THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER - YEAR B

THIRD SUNDAY OF THE EASTER – YEAR B (Acts 3:13-15, 17-19; 1John 2:1-5a; Luke 24:35-38) Theme: A journey of Risen Life: from the personal experience to the testimony Reflection: Not Historians and Mathematicians – But Be Bearers and Sharers - The Risen Jesus is still amidst us and he will be with us and by us until the end of time. His continuous apparition is present in our daily celebration of the Eucharist. He is present, above all, within us and through us in the world. Being the testimony of his efficacious life-giving presence in the world is our Easter Task: our word is a word that gives life to the listeners and our deed is a deed that elevates the receiver and our life is a life that is ‘given’ for others. - Our journey for today and from today is: we have experienced and have been experiencing the Risen Jesus; we know the fruits of that Risen Life within us, peace, joy and love; as Christ’s followers what we have is not (only) for us; in fact, we have no personal life as we have already meditated last Sunday; what we have and what we are as Christians is for others; we use the word Christian so often because of both of its dignity and task: we bear Christ upon us (the dignity) and we offer him to others (the task). If we keep aside this significance of the word Christian we are the children of the world and we can do whatever we want and we can live however we like to. But once we desire to have the life of Jesus through the faith we profess – which comes to us in the sacramental life – we cannot and should not forget the truth: that WE ARE MADE (called) FOR OTHERS. Indeed, this truth leads us to make the passage/journey from what we have for ourselves to what we are for others and this is the theme of this week: A Journey from the Personal Experience of Life to the Testimony of It by our presence. - Content is same also in the readings that the Church proposes for us today. Jesus, rather Risen Jesus, appears to the disciples. This is not the first time and not even for the last time. He makes himself present to them. It is continuous process in which the disciples are encouraged and inserted into the true faith which will go even to the giving of their life for regaining it in the Heavenly Jerusalem. The presence and the power of Risen Jesus are not to be counted anymore in the human terms. We often tend to prove the Resurrection of Jesus with the number of apparitions he made to his disciples and to those with them. Jesus made himself present to his disciples to bring them to the experience of life they are called to receive. This is the time and time of Easter Joy rather than Easter proof. We have to avoid the temptations to prove the resurrection basing ourselves on the chronological or mathematical facts. It is an experience offered personally by the Risen Jesus and received intimately by the disciples. o Chronological understanding of the Resurrection is trial to put all the apparitions in order. It opens the way for an ascending system as of to whom the risen Jesus has appeared first and where, to the second and where and so on. It will only give make us create a structural series of the resurrection. Once the series is over we stop thinking of that and look for something else (not something more about that). We stop our talking and we break our thinking about it. It only becomes a history in which Jesus has said to be risen. We become only historians. It gives very minimum chance for the personal experience of the Risen Jesus. o Mathematical understanding of the resurrection is very closer to the chronological. It deals with the days and time of the apparitions of risen Jesus. It measures the fact of resurrection with the mathematically numbered system: as of the number of how many times and how many days that Jesus has made himself manifest after his resurrection. It too makes a book of accounts of his presence with his disciples. The statements, such as, “Jesus appeared to his people for forty days” and “he appeared for ten times or more or less”, and so… are the calculations that provide proof for the resurrection of Jesus. Here too, it remains only a historical proof. Once we close this accounts book we stop observing and living its consequence. We become only mathematicians. It makes us feed our life with the gospel accounts of resurrection without having any personal experience of Risen Jesus. - Experience, not just proof: we called not to be just historians and mathematicians but a living experience of the Easter Life. We need proofs, of course! But our faith has to supersede or transcend mere dependence on the proofs. The facts of the resurrection of Jesus are no more the events of apparitions though they are primary for the knowledge of resurrection. They are more than that: the Facts of Resurrection of Jesus are the Disciples who interiorly experienced the Life and who exteriorly testified it with the sacrifice of their own life. Their life was towards The Life. This is what Jesus wanted. He wanted them to have an inner joy and force of this experience. His apparitions were not just for proving his coming back to life from the death but to create in them the faith and to affirm and confirm them in the New Life He Brought into the World through His Life and Resurrection. We are called to be the testimony of this new life of the resurrection and the commission of Risen Jesus is exactly this: “You Are My Witnesses.” Experience of Risen Jesus: in and through the Eucharist - The first meditation is on the experience of Jesus. Unless we have a true and authentic experience we cannot be true witnesses. We have to first live what we want to proclaim and our proclamation will be authentic only when we first live it. We rise above the mere proof and reflect today how the disciples themselves have experienced the presence of Risen Jesus. Every Sunday we have the accounts of Jesus appearance. Even today we have heard of the Gospel and Jesus appears to the Twelve and others with them. At the outset we note that this is not a separate appearance but it is only an extension of the apparition. We observe well the gospel passage. The two disciples who escaped from Jerusalem and attempted to go to Emmaus have returned back to Jerusalem. Their experience was so rich. o Their journey towards themselves and towards their preoccupations: They journeyed with the desperation of losing their master, Jesus. They looked discouraged and depressed. They looked as though drowned deep in the ocean of doubts. They have lost peace of mind and tranquility of heart. In a word, they lost their life. o Their journey towards the Lord: Jesus did not abandon them. He appeared to them as a passenger and opened their mind to understand the scriptures. They still failed in the darkness of their doubt and fear. Then Jesus has only one mode of making them feel his presence: the breaking of the bread. It was the evening and the two disciples asked him to stay with them. The important attitude from the disciples is that even in their fear and doubt they have opened a space for Jesus’ stay. They requested Jesus to stay back with them that night: one reason may be it was becoming night but another reason certainly should be “the hope and strength” that this passenger has given them by talking and explaining the prophetic teachings on Christ. o They found the Lord in the breaking of the Bread: the word was not sufficient. The words were not so much convincing at least to them to put off their doubt. Scriptural quotations have not quenched their thirst for the truth of faith. Something more efficacious was needed and it was “breaking the bread”. When Jesus has broken the bread giving thanks to God they have immediately illumined with the presence of the resurrected Jesus: “It was the Lord” was their immediate experience. - Jesus’ appearance while they are already with the talk of joy: today’s gospel opens with the experience that these two disciples from Emmaus were narrating. The story or the narration was not yet over. The light of faith and the experience of Joy of resurrection of Jesus are just passing through their mind and their heart as they were attending the above narration. Their minds were getting ready to believe the Fact and their hearts were getting open to embrace the Life. Their communion and interaction was preparing them for the acceptance of the Fact and the Life of Resurrection. The experience of the two disciples is so powerful and so contagious that it is touching all others making them open to the truth. - It is exactly at this point that Jesus appears to them: The moment is prepared. The time is ripened. The truth is manifested. The risen life is revealed. “While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you’” (Luke 24:36). He has just arisen in them the confidence. He asked them not to have fear and doubt: “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?” (Luke 24:38). He himself makes them feel that they are on the right path: “It is I myself” (Luke 24:39). He shows them as he is with the flesh and bones and with the wounds of the nails. They became joyful yet did not complete trust. They needed something more. They were surprised with his presence. They were astonished with his assuring words. They were wondering when they saw his hands and feet. Yet they have little more doubt. Something else should help them to believe. Another way is needed. And Jesus presents them the way: Banquet – the Eucharist. - He asked them something to eat and they provided them a fish. In the communion of the banquet – sharing the meal of joy – they have recognized perfectly well and have believed in the resurrection of Jesus. It was the banquet of peace (v. 36). It was the sharing of joy (v.41). And finally it was the nutriment for forgiveness from their sins of doubt and unnecessary fear (v.47) and of witnessing love. For them now it has become not just a proof: but A Fact and A New Life. The mystery remains: it is in the Eucharist that the presence of Jesus fully experienced and recognized. The disciples of today’s gospel had such an experience and this is what made them the witnesses for the Life they have heard, seen and touched. Sharers of the Banquet: bearers of the Risen Jesus – the witnesses - The experience is not just an inside job but it is an out-going and out-reaching power: any experience of something good makes us feel empowered and pushes us forward to proclaim it with the joy. It is true of the disciples who have had same experience with the Risen Jesus. They are filled with faith and their faith is measureless. They are filled with joy and their joy is tremendous. They are filled with peace and their peace is countless. They are filled with Life and their life is abundant: I have come so that you may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10) and again, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11). Disciples have undergone this experience in the fullest manner in the sharing of the banquet. The banquet and the life of the disciples have become so intimate that they cannot be separated. The Christian life, if viewed from outside this rapport with the Eucharist, will have to face the doubt, the fear and the desperation as it was (or happened) for the disciples. The life of the disciples is part and parcel of the Eucharistic mystery as though there is no Christian life without Eucharistic celebration. In turn, this Eucharistic or paschal experience of Jesus, cannot but let out what is happening within: to witness even to the cost of sacrificing proper life. - Witnessing is the Easter Task: The commission of the Risen Jesus is this: “You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:48). Jesus first reminds them all the scriptures that were to be fulfilled and are already fulfilled in his paschal mystery – with his death and resurrection. Not only reminds them, moreover he opens the mind of the disciples to understand them all that he has already spoke and all that is happening right now in front of their eyes: the personal prophecy and the fulfillment (Luke 24:44-47). “These things” that Jesus talks about is the “listening – seeing – and experiencing” of his life. The disciples are the witnesses because they have listened to him, they have seen all that he fulfilled and they are now experiencing His Life Within them. It was the task of the disciples and all the followers of Jesus. - The spirit-filled Peter himself is the first and the immediate effect of the Resurrection (Acts 3:11-26 – little of which is found in today’s first reading): we are well aware of Peter who he was before the resurrection and what he has become after (or as the fruit) of resurrection. He is filled with the spirit, the spirit which dispelled from him the fear of accepting the truth. He is filled with the spirit, the spirit which has deleted from him the files of doubt. He is filled with the spirit, the spirit which empowered him to be the first voice for the New Life in Risen Jesus. That Peter, who was frightened even in front of a servant girl in the courtyard of Pilot, is now in the feet. He stands up publicly. He confesses and professes all that happened in him personally and in all the disciples as the community of believers. As the matter of manifestation of the fact they have just worked a miracle in the same name of Jesus healing the crippled beggar (Acts 3:1-10). He knows that he is poor in words and wealth. He also knows that he is rich in the words and treasure of resurrection of Jesus (Acts 3:5-7). - His preaching, rather, his witnessing itself is the inspiration and power of the Spirit: this is manifested in his proclamation. He talk reveals that both the Old Testament and New Testament are united (are fulfilled and made one) in Jesus Christ who is dead and now risen. He also calls people to come back to the Author of Life whom they have crucified among whom he himself was there before the conversion. He proclaims: “But you rejected the Holy and righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses” (Acts 3:14-15). The conversion and the forgiveness of sins are always open and are ever available for those who return. It happened exactly to him and with that experience he invites his public to put off the ignorance – the power of darkness and self-closure) in order to put on the armor of Risen Jesus the Holy Spirit – the power of light and self-disclosure). He recognizes and acknowledges himself to the witness for this experience of New Life in Risen Jesus. - John is also a witness as we see in the second reading: John who was also part of the same preaching made by Peter as noted in the first reading because he was with Peter both in the working of the miracle and in the proclamation of the new life. He proclaim from his part and from the background of his experience of the resurrection. His witnessing is the love that God has revealed in the mystery of His Word Son who has become expiation for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2). Conclusion: Let us be such witness of the joy of resurrection - Both Peter and John have experienced the power and presence of the risen Jesus and they could not but witness it with their very life. It is same with all the disciples because they too had the same experience. It should be same also with us. - We have come here not as the historians or as the mathematicians but as the “community of believers”. Community of the believers shares in one banquet (Eucharist) eating one bread and drinking one cup, and thus they are made One Body in the Spirit. - Once we insert ourselves into this community of faith by our own free will and desire we share both the Fact and the Task of Christian life. Fact of being Christian thus we bear Christ within us. Task of being Christian thus we carry Christ to others. - We have to make our journey from the experience of the Sunday Eucharist to the testifying it with our words and deeds of everyday. Our journey is a journey of Risen Life: from the personal experience to the testimony. Let the Risen Lord Be Exalted both in our INNER Life and in our OUTER witnessing.