Third Sunday of Easter • Year A

This Sunday’s Gospel passage from Luke is not only one of the most touching and powerful stories about an appearance of the Risen Jesus, but also is arguably one of the most meaningful stories in all of Scripture. This is so for a variety of reasons, but I believe it hits such a chord with us because it’s a reminder of our own journey with Jesus, and it’s a model for that journey.

So, let’s join those two disciples again on the road to Emmaus and take a closer look. Notice that only one is named – Cleopas – and the other is not. That’s particularly interesting because Luke is usually detail-oriented. Various commentators raise the question: Did Luke intend for the unnamed disciple to represent us, to be each one of us on the journey? For some 2,000 years later, Christ is our traveling companion on the way. But do we take it for granted or even sometimes fail to realize it? Are we also “slow of heart to believe?” Maybe we don’t recognize the extraordinary in the ordinary. Perhaps something holds us back from seeing the hand of God in our lives – being preoccupied, weighed down by a problem or loss, doubtful – like those two disciples on the road to Emmaus.

But one of the first lessons of the Gospel passage is that no matter where we are on the journey Jesus meets us there. While those two disciples “were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them.” He heard their concerns and disappointments and then opened their eyes to the Truth, to the transforming message of the Resurrection. So too Jesus meets each of us, draws near us daily on the way, where we are in life. He listens to our joys, our concerns, our hurts. He gives us his very self, if we but let him, which leads to a second lesson from our Gospel story.

It’s noteworthy that the two disciples didn’t send the apparent stranger away. In fact, even being downcast didn’t prevent them from offering hospitality to Jesus. Imagine what they would have missed if they hadn’t urged him to stay with them, to come into their home. Our own St. Augustine puts it this way: “What the disciples had lost through ‘not believing’ was restored through hospitality” (Sermon 235, 3-4). It was in listening to Jesus that their hearts became on fire and in sharing a meal with him, in breaking bread that their eyes were opened to the Risen Christ in their very midst. Are we so willing to listen to Jesus speaking to us through others, including strangers? Are we as hospitable as those two disciples on the road to Emmaus? Imagine what, who, we miss when we’re not open, as individuals or as a community, to others.

Do we appreciate that every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we have a special opportunity to recognize and reflect on our journey with Jesus? We gather together as a community each Sunday to support one another and to find the Risen Christ in our very midst. He is present in his Body, in us, the Church. We experience that most profoundly in the celebration of the Mass. That’s why the Eucharist is the “source and the summit” of our Catholic faith and lives. Another lesson from our Gospel passage then is that what we do at Mass finds its analogy in the story of the road to Emmaus. Jesus the Christ still makes the Scriptures come alive for us in the proclamation of the Word and he opens our eyes to his presence in the breaking of the bread, and in one another.

But it doesn’t end there. It’s just the beginning. And that’s one more, final lesson from our Gospel story. We’re called to share our Easter faith that Jesus is indeed alive and walks with all of us on our journeys. Look at the two disciples in Emmaus. They didn’t just sit around: “They set out at once and…recounted what had taken place on the way.” And look at St. Peter in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Emboldened by the Spirit, he “stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice, and proclaimed…” They couldn’t contain themselves from sharing the Good News. How about us?

May our eyes be open and “our hearts burning within us,” as we experience the Risen Christ, the Real Presence of Christ with us on our journey. Perhaps a refrain from a classic American hymn, popularized by Patsy Cline, can be our prayer too: “Just a closer walk with Thee; grant it, Jesus, is my plea. Daily walking close to Thee; let it be, dear Lord, let it be.”