THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER: FROM EMMAUS TO JERUSALEM

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER – A: (Acts 2:14a, 22-33; 1Pt 1:17-21; Luke 24:13-35)
Theme: We can walk confidently in the way towards Heavenly Jerusalem because we have a companion of journey, the Risen Jesus.

Reflection:
- We are still walking with the Risen Jesus, full of joy and full of life: the resurrection of Jesus the central point from where our life starts and also the culmination where our life reaches its fullness.
- There is no more discouragement and desperation in spite of our doubts, illusion of mind, but the hope of finding the Lord in the Scriptures and in the Eucharist.
- He is Immanuel on the road to Emmaus, the ‘Lord with us’ as He is with the helpless and discouraged disciples on the road to Emmaus. He revealed himself, once again as He does always, as the one ‘who stays with us’. He is our companion.

First Reading:
- Peter is the first testimony of Jesus’ Resurrection to the public:
o He is the hero of Gospel of Risen Jesus: He is always ready to take up the first word for all other disciples/companions. In today’s first reading we see Peter standing up in the public, exactly opposite of what he was before the resurrection of Jesus where he was afraid and hidden himself from the authority and from the public. The one who denied Jesus in front of the people, is now, become the first one to testify and witness the power of resurrection of Jesus.
o The coward becomes the man of courage and hope: He does not fear to tell the truth of Jesus. He does not look back once he has seen Risen Jesus. He does not hide the joy of having seen the Lord whom he thought to be dead and gone. Yes, he was coward; he was fearful; he was stepping back; but it was in the past. Very soon he recovered his faith; very soon he realized his mistake; very soon he accepted his fault; and very soon he committed himself to the love of the Lord; the people who listen to him can easily find out who he was before and who he is now. They begin to see in him the true message of Christ. They start admiring his words and his stand for Jesus. The man of fear has become the man of courage and hope.
- Peter proclaims the hidden mysteries of God:
o All the events of Christ, before, during and after his earthly life in history, are the ONE DESIGN OF GOD’S SALVATION TO THE HUMANITY. This design is already pre-established and it already existed in the plan of God. All other personalities, like that of Mary and Joseph, the disciples whom he has called to himself and the authority who has condemned him to death, are the ‘instruments’ and ‘means’ that God made use of for bringing this salvation into the completion. Peter expresses this design of God beautifully in his first public speech: “this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you have crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death” (vv.23-24).
o In the mystery of God, death is not the aim but the life. God has created everything not because they may die and vanish but that they may live and participate in the fullness of life of God. This is the mystery revealed from the eternity and from the first moment of creation and therefore, our God is not God of the dead but of the living. He does not want the death of the sinner but may have life with reconciliation and conversion of the heart. In fact, death has entered into the world because of one man’s disobedience and denial of God’s communion. But God, out of his infinite love and mercy, desired and designed to save man, again by another man in substitution to the first one, by his own son Jesus Christ. Because of this man’s suffering and death and finally resurrection, the death has lost its power. The death is once and for all defeated. By his victory with the cross, he has eliminated and destroyed the powers of death. There is no more corruption of the body but its glorification in Risen Jesus. Jesus has become the cause for life. We who share in this mystery of God become the men of living, not of the death because as Peter says: “God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be help in its power” (v.24).

Second Reading:
- We belong to God for Christ has made us God’s children through his precious blood:
o By the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are all bought and brought to the life of God, which we lost by the sin of disobedience and rejection of grace. It is the fruit of resurrection. Therefore, we now belong only to Him who has called us to himself in Christ and in the Spirit.
o As we are of God, we do not belong to the world and its desires; we are living here as the strangers and as the pilgrims. We have no permanent tent here. We have eternal life here on earth. As Blessed John Paul II holds, we are in the world but not of the world. One day this pilgrimage will be over and we will reach to our home with God. We are called to be there with him sharing his life and joy.
- The character of the Baptism makes us participate in the mystery of Christ, that is, in his suffering, death and resurrection:
o We have to be always in the fear of the Lord (v. 17): Having the fear of the Lord is ‘contemplating his presence’ in faith (today’s Responsorial Psalm) and ‘partaking in his life with the works of charity’. Fear of the Lord always leads us to the knowledge of him. It is the grace of God in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us this gift and virtue of the fear of the Lord.
o The baptism we receive is the participation in the life of God: this follows immediately the responsibility and duty of safeguarding and nourishing one’s own faith and transforming and transmitting this life of faith into witnessing of Christ.

Gospel Reading:
- From Emmaus to Jerusalem: Return to Jerusalem is a return to the hope lost:
o Today’s gospel speaks about the two disciples who are on the road to Emmaus. They are going away from Jerusalem. They are going away from the hope they created in Jesus. The reason is because they desired to see a great victory and triumph of Jesus over the Romans and Jewish authority and establish his own kingdom. When they saw Jesus speaking about the kingdom and its good news, doing many wonders by the way of miracles, they indeed, thought him to be the Messiah who would establish a kingdom of his own. We can observe this in the discouragement and helplessness of disciples and in a particular way in their return to home, in their road away from Jerusalem: “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people…. we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (vv.19 and 21). But nothing of this sort happened. Instead, has taken place what was contrary: He was “condemned to death and crucified” (v.20). They have no more hope in salvation. What they have is only the way return to home and usual life and work. They started going away from Jerusalem.
o Joy of Resurrection of Jesus brings them back to Jerusalem: their sadness is over. Everything appeared to them as lost. All life and all desires seemed to be doomed into abyss. But at the end of the road they had seen and recognized their Jesus Risen, in the Scriptures that talked about Him and in the Bread that was broken by Him. Once they have recognized Risen Jesus, they are filled with great joy and their hearts were burning with His presence and they started coming back to Jerusalem. Their way back to hope.
o This is the effect of Resurrection of Jesus: although we seem to be going away from the right path and right place (from the community of believers as we have seen last week) with the burden of our doubts (drowned in the worldly challenges to the faith) and with the darkness of the soul (immersed in the desires of the world and pleasures of the flesh), our companion, Risen Jesus, always enlightens us (makes the path clear) and guides us (makes us walk back to the hope) and leads us (makes us joyful of being found in the right place again) to the Heavenly Jerusalem where we have to stay forever.
o Road to Emmaus is the road to the world. Return to Jerusalem is a return to the Father’s house. The disciples on the road to Emmaus are the disciples lost, like that of the lost son (prodigal son) who, from the moment he stepped out of the house established for him to take his own way, started losing all he has, not only the wealth but also the hope of being a son. Even these disciples once they have taken the wrong road, leaving aside the place they are called to be in, that is Jerusalem, they started losing all their life and their hope of being a disciples and the portion of partaking in the life of their master. But finally, with the help of their companion, Jesus, on their way, they started their return journey to Jerusalem immediately not wasting even a single minute, “that same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem” (v.33). This is the same hour for us to get up from the road to the world and to get back to the way that is prepared for us, the way of Jesus, towards the eternal joy of the vision of the Lord.
- Journey from the delusion/illusion to the recognition and proclamation of Risen Jesus:
o They stood still looking sad: this is the stage they are in with all the happenings of last three days, from the death to the disappearance of Jesus’ body in the tomb. They are confused. They are in an illusion. They finally look sad. They could not digest and understand what has happened and what is happening. What has happened was the condemnation and death of Jesus on the cross and his burial (v.20). What is happening is the women’s vision of angels who said that Jesus is alive (v. 23). They are in delusion (v.17). His condemnation and death were sure because they themselves have seen; but they are little more astounded (v.22) with the testimony of the women. They are in abyss between the sorrow of death and the hope of resurrection. That’s why they stood still looking sad.
o They proclaimed what has happened on the road and how they recognized him in the breaking of the bread: this is the stage they have reached at the end of the road. They have found Jesus who was with them, who was explaining them the Scriptures, from Moses to the Prophets that already talked about him, but found him only at the end, at the banquet and at the breaking of the bread. The word of God leads us to the body of the Lord (the passage from the Scriptures, table of the word, to the Eucharist, the table of the breaking of the bread). The Eucharist is the culmination of the word proclaimed and accepted.
o In this journey from the delusion to the recognition we are not alone; we have one great Companion, Jesus. In this company we do not flatter. In his guidance we do not go astray. In his banquet we are not hungry. He himself makes us to come out of this delusion and doubt and hardheartedness (“Oh, how foolish you and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!” v. 25) to the burning of the heart for him and for his joy that never ends and that never can be taken away from anybody (“were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the Scriptures to us?” v.32).
o This is the passage everyone of us has to make; this is the journey that each one of us has to take up today and from this very moment; once we recognize Jesus we cannot but move towards that joy of proclamation of wonderful deeds that God has done for us;
o “This same hour” (v.33) is the key word in accepting and seeing the effect of God’s wonderful work. The servant of the centurion was healed in ‘that hour’ (Mt 8:13). This is the hour in which we have found the Lord, in the Scripture and in the Eucharist, and this is the same hour that we have to proclaim him. ‘Now’ is the moment we have to sell all that we have and follow him (parable of rich young man); ‘Today’ is the day that the salvation has come to this house (Luke 19:1-10). As Paul also admonishes, “see now is the acceptable time; see now is the day of salvation!” (2Cor 6:2). Let us return to the life of hope; let us return to the Scriptures; let us return to the Eucharist; and let us return to the heavenly Jerusalem.

Conclusion:
- We can stand still, firm and secure because the Lord stays with us, once again He reveals himself as Emmanuel on the road to Emmaus because “he went in to stay with them” (v.29).
- We can move forward with hope and confidence because he always accompanies us in our journey, for Jesus “himself cam near and went with them” (v.15).
- We can be sure of the vision of the Lord because he is present in the Scriptures we read and meditate and in the Eucharist we share and take part and therefore, the celebration of the Mass, the Eucharist is the summit and culmination of our liturgical and spiritual life. His presence and power is always with us in the words proclaimed and in the bread broken.
- We can start our journey towards the knowledge and recognition of the Lord because he himself is our guide, master and companion.
- Get up! Let us go to proclaim what we have seen. Let us announce that we have seen the Lord. Let us cry out that Jesus is risen! Alleluia. Alleluia.