Easter Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Luke 24:13–35

That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?” And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his Body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures. As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the Eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

“One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?” 

We tend to take for granted that everyone who lived in the holy land during the lifetime of Jesus had at least heard of him, if they had not heard him preach or seen him perform miracles.  The fact is that many had not.  Saul of Tarsus, who was trained by the Pharisees, had not heard about him during his lifetime, as he admits in 1 Corinthians 15, 8.  This has caused many scholars to scratch their heads — how could Saul have missed him?  In order to understand this, we must gain perspective.

First, in answer to the question Cleopas poses, Jerusalem at the time our Lord walked within it, contained perhaps 80,000 souls.  Certainly, this was not the metropolis that Rome or Athens was, but this is still a large number of people, of all classes.  Each was engaged in his own work with his own family affairs to look after.  The work waxed and waned; family members became sick, recovered, married, gave birth, and died.  Most folks did not leave their quarter of the city except on special occasions to visit the temple, a vast, sprawling plant with plazas, courtyards, and buildings.  Unless they encountered Jesus there, or he entered one’s own neighborhood in the city, probably only a relative few folks saw and heard him.  Even the Passion and Death of the Lord would have been largely unknown.  He was arrested at night, tried in the wee hours of the morning, condemned by Pilate around nine in the morning, as people would have been opening their shops and going to market.  At noon he was crucified, by three o’clock he was dead, and his Body was buried soon afterwards.  All this occurred during the especially busy days of the Passover.  Most of the city’s inhabitants would not have known of it.  Even the Resurrection went largely unnoticed.  It happened very quietly and without fanfare.  The soldiers guarding the tomb were not eager to tell what they saw — they were at risk for arrest and execution for dereliction of duty.  The women who saw the risen Christ went to the house where the Apostles had taken refuge, and to no one else.  Of the Apostles, only Peter and John seem to have gone out to investigate. It is not for days that they feel safe enough to emerge, precisely because the news of the Lord’s Passion and Death have faded even from the minds of the Jewish leaders.  For Cleopas, Jesus was “the one to redeem Israel”, but there had been others before him who made claims about themselves.  The Pharisee Gamaliel names some of them in Acts 5, 36-37.  Cleopas phrases his question the way he does because of the central position of Jesus in His own life, and this does him credit.  

This helps us to understand that for us Christians, Jesus has the central place in our lives and we may simply think this is true for those around us, but very many people do not think about Jesus at all or know anything about what he taught, accept in a very vague and distorted way.  Our recognition of this state of affairs ought to make us think about how we can spread the Gospel to them.  How do we start from scratch to speak of Jesus?  Even St. Paul struggled with this, as we see when he dressed the men of Athens.  Careful thought and the exercise of prudence will allow us to do so efficaciously, but it is the grace of God that is at work.  Let us pray for the virtues and the grace we need to preach Jesus to the nonbelievers around us so that we might one day all believe in him.