GOSPEL, FIRST READING & PSALM TRANSCRIPT (Subscribe or Login for Full Transcript):
It can be found in Luke 24:13 and following, and this is what the Gospel for this Sunday says:
That very day [meaning Easter Sunday] two of them were going to a village named Emma'us, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?" And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cle'opas, answered him, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, "What things?"
And they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.
Let’s pause there for just a second. So notice a couple aspects about this opening part of the account. Number one, the disciples are on the road to a village named Emmaus that is outside of Jerusalem. So they are leaving the city and while they are leaving the city they are talking about everything that happened. Obviously the main topic of conversation here is going to be the passion and the death, the crucifixion of Jesus. And while they're doing that he appears, he drew near and went with them. And it says, number two, that their eyes were kept from recognizing him. That is very important. Sometimes people will say that they didn't recognize him, but it cannot be that they had forgotten what Jesus looked like. He was only crucified a couple days before. So it's not that they had forgotten what he looked like or that he somehow looked different, it says their eyes were kept from recognizing him. So what it is revealing to us here is that Jesus in a sense veils his identity. He appears to them but he does not allow them to recognize that it's really him.
The third thing, notice what happens here, he asks them “so what are you all talking about, what is this conversation?” And they “stood still looking sad.” And it tells us that one of them was named Cleopas. Now who was Cleopas? Well, we know from the Gospel of John that Jesus had an uncle named Cleopas. John's Gospel tells us that at the foot of the cross was Mary and Mary’s sister, the wife of Cleopas. So Cleopas was Jesus's uncle, he was a relative. In fact, if we read the early Church Fathers, they are going to tell us that he was the father of James and Simon and Jude, the men who were called Jesus’ “brothers,” his cousins, who went on to be bishops of Jerusalem. So Cleopas was a pretty important figure in the early Church. It doesn't tell us who the other disciple is that he's walking with, but Cleopas is singled out here and he says to Jesus, “are you the only person who doesn't know what has happened in Jerusalem in these days.” Now this is almost hilarious here because there is a great irony. Jesus is the only person in Jerusalem who knows exactly what has happened, that he has in fact redeemed the world through his passion and his death and his resurrection, but he doesn't shy Cleopas for making such a foolish mistake. He says “what things, tell me about them.” And Cleopas goes on to say “well concerning Jesus of Nazareth” —and here is the other element that's really significant — he doesn't say concerning Jesus, the Messiah, or concerning Jesus, the son of God, or concerning Jesus, the one who is to come; he says concerning “Jesus, a prophet mighty in deed and word.”
Notice what has happened to Cleopas’ faith here. He's lost it, or at least he's reduced it to believing that Jesus was just a prophet, a mighty man sent from God performing signs and wonders, but not the Messiah. Why? Because he goes on to say “we had hoped [past tense] that he was the one to redeem Israel, but now it's the third day since he was put to death.” In other words, there's no hope of that anymore. Now if we pick up then in verse 22 the story continues. Cleopas goes on to say:
Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; and they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see.”
So Pause here. Now Cleopas brings up another dimension. He brings up the fact of the empty tomb. He is leaving Jerusalem, turning his back on the place where Jesus had died, turning his back on the hopes that they had, and going to Emmaus even though he knows about the empty tomb. The message of the empty tomb had been brought to them, and even the fact that the women had seen a vision of the
angels saying that Jesus was alive, and he still didn't believe. Once he says that, now Jesus responds with some very important words in verse 25:
And he said to them, "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Pause there for just a second. There are a couple of aspects of what Jesus is doing here that are worth highlighting. Number one, notice he does upbraid them. He does rebuke them and he says “you foolish men, slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken.” Now I remember years ago when I was doing a video on this — like a lecture — on the road to Emmaus, I made a mistake. I said that Jesus upbraided them for not knowing the Scriptures. And somebody came up to me after the talk and said “Dr. Pitre, I don’t mean to be rude but I think you made a mistake. Jesus does not upbraid them for not knowing the Scriptures, he upbraids them for not believing the Scriptures.” And that's true. That's exactly what he said. They, as Jews, they would've known the prophets. The problem is they don't believe. They are lacking faith. Now after rebuking them, Jesus doesn't leave them there. He doesn't just say “you fools” and then walk off. He meets them where they are in their brokenness and in their lack of faith and in their doubt that they had after the crucifixion, and he starts basically a Bible study, going all the way back to Genesis. “Beginning with Moses and the prophets, he interpreted to them in the Scriptures all the things concerning himself.”
Now why is that so important? Well for me personally, one of the reasons this is important is because it gives me the model of how to do biblical studies, of how to to teach about the Scriptures, to teach the word of God; which is this, always go back to the Old Testament. Always go back to the beginning. Always start with Genesis and walk through the Scriptures looking for the signs and the shadows that point forward to what God is going to do in Jesus Christ. In other words, Jesus' method of interpreting the Scripture is you start with the Old Testament and you interpret it (what’s called) typologically. Typology means the study of Old Testament prefigurations (events, realities, signs and things) that point forward to and are fulfilled in the New Testament, in the new covenant of Jesus — in his life, his, death and his resurrection.
That's how Jesus interpreted the Bible and one of the big problems we have today is that so many of us only read the New Testament. We start in the Gospels or we start in the New Testament and we never go back to the Old Testament. Because of that, we don't see the connections between the Old and the New Testament. We don’t see how the New Testament is hidden in the Old and the Old is revealed in the New. That's what we need to see if we are going to have faith that Jesus isn't just one more messianic pretender, he isn't just one more religious leader making all kinds of wild claims about himself. His claims that he makes about himself are validated and vindicated by the prophecies of the Old Testament and the types of the Old Testament that he fulfills in himself — like being the new Adam or the new Moses or the new David — as we've seen in other Bible studies as we have gone through the liturgical year.
So this is something I am very passionate about, but I just wanted to highlight it for you. One of the reasons I pay attention to the Old Testament in my teaching is not just because I'm particularly interested in it, it is because that's how Jesus evangelized these disciples who had lost their faith in the face of the scandal of the cross.
SECOND READING TRANSCRIPT (Subscribe or Login for Full Transcript):
Now I want to highlight this theme that I skipped over, but is really crucial, and that's the theme of exile. Did you see that? Go back to verse 17. He says, I want you to:
conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.
Now, what's Peter talking about here? What exile is he referring to? Well, if you read the Old Testament, especially the books of Kings, you'll learn about the two exiles of Israel. So you have the Assyrian exile that takes place in 722 BC, when the 10 northern tribes are scattered to the four winds by the Assyrian empire among the Gentiles, and then a few hundred years later, in 586 BC, you have the famous, more famous Babylonian exile, which takes place when the two southern tribes are…the two remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin, are also brought into exile by Babylon, by the Babylonian empire, and the temple's destroyed. Now after that Babylonian exile ends, some of the people of Judah come back to the promised land and they rebuild the temple. But there's still this expectation, realization I should say, that the majority of the 12 tribes are still scattered and mixed among the Gentiles. Okay? They're lost. This is the origin of the lost tribes of Israel. And this is going to become a particularly palpable reality, especially in the first century, because at the time of the Roman occupation of Israel in the first century BC and then continuing to the first century AD, lots of Jews end up living outside the land. So there is a very large Jewish population in major Roman cities throughout the empire. So there’s a Jewish population in Rome, there are Jewish synagogues in Asia Minor, we see Paul travel to them in Book of Acts. There's an enormous, not enormous, but a large Jewish community in Northern Egypt, in Alexandria. These Jewish communities are called the diaspora. It's from the Greek word diaspora, which literally means to be scattered or dispersed.
So you will sometimes see this referred to as the dispersion, more commonly scholars will call it the Jewish diaspora, and it just means the Jews who have been dispersed throughout the Gentile lands. Well, if you go back and look, you'll note that in First Peter 1, the audience of this letter is explicitly identified as members of the diaspora. It says this in First Peter 1:
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappado′cia, Asia, and Bithyn′ia, chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood
So since ancient times, the letter of Peter has been read as a letter written to Jews in the diaspora, but to Jewish believers in Christ who are members of this diaspora, living among the Gentile nations, but are Jewish people of faith. Now, one reason that's significant, as I mentioned elsewhere, but I'll say it again, is that if you recall, in the letter to the Galatians, when Paul gets…before Paul gets in his little conflict with Peter, it says that Paul went down to Jerusalem and had a conference with Peter, James, and John, and there was an agreement between them that Peter and James and John would minister to the circumcised and Paul to the uncircumcised. So there was a kind of division of labor that took place. That the pillars, Peter, James, and John would be apostles to the Jews, and Paul would be an apostle to the Gentiles. Now, that doesn't mean that Peter never talked to Gentiles or that Paul never talked to Jews. We see that Paul would always go to synagogues in the cities that he evangelized, but he saw his principle mission as being to the nations and Peter's mission being to the circumcised.
So since ancient times, the Catholic epistles, James, Peter, John, and Jude, although everybody forgets about Jude, have been seen as written primarily to Jewish believers in Christ, whereas the Pauline letters are written to Gentile believers reflecting those two missions. So here a case can be made that Peter is written to Jews in the dispersion, living in Asia Minor, primarily, but in these Gentile communities. So that's one level on a historical level. But there's another element to this, which is that Peter is using the image of exile to describe, not just exile from the earthly promised land, but the exile of being in this world rather than in the world to come, of living in this age rather than in the age to come, of having faith, like we see he says here, in the things that are invisible and in the promised land that we can't yet see.
So if you want an example of this, you can, for example, in Hebrews 11, there's a similar language of exile that takes place. So if you just turn there for a second, just to shed a little light on this text. In Hebrews 11:13-16, listen to this. This is describing Abraham as an exile, and it says, Abraham and Sarah and like the other righteous people:
These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.
So notice what Hebrews is doing. It's taking the language of faith and the language of exile and applying it to Abraham and the Old Testament saints and saying, even though they were in the promised land, they were still exiles because although they were living on earth in the earthly promised land, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly homeland, a heavenly promised land. I would submit to you that the same thing is true here in the letter of Peter, when he says:
conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.
He doesn't just mean earthly exile from the earthly promised land, he means earthly exile from the heavenly promised land to which Christ will gather His people when He comes again in glory. Now, the reason that's so significant, for me at least, is that the word for exile, are you ready for this? I don't know if you're ready. This is important, is
paroikos.
Paroikos. It literally means to live beside a house. Para means next to or beside, and an oikos means a house. So if you live or dwell beside a home, it means you don't have a home yourself, right? Okay, so a person who is in exile doesn't have a home. Well, what's fascinating about this, and I owe this insight to this wonderful commentary on First and Second Peter by Daniel Keating, he talks about the implications of this terminology because paroikia, or exile, is where we get the English word parish from. A parochial school is a parish or a school of exiles. A parish is a community of exiles, it's a place where those of us who are exiles on earth and who long for a heavenly promised land gather together as we journey toward that heavenly promised land.
So this is Daniel Keating in his commentary, he says this quote:
“Sojourning” is literally “dwelling beside” (
paroikia)... Why is this instructive? Our English word “parish” derives from
paroikia. The local church—our parish—is meant to be the gathering of Christian “sojourners” and “aliens” who are far from their true home. And what is our
true home? It is where God dwells…
Let's stop there for a second. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure that's how most Catholics think about their parish, right? It's so easy for us to think about the parish purely as the local community or as the institution where we participate. And it's all those things, but it's helpful for us to remember that our parish is literally a gathering of exiles, of immigrants, of aliens, of people who don't have a home in this world, because we're all journeying toward the world to come. And I think that just gives a different connotation to what we mean when we talk about what that parish community is.
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