Saturday, May 3, 2014

Return to Jerusalem

The week after Easter Sunday rejoices as each day repeats the Resurrection in increasingly surprising ways. The Church begins its cycle of readings from the Acts of the Apostles with Peter at Pentecost proclaiming to the Jewish citizenry of Jerusalem that God raised Jesus from the dead and has begun an entirely new relationship with human beings. Fear begins to set in. The chief priests concoct stories to prevent blame or outrage from settling on themselves.

Many of the Jews are intimidated by Peter's preaching and wonder what to do. We hear the compassionate episode in which Mary Magdalen encounters Jesus thinking him to be the gardener. Peter and John heal a crippled man in the temple who leaps up, walks, jumps and praises God inside the temple. Astoundingly, two disciples encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Peter has to convince many people that the crippled man's healing is not the result of the apostle's magic but is the work of Jesus who died and rose. Then Jesus appears to the disciples and begins setting a plan of action for them.

The disciples are arrested and interrogated by the chief priests. Jesus makes another appearance, this time to the disciples, as they go fishing and they are overwhelmed by his appearance. Finally, the chief priests are convinced to let well enough alone lest the people turn on them. A recapitulaion of Jesus' three appearances after the Resurrection ends the week.

What does it all mean? Those of us living in northern states can appreciate the appearance of spring after this long, harsh winter we've experienced. I can watch fresh pine cones growing on the tree outside my window. Everything seems alive and new. Students are bursting with energy and ready to finish the restraining semester's work.

The disciples on the road to Emmaus may express the change most of all. They are going away from Jerusalem. They are leaving the place at which something remarkable and different has occurred. They fear the challenge laid out before them. They are confused and disappointed for their expectations were not met. How do we make sense of these events?

Someone had to explain it to them. Someone had to show them how to see in a new way. They were thinking in old categories. Jesus himself shows up to answer them. But they don't know it is Jesus. They only know that things have changed and they are uncomfortable with the change even though they had pinned their hopes on Jesus for another kind of change. They are getting something more. When they listened to Jesus explaining the meaning of the events, their hearts burn. In fact, their hearts are on fire. When Jesus displays his hospitality to them and shares bread with them, their hearts burn. All becomes new and Jesus now occupies rheir hearts and disappears from their presence. Scripture says their eyes were opened, they recognized Jesus, and he vanishes from their sight. They return to Jerusalem and they announce to the disciples what has happened to them.

This week of readings is crucial to anyone preaching God's word. Unless we ourselves are filled with the excitement of these events, we cannot possibly understand or relate anything else that happens to Jesus in the Scripture. We cannot understand what happens to any other human being in their time spent on earth. We cannot be good pastors or preachers if we have not shared in the joy of the Resurrection. We cannot go forward into the heavenly future. We may be tempted to remain in our upper rooms and hold tight with the Jesus we've possessed since childhood. But Jesus is inviting us out of our childish prison and offering us the reward of an uncertain human future on his terms.



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