Jesus – Psalm 2:2 (quoted in Acts 4:26), “The kings of the earth set themselves in array, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and his Anointed One….” But there was to be a sequel to the Passion and death of Jesus, as Luke notes, “that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem.” Luke intends this sequel to also be determined by Old Testament Scriptures. No specific passages seem intended but a general theme of most of the Prophets. However, “…beginning from Jerusalem” rests solidly on Isaiah 2:3, “Out of Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” Finally Luke’s version of the Great Commission, “You are the ones who will bear witness to these things.”
