3 April 2013 - Close Encounters

3 April 2013 - Close Encounters

And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!

Isn't it interesting that he is walking alongside them, speaking to them, and teaching them. Yet they don't recognize him.  It isn't that the Risen One is far from them.  It isn't that he is silent.  It is a process. There is such a mixture of hopes and disappointments that keep pulling them in different directions and keep them from seeing the one who stands next to them.


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.

And at the same time:


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;

All the while Jesus stands next to them.  Even after he explains the whole plan to them they still don't quite get it.


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 when he gives them the option to continue or not they know enough to keep him close.

But they urged him, “Stay with us,

for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”

Darkness is closing in on them but if he stays with them they know it won't be so dark.  Finally he reveals himself definitively and they are able to recognize him.

he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

The new mode of his presence already begins to supersede the old.  It may seem more abstract but it is actually much more intimate and close.  Now they can look back on their past with new understanding:

“Were not our hearts burning within us

while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”

It is this closeness which gives Peter the conviction he shows to beggar in the temple:

but what I do have I give you: 

in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.”

Jesus isn't just alongside of him.  He has the Spirit.  He has the Eucharistic LORD.  And he has such abundance that he can't help but give him to others.

Sing to him, sing his praise,

proclaim all his wondrous deeds.

Indeed, let the experience of the beggar be our own:

He leaped up, stood, and walked around,

and went into the temple with them,

walking and jumping and praising God.