The Third Sunday of Easter, April 26, 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 bread.

Several of the early disciples of the Lord Jesus were members of his family.  We read, for instance, of James, “the brother of the Lord”.  Jude, in his Epistle, calls himself the brother of James, and an early tradition counts James the son of Alphaeus, Jude, and Simon the Zealot as related to the Lord.  In one of the lists of the Lord’s women followers, we read, “There stood by the Cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (John 19, 25).  Now, since the Greek manuscripts did not use punctuation, we could think that “his mother’s sister” is a distinct, anonymous, person from Mary of Clopas (or Cleopas, as Luke spells the name), but the Fathers understand that Mary of Clopas was this “sister” of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Furthermore, the early Christian Hegesippus (110-180 A.D.) preserves the tradition that this Cleopas was the brother of none other than St. Joseph, the foster father of our Lord.  The words “of Cleopas” indicate that this Mary was either the daughter or the wife of Cleopas.  Tradition tells us that she was his wife.  We also learn that James the son of Alphaeus, who ruled as the first bishop of Jerusalem, was succeeded by a man named Simon, who was the son of Cleopas.  Thus, the first two bishops of Jerusalem were our Lord’s kinsmen.  The feast day of Mary of Cleopas, as found in the Roman Martyrology, is April 24; that of Cleopas is on September 25. 

Learning about the historical roots of the Lord Jesus helps us to see him more fully as one who walked among us.  Passages such as the following are precious to us for this reason: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joseph, and Jude, and Simon? are not also his sisters here with us?” (Mark 6, 3).  The Lord came from a human family, according to his human nature, and was surrounded by people who had known him a long time before he began his public life of preaching and performing miracles.  Cleopas, of course, would have been one of these.  As brother of Joseph, he was our Lord’s uncle, according to the flesh.  Luke names Cleopas as one of the two disciples with whom Jesus walked on the road of Emmaus, a town near Jerusalem.  This man Cleopas knew Jesus, had watched him grow up, had seen him perform miracles, had listened intently to his words.  And while evidently much of his family rejected his claims (as per John 7, 3-5) had become his disciple.  Even after the crucifixion, at which his wife Mary had been present together with her sister-in-law, the Blessed Virgin, he has not given up.  He is shaken, for “we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel”, but he holds onto the faint glimmer of hope brought to the disciples by “some women from our group”, who said that Jesus was alive.  Among these women may have been his wife, “the other Mary” (Matthew 28, 1).

We Christians who strive to do the will of God are truly the brothers and sisters and even mother of Jesus: “Behold my mother and my brethren.  For whosoever shall do the will of my Father, that is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.”  The Lord says, “Behold”, for so he will introduce us to the angels at the Last Judgment.