Third Sunday of Easter
Fearful and frightened, faith surrenders. Our confidence wanes and impatience increases creating anxiety which makes us act without reflection. Reason and wisdom, lost in the turbulence, no longer ground us. As David, tells us, we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps 23:4) because we have lost the way. No longer does faith reveal and enlighten our minds imbuing our thought with the truth. Life itself becomes dark verging upon despair because the light that leads us through the dark valley died. With the loss of faith complexities arise, clouding our vision. Confusion entangles us. We want transparency. We want to see. We want hope!
Transparency penetrates the shadows of death and beholds the beauty lost within the confusion. We gain understanding, that perception to know and discern life’s paradoxes. The greatest paradox is death: Death begets life. Jesus unveils this paradox when He proclaims, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (Jn 8:12).
Christ, the light of life, clarifies this paradox. He gives faith and faith imbues our eyes with sight. Imbued, we see beyond the darkness knowing “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). Faith creates the transparency we want. Faith gives us the light of Christ. Through hope, we trust the Light. Seeing and trusting, believing and an anticipating, Christ dispels the darkness in the Breaking of the Bread.
The Emmaus Account illustrates faith surrendered, hope forsaken, then restored. Cleopas the uncle to Jesus (Joseph’s brother) lost confidence. He left Jerusalem without warning, without explanation, walking away in darkness. For years, Cleopas walked with Jesus. He sat at the Master’s feet listening, learning, and ultimately believing Jesus was the Promised One, the prophet foretold by Moses (Dt 18:15-22). Illuminated, he understood the prophecies, especially of Isaiah. From the Stump of Jesse a branch, a nazir in Hebrew the root word of Nazarene, will bud and
The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
Is 11:2
Cleopas saw Jesus fulfill the promised made to David who desiring to build a house—temple—for the Lord, instead the Lord builds him an eternal kingdom from his seed, stating:
I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever.
2 Sa 7:12–13
Yet, Christ’s death crucified his faith. Cleopas surrendered to the darkness, becoming dejected and derailed. He left, abandoning his hope. Jesus was no longer the way, truth, nor life. He was dead: crucified and buried. Sadly, He forgot the other prophecy of Zacharia which foretold that the one that they pierce; the one they mourn bitterly, from Him “shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness” (Zech 13:1).
Cleopas and his companion, knowing the Scriptures, rejected the prophecies which revealed the plan. The Messiah, a man of God, would be mighty in deed and word. He would born of a virgin, yet had to suffer, be slaughtered as the sacrificial Lamb (Matt 17:22-23; John 1:29) Who frees his people from their slavery. This fulfilled what God told Moses. Take and slaughter a lamb and put the blood upon the door posts to save the people from their false Gods (Ex 12: 1-28).
As the Passover Lamb ransomed the Israelites from death so now Jesus’ sacrifice ransoms us from death. His death swallows the sting. His death fulfills what Isaiah foretold. The Messiah would be pierced, not broken and after pierced through, “Your dead shall live, their bodies shall rise” (Is 26:19). Ezekiel even more transparent declares,
You shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken, and I have done it, says the LORD.
Eze 37:13–14
On the Emmaus Road, Cleopas walked and talked with Jesus. Cleopas clouded with confusion at the corruption of his death, denied the Lord. Walking away, he refused to believe. He no longer followed Jesus, however, Jesus joins him and walks with him to explain God’s way: the Halakah.
The Halakah, a Hebrew word that means the Way. More than a path or narrow road, the Halakah reveals the God’s Ways: moral, spiritual, and relational. God’s Way, his way of thinking, acting, and being, are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts (Is 55:9). His understanding contradicts ours and his wisdom seems foolish to the worldly wise. But those who seek transparency, they will penetrate the mysteries of God’s ways. They will walk even though the path is the narrow way, a different and challenging way that enters the darkness of sin and death only to find hope and faith (Mt 7:13–14). Despite the challenges, the Halakah is beyond value. It leads to life.
Faith, blinded by the radiance of God’s way, causes blindness at first. Blind, confusion and desolation surround us. The dark valley swallows us and the shadows of death cause fear. Repulsed by death and darkness, we want to see. Jesus comes giving sight so we walk through the valley of death and “fear no evil” (Ps 23 4) because He is at our side with his rod and staff that give sight. Seeing him, courage empowers us to walk into the darkness not away from it.
Walking with Jesus, we listen, learn, and believe He is the way, but his way means we abandon our way. His way challenges our thoughts revealing how futile they are. His way teaches us a new way in which suffering heals, death is gain, and transparency comes when we have the eyes of faith to see through the shadows of death leading us to life.
Walking for hours, their hearts burning, Jesus opened and explained the scriptures. “Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Lk 24:27). Hidden within, the Scriptures foretold the way. The Halakah embraces suffering not as an evil, but as the remedy of evil. Jesus, the suffering servant, “wounded bruised, and chastised, makes us whole” (Is 53:5). Peter in his letter explains this prophecy: “By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls” (1 Pe 2:24–25).
Jesus guards our hearts while on the Halakah. He exposes the duplicity of our ways, for our hearts are beyond cure, desperately wicked. When we follow our way, we define our faith, and create our own hope. This is the human way. Jeremiah, however, retorts, “I the LORD search the mind and test the heart, to give to every man according to his ways” (Jer 17:10).
Jesus came creating a new way a different way because our way is laced with deception and duplicity. His way, the Halakah, is pure, just, and obeys the Father. This way is the new exodus. Jesus leads his people out of bondage—our way—into freedom: his way.
Yet his way is not easy. We too must suffer as it was necessary for the Christ to suffer (Lk 24:25–26). Suffering is not a good unto itself, but suffering, Christ’s and ours, breaks the blindness that enslave us. The way of the flesh—the natural way—avoids suffering, yet it leads to death. The way of the Spirit—the supernatural way—uses suffering to justify and purify our hearts leading us into God’s way. This way is the Real Presence of Christ Who walks with us. He is our light and our strength especially when we suffer. St. Paul unveils the paradox of suffering telling us:
Rejoice in your suffering knowing that suffering produces endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Rom 5:3–5
Suffering separates us from the human way. Understood correctly, it drives us to the Christian Way. This Christian Way does not fear suffering nor death, for Christ conquered both. It does not fear sin, for Christ forgave us of our sins. It does not fear evil nor the Evil One, for Christ crucified them too.
The Christian Way creates communion with Christ for we see, eyes wide open. We look upon Him whom they raised up, pierced upon the pole. Those who look and believe will be healed just as those who looked upon the bronze serpent mounted on a pole: “Everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live” (Nu 21:7–8). Knowing we too are bitten by sin, death, and evil, yet when we behold the cross, that sacred pole: the tree of life, we too are healed.
So too, when the Israelites complained, hungry and thirsty, God gave them Manna from heaven the bread of the angels for it was not made of human hands. Jesus at table with Cleopas “took the bread and blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight” (Lk 24:30–31).
Giving food to the hungry, Breaking Bread, was not new. Jesus, in the desert feeds the 5000 who gathered to listen, learn, and see the new way. In this deserted place, Jesus “took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted” (Jn 6:10–11). So too at the Passover Meal, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, giving it to the disciples, saying:
This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the chalice after supper, saying, “This chalice which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
Lk 22:19–20
Mystified, as was Cleopas, we watch, listen, hear the same words during the Mass. Jesus, invisible, takes bread, blesses, breaks, and gives it to us his disciples. With that our eyes open. We see the mysteries of the Christian Way—the Halakah—the Breaking of Bread. What is hidden from our sight, becomes transparent. We, with the eyes of faith, no longer live in darkness, but have the light of Christ Who comes. He walks with us every step of our way to show us his Way. His way is real, but to walk it, we recall his command. “Do this in remembrance of me!” Remember what? In the Breaking of Bread, we partake in Christ’s life Who is our Way, our Truth, and our Life.