Third Sunday of Easter (Year A)

Third Sunday of Easter April 23, 2023

Acts 2:14a.22-23;    1 Peter 1:17-21;    Luke 24:13-35

(image courtesy: Google)

The Catalina Island is twenty-one miles away from the coast of California, and many people have taken the challenge to swim across it.   On July 4th 1952, Florence Chadwick stepped into the water off Catalina Island to swim across to the California coast. She started well and on course, but later fatigue set in, and the weather became cold.  She persisted, but fifteen hours later, numb and cold, she asked to be taken out of the water. After she recovered, she was told that she had been pulled out only half a mile away from the coast. She commented that she could have made it, if the fog had not affected her vision and she would have just seen the land. She promised that this would be the only time that she would ever quit.  She went back to her rigorous training. And two months later she swam that same channel. The same thing happened. The fatigue set in, and the fog obscured her view, but this time she swam with faith and vision of the land in her mind. She knew that somewhere behind the fog was land. When you set your goal, keep pressing on even when you are tired, physically and mentally, and even though there are many challenges ahead.

As we journey through life with all its problems and distractions we can certainly lose our perspective. We can lose all direction to life and left to ourselves we become nothing and remain with uncertainty. Any positive support, a sincere understanding can place a person on the right path.  This is what the readings of today tell us that hope will come when we expect little. Human hope is a fragile thing and when it withers it’s difficult to revive. Hopelessness as a disease of the human spirit is desperately hard to cure. Today God challenges us to meet the Risen Christ who comes to us in ordinary life situations.  All of the Easter accounts suggest that Christ comes to us in the places where we live our lives. It is easy to mistake the presence of the Lord like Mary for a gardener, Peter as a man on the beach, Cleopas and his companion while at meal. Easter comes and gives us a fresh chance to believe and live in a new exciting way. The Easter story and the story of the Emmaus journey hover around us all the time. God never forces himself on us, but Christ joins us as a consoling letter from a friend.

Two depressed disciples leave the company of the apostles and believers in Jerusalem and head for Emmaus to get away from it all. That same day, late in the evening, they come right back to rejoin the company of apostles and believers that they had abandoned earlier in the day, full of joy and zeal. What happened to them to give rise to this dramatic turnaround? They met a stranger on the way – a stranger who did not quite look like Jesus but who turned out to be Jesus after all

“Never speak to strangers!” is one of the earliest words of wisdom that parents pass on to their children. And yet when you come to think of it, had Cleopas and his companion followed this advice, Jesus would have passed them by and they would never have had the transforming encounter with the risen Lord. Who knows how many times the risen Lord has passed you and me by and we did not recognise him or experience his transforming grace all because of our fear or strangers?

The journey to Emmaus begins in blindness, gloom, disillusionment and despair. It ends with the warming of the disciples' hearts, the opening of their eyes, and their return to Jerusalem. It begins with the shattering of an immature faith and ends with the disciples giving witness to a mature faith. Their story now is a new one—a story filled with life and hope.  In fact, the story of Emmaus is walking and waiting, whether we are still grieving someone lost who was dear to us and we wonder when if ever we will feel happy again.  Emmaus again is wherever we meet the Risen Christ in ordinary moments and Easter comes to dwell in us. The Emmaus story helps us understand the Lord's presence where, often before, we had experienced His absence. In light of the Emmaus story, all of us come to recognize that we do not walk alone.  This story can also be seen as symbolic of the Eucharist. The disciples encounter Jesus on the way. They express their disillusionment and sense of helplessness as they walk the road to nowhere.

It seems at time that we are alone but Jesus is with us at all times and in all situations.  We need to be ready to recognize him entering our lives so that we can respond appropriately to Him.  Jesus wants to communicate with us and he speaks to us and is truly present in the Scriptures.  They must be an integral part of every disciple's life.  We pray that they may set our hearts on fire. More specifically, Jesus is present among us in all our sacramental celebrations but especially in the Eucharist.  Our sharing of this Bread is a symbol of our unity as brothers and sisters in Jesus.  It is also a symbol of our participation in the work and mission of Jesus, whose body was broken in the love and service of others.

Happy Sunday