Our readings on this Third Sunday of Easter once again emphasize the enormity of the favor done for us by Jesus Christ – Word–of-God-Made-Flesh – during the events of Holy Week, and the immense ramifications of his actions.
St. Peter in the second reading talks about how believers in Jesus are now ransomed from their futile conduct – handed on by their ancestors. The futility involved here is not just any kind of futility. It was a tragic and pitiful kind of futility – begun in the Garden with Adam and Eve. There was no way that any human being could ever break the cycle of sin, break the power of darkness, break the pact with the devil. It was a deep, dark, hopeless futility!
But, in the first reading we hear St. Peter again, telling the people of Israel that God the Father sent them one who could break all those cycles, who could restore hope, would could eradicate the futility: Jesus the Nazarene whom they killed using lawless men. It was quite the reception and treatment that Jesus, Savior got!
Peter goes on, though, and says that any of them, or any since them, any of us – who believe that we are redeemed by the blood of Jesus, the innocent and spotless Lamb of God – and that God the Father did raise him from the dead –
have every reason to have hope based in God! Hope for a fruitful and happy life here, and an eternal life of blessed peace and joy in the next!
The gospel passage today is the beautiful story of how Jesus revealed himself to two disciples on the road to Emmaus – how he explained the Scriptures to them which referred to himself, and how he opened their eyes to his identity by breaking bread as he did the night before he died!
This is the exact structure of the Mass – this Mass and every Mass! First we break the Word of God in the Liturgy of the Word; then we break the Bread of God, in the Liturgy of the Eucharist! And how our hearts are meant to burn with the fire of the Holy Spirit each and every time we read or hear the Scriptures at Mass; and every time we partake of the Bread made Body- as Jesus himself once again – in the person of the celebrant – breaks bread for us!
He wants our joy to increase! He wants our hope to increase! He wants our peace to increase! And so he provided his Scriptural and Eucharistic Presence to remain with us until the end of time!
He wants to show us the path – that will lead us through the twists and turns of earthly life – ending with our crossing over the Bridge of his suffering, death and resurrection – into everlasting life!
Thank you, Risen Jesus, thank you so much! – for not only showing us the path, but for being the path, the truth and the life!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
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