The Resurrection of the Lord
(Easter Evening)
April 5, 2015

     There is something in me that readily identifies with the two downhearted disciples of Jesus who decided, late on that first Easter day, that it was time to get out of Jerusalem and head for home.  There was no point for them to stay there any longer.  Jerusalem was a big, impersonal place – intimidating to small town people like them.  It had had one drawing card for them -- only one -- their friend: this dynamic, spell-binding, courageous, compassionate teacher, this wonder-worker from Galilee who had raised their hopes so high.  They had allowed themselves to hope and to dream that the long-awaited Messiah had finally come and that Israel would at last be set free.

     Those hopes and dreams had now been dashed to bits in a most cruel and conclusive way three days earlier on a hilltop called Calvary.  The final curtain had dropped: now it was time to go home, to put Jerusalem behind.  It was also time to put all those foolish hopes behind.  Nothing had changed.  Nothing ever would.  “We had hoped,” they found themselves saying.  “We had hoped.”  Are there any more pathetic words in all of the scriptures?  And don’t we, at least at times, find ourselves echoing them? I know I do.

     Don’t we at times find ourselves in the ranks of those who “had hoped,” the ranks of the disillusioned and downhearted?  Don’t we spend a lot of time and energy looking over our shoulders at what might have been?  And is it surprising that we should?  So much of what happens in our lives and in our world prompts us to think this way.
 
     Think back for a moment to Easter of last year.  What were your hopes then?  Your hopes for yourself, your hopes for your family, your hopes for our world?  How many of those hopes have been realized?  Has much changed and, if so, has any of it really been for the better?  Are we happier people than we were back then?  Holier?  More loving?  Maybe, but maybe not.  Are our families closer together, more supportive, more tolerant of the weak and troubled members? Maybe, but maybe not.  And what of our world?  Our world seems to have fallen headlong from hope -- into a vortex of violence from which there seems to be no escape. 

     So much of what happens in our lives and in our world prompts us to lose hope.  No wonder we might find ourselves identifying with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, numbering ourselves among those who “had hoped.”  But the story of those two disciples who walked that journey with Jesus -- not knowing it was Jesus -– that story is meant to lead us away from such hopelessness.  It’s a story that takes us right where we are – in the midst of our life journey that has more than its share of fears (personal fears, family fears, world fears), more than its share of detours and disappointments.  A journey that never lets us see around the next bend in the road.  But my friends, it is also a journey made in some pretty remarkable company.  It is a journey made in the company of One who first made the journey himself – made it right into the valley of darkness and death.  But death did not have the last word as we confidently proclaim on this Easter day!

     Because of the resurrection, Jesus is our unexpected companion on this journey.  He walks along with us as he did with those two downhearted friends of his.  He questions us as he did them and he chides us a bit.  Oftentimes he seems to hide from us, allows us to think he’s left us for good.  And he teaches us, good Master that he is: he never tires teaching us that everything we go through in life, no matter how troubling or tragic, everything somehow has a meaning.

     And, most wonderful of all, as evening comes on and the light begins to fade, he accepts our invitation to come and stay with us, to sit with us at our table and to share with us whatever it is we put before him: the bread of our weariness, the wine of our gladness. And as he keeps company with us, he opens our eyes so they can begin to see old things in new ways: to view hopeless situations as untried opportunities, to see enemies as potential friends.  But what our eyes are really beginning to see is Himself, the hidden yet constant companion of our journey who is always with us but never more so than when we take the Bread and break it in his memory, break it along with our broken lives.

     My friends in Christ, we gather on this Easter Sunday only too aware of who we are.  We believe, yes, but we question and doubt; we hope, but all too quickly we lose hope; we love, but not so well.  And we lose our way so very quickly.  But we must never lose heart!  We must take the angel’s Easter proclamation very much to heart: “Do not be afraid!  You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.  He is not where you are looking for him.  He is risen and goes before you….”  And as we join together around the Lord’s table as we do now, we must allow our tired and cynical eyes to be opened up, and with them our hearts, so that we can see Him and know Him as never before in the Breaking of the Bread.

     Father Michael G. Ryan