GOSPEL POWER  l APRIL 21, 2022

Thursday within the Octave  of Easter

Gospel: Lk 24:35-48  

35The disciples from Emmaus told what had happened on the road,  and how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the  bread. 36While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among  them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37They were startled and  terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38He said to them,  “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  39Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and  see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”  40And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.  41While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he  said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42They gave him a  piece of broiled fish, 43and he took it and ate in their presence. 44Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you  while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the  law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45Then  he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46and he said  to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise  from the dead on the third day, 47and that repentance and forgiveness  of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things.”  

The purposes of God cannot be grasped without seeing  them through the lens of the cross. Before the crucifixion,  Jesus already told his disciples what would happen to him in  Jerusalem. But he could not get through their dense mindset that  were full of expectations of grandeur and of personal ambition that  stemmed from a misconception of the coming Kingdom. Now after  Calvary, the risen Christ retells the same Scriptural references about  himself to his disciples who have experienced the horrors of Good  Friday and have been humbled by their weakness in the face of the  crisis. The cross has shattered the disciples’ illusory view of God’s  Kingdom as a seat of worldly power and greatness. Their crisisexperience on Calvary has turned them into witnesses and heralds  of the forgiveness of sins that is possible only through the love  demonstrated on the cross. 

Lord Jesus, help us to plumb the depths of our experiences by viewing them through the lens of your cross. Amen.