May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you oh God, our creator, redeemer, and sustainer.
“Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”
The Gospels tell of Jesus’ many talents: Prophet, Healer, Miracle Worker, Redeemer. But he started his illustrious earthly career as a teacher. He showed this aptitude for His Heavenly Father’s profession at the early age of 12 when he was found in the temple by his worried mother in the midst of the scribes and elders brilliantly explaining the Scriptures to them. When his mother chides him for disappearing on her, he reminds her, “I must be about my Father’s business.”
So being in the teaching business myself, I know that it is not enough to know your subject matter, present it to your students, and have them recite it back to you on a test. A good teacher tries to create transformative learning experiences, learning that creates a permanent change in the learner. In our scriptures for today we have outlined for us a lesson plan on how we can have the transformative learning experience of knowing that Jesus is Lord, He is present in our lives, and that He is here, as today’s psalm says, to free us from the “cords of death.”
In today’s Gospel, Cleopas and his companion first encounter Jesus as a teacher. As a teacher myself, I think I understand Jesus’ frustration at how slow His pupils can sometimes be, a frustration that is expressed throughout the Gospels. How often over the three years of Jesus’ earthly ministry do we read of situations where after all the explaining and demonstrating, parables and miracles, his erstwhile followers, his students, still don’t get it. I know how he feels. In my somewhat less illustrious career of nearly 30 years, how often have I thought, “They’ve read the text, heard the lecture, seen the demonstrations, tried to apply the concepts themselves, yet – where’s the transformative learning?”
So it is no different in our Gospel for today with Cleopas and his companion when Jesus, the risen Lord, joins them on the road to Emmaus. They fail to see beyond the events of the past weekend. They’ve forgotten or not really comprehended the Scriptures and Jesus’ lessons. They have witnessed Jesus wonderful life, but also the terrible and disappointing passion and death of the man as Cleopas says, seemed “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,” one whom they thought was the Messiah, the one ordained by God and promised throughout scripture as Luke says, “to redeem Israel.” Instead of a glorious triumph by this mighty prophet, Cleopas laments, “our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him.” ––Bummer— what a way to run a revolution! So we are told “they were sad” sadder probably than usual for a Sunday morning, this first day of the work week when promise of the weekend yields to the now greater drudgery of the weekly grind.
Like a good teacher, however, after a brief moment of frustration at “how foolish [they] are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!” Jesus, probably for the umpteenth time, as Luke tells us “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, . . . interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” Still Cleopas and his companion’s “eyes were kept from recognizing him.”
I see this failure to “recognize him” akin to another obstacle to learning that teachers encounter. No matter the subject matter, no student enters a class as a blank slate. Everyone has assumptions and preconceptions that are difficult to get to clear out to make room for the new learning. Resurrection, now there is a new concept, something up to this time no human being could conceive of or do. Cleopas and friend had their own preconceived notion of the Messiah: “a prophet mighty in word and deed” one who is “to redeem Israel,” not a man who is handed over to crucifixion by his own people, dies a horrible, humiliating death on a cross, and is buried.
But Jesus was making some progress with these students, for as they arrived at Emmaus and He was about to part from them, they urged him to stay and have dinner with them, “We’ll treat,” perhaps Cleopas said. There was something in the way this stranger explained God’s promise throughout scripture and how it all pointed to this man Jesus whose work they knew and whose terrible death was such a disappointment to them. Cleopas tells the Apostles back in Jerusalem that the fellow traveler’s words “set our hearts burning within us.”
It is again as a teacher that I try to understand what’s going on here. How does Jesus, the teacher, get Cleopas so excited that he wants to keep this stranger around a little longer to learn more? To really understand that the scriptures point to a miraculous resolution to Jesus passion and death, the student of scripture must be fully engaged with a burning desire to understand the promise to God’s people of the Old Testament and the good news of its fulfillment in the Gospels. This initial desire to know can come from us. And as students we can strive to empty our minds of preconceptions to make room for the new, transformative learning. We can also strive to have faith in Jesus, the teacher, who will lead us forth, the meaning of the Latin root of the word education, to realize the Truth that will set us free. We need Jesus as our teacher because like a good teacher Jesus knows how to engage his students in the learning.
Jesus’ method is explained in our first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles. It’s called the Holy Spirit, and it is what filled Peter and the others on Pentecost and gave them the courage to preach to the multitudes gathered in Jerusalem. Peter tells the crowd how by repenting and being baptized they, “will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” which had just come to the apostles as tongues of fire. Cleopas and his companion are getting a little taste of what is to come on Pentecost. Jesus’ explaining the scriptures to them had the same effect as the Holy Spirit did on Pentecost. It set their “hearts burning within them.”
So we have the text, the teachings of the scriptures, and by repenting and being baptized, we can be filled with the Holy Spirit to truly ugrasp these teachings. However, as today’s Gospel shows Cleopas and his companion needed more than an insightful understanding of Scripture to have the transformative learning experience of truly knowing the risen Jesus, the “Word made flesh” that transcends the Jesus of history and the written text. Their burning hearts drove them to want more. If only this stranger they met on their road to Emmaus would agree to remain with them a bit longer. “Let’s have a meal together and get to know each other a little better,” they thought.
Today’s psalm reminds us of the centrality of the sacramental meal of the Holy Eucharist as a way to know the risen Lord and what His death and Resurrection mean for us. The speaker in today’s psalms is thanking the Lord for responding to his pleadings to saved from death. The speaker expresses his praise and thanksgiving for God’s saving mercy. In a similar way in the liturgy of Holy Eucharist, we call for God to save us and we respond to the saving experience by thanking Him for his mercy.
The words of today’s psalm could be a summary of the human condition that the sin of Adam has put us in:
The cords of death entangled me;But
the grip of the grave took hold of me; *
I came to grief and sorrow.
Then I called upon the Name of the LORD: *We all fear the cords of death, but we are told that there is a way to escape them.
"O LORD, I pray you, save my life."
Some of the language in this psalm is very familiar for we hear it every time we celebrate the liturgy of Holy Eucharist and partake of the bread and wine. Every Sunday, as today’s psalm states, we “offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving.” And partake of “the cup of salvation.” And as it happened for Cleopas and friend so it also can happen for us. Perhaps by not naming Cleopas’ companion Luke is inviting us to put ourselves in this narrative of discovery. As Cleopas’ companion, we too can have our hearts set afire and our eyes open to recognize the living Jesus who is even now at this moment and will remain our companion on our road through life.
Every time we celebrate the liturgy of Eucharist we can travel the road to Emmaus with Cleopas arriving at our own transformative learning experience. We can hear Jesus explaining the promise of the Scriptures. We can confess our sins, and like the multitudes on Pentecost, receive the Holy Spirit and in repeating Jesus sacrificial act and partaking of “the Body of Christ, the bread of heaven” and “the cup of salvation” we can experience the transformative learning that took place so many years ago in Emmaus. As with Cleopas Jesus, the risen Lord and our Redeemer who has freed us from the “cords of death” is “made known to [all of us] in the breaking of the bread.”
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