21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” (Luke 24:21-24, NRSV)
Christ is alive, yesterday, today and forever more. The living Word of the living God is alive, living, and relevant to the people of faith today, and not just dead letters of the people of the past and long gone. In the many reflections on the Emmaus story by Pope Benedict XVI, we read of a constant central emphasis that “today” we can meet the risen Jesus in the Eucharistic celebration, at the table of the Word and of the Body and Blood of Christ.
While archaeologists have not identified the location of Emmaus with any certainty, and scholars debate the whereabouts or even question the very existence of the village called Emmaus, Pope Benedict prefers to draw a positive point out of the uncertainty of its location. He rather imagines that the lack of consensus from various hypotheses “allows us to think that Emmaus actually represents every place: the road that leads there is the road every Christian, every human person, takes.” This opens the door to a host of pointers for meditation.
- On the Christian Journey
The Risen Jesus comes to us, makes himself our travelling companion, and walks with us as we go on our way, “to rekindle the warmth of faith and hope in our hearts and to break the bread of eternal life.”
On the road of our Christian life, we often fall into the trap of using the past tense, much the same as the two disciples do in their conversation with the unknown wayfarer in which the striking words the evangelist Luke puts in the mouth of one of them are: “We had hoped…” (Luke 24: 21). This verb in the past tense is most revealing, especially of hopes vanquished:
- “We believed, we followed, we hoped…, but now everything is over. Even Jesus of Nazareth, who had shown himself in his words and actions to be a powerful prophet, has failed, and we are left disappointed.”
Whenever and wherever the hope of faith has failed, this drama of the disciples of Emmaus repeats itself. Reflecting the situation of many Christians of our time, the Emmaus story features a faith crisis because of negative experiences in life that make us feel abandoned and betrayed even by the Lord.
And yet, precisely because of the richness, the positive twists and turns, of the Emmaus story, “this road to Emmaus on which we walk can become the way of a purification and maturation of our belief in God.”
- So “today we can enter into dialogue with Jesus, listening to his Word.”
- “Today too he breaks bread for us and gives himself as our Bread.”
- “And so the meeting with the Risen Christ that is possible even today gives us a deeper and more authentic faith tempered, so to speak, by the fire of the Paschal Event; a faith that is robust because it is nourished not by human ideas but by the Word of God and by his Real Presence in the Eucharist.”
- Today, we can “return to Jerusalem full of joy to tell the others what had happened” to us.
- Today, therefore, “the road to Emmaus becomes the path of a purification and maturation of our belief in God” as the drama the Emmaus disciples faced mirrors the situation of many Christians of our own time. The story of dejected and disappointed disciples in Emmaus is a message for all Christians that through their encounter with the risen Jesus, they are able to return to a “robust faith” that “is nourished not with human ideas, but with the Word of God and the Eucharist”.
- Today as well, the blessings of the Risen Lord become an “assignment to go and be witnesses of the mercy of God, the spring of hope for every human person and for the entire world.”
- On Mary as the Queen of Heaven
Easter is the certainty of the Resurrection of Christ who triumphed over death once and for all. The Resurrection of Christ is central to Christianity. As St Paul puts it: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15:14). That Jesus Christ was crucified and risen is a fundamental truth which we are to reassert vigorously in every epoch. To fail to do so is “to thwart our very faith”. In Easter, we let the joy Christ’s Resurrection ring out in all homes and in all hearts so that hope may be reborn.
Luke continues in his second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, to tell us that in the days that followed the Lord’s Resurrection, the Apostles stayed together. The presence of Mary must have offered them comfort. And after the Ascension, they persevered with her in prayerful expectation of Pentecost.
- “Our Lady was a mother and teacher to them, a role that she continues to play for Christians of all times.”
- So every year, at Eastertide, the faith community of every age relives this experience. Today, we may do so even more intensely, as we dedicate to Mary the month of May that normally falls between Easter and Pentecost. In the month of May, therefore, we seek to “rediscover the maternal role that she plays in our lives so that we may always be docile disciples and courageous witnesses of the Risen Lord.”
- It is appropriate and urgent to “entrust to Mary (Regina Caeli) the needs of the Church and of the whole world, especially at this time which is marked by so many shadows.”
- Calling Luke’s Emmaus narrative a “stupendous text”, the Pope comments that it contains the structure of the Holy Mass: “in the first part, listening to the Word through the Sacred Scriptures; in the second part, the Eucharistic liturgy and communion with Christ present in the Sacrament of his Body and his Blood.” Today and every day, every Christian and every community may relive “the experience of the disciples of Emmaus and rediscover the grace of the transforming encounter with the Risen Lord”.
- The Risen One Enters Our Homes and Our Hearts
Today too, the Risen One enters our homes and our hearts, even when, at times, the doors are closed on account of personal life crises. Emmaus is the story of the Risen Lord accompanying us to strengthen our faith amid crisis.
- “Only he can roll away those stones from the tombs in which all too often people seal themselves off from their own feelings, their own relationships, their own behaviour; stones that sanction death: division, enmity, resentment, envy, diffidence, indifference.”
- “Only he, the Living One, can give meaning to existence and enable those who are weary and sad, downhearted and drained of hope, to continue on their journey.”
That was the experience of the two disciples who left Jerusalem for Emmaus on Easter Day. They were talking about Jesus but their sad looks (Luke 24:17) betrayed their depression over disappointed hopes. Having followed Jesus, they had discovered “a new reality in which forgiveness and love were no longer only words but had a tangible effect on life”. But he who had made all things new and had transformed their life, is now dead and gone, bringing with him all that they had hoped. It was over.
Suddenly, however, the Risen One joins them incognito. He explains Sacred Scripture to them, giving the fundamental key to reading it, namely, that him and his Paschal Mystery was what the Scriptures bear witness to (see John 5:39-47). Jesus opens their minds to the understanding of the Scriptures in all things – the Law, of the Prophets and of the Psalms (Luke 24:27 & 45) and they later recognized him at the breaking of the bread.
The Emmaus episode therefore suggests two special locations where we can encounter the Risen One for life-transformation. Both of these refer to communion with the Lord: in the Word and in the breaking of the bread. These two locations are profoundly united with each other because “Word and Eucharist are so deeply bound together that we cannot understand one without the other: the Word of God sacramentally takes flesh in the event of the Eucharist” (Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Verbum Domini, nn. 54-55). Emmaus teaches us that the broken bread is henceforth the new sign of Jesus’ presence.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, November 2021. All rights reserved.
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