The Gospel of Luke tells of one of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to His disciples. It is the famous story of the two disciples on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. In this Easter Season, there are numerous lessons for us to be learned from that encounter.

 

Luke states that this encounter occurred on Easter Sunday. It was during the day and so it would seem to have been after the first appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalen and prior to the appearance of Jesus to the disciples in the locked room in the evening.

 

Luke tells us that two of the disciples were walking outside of Jerusalem to the nearby village of Emmaus. As is normal in human experience, they were said to have been discussing the recent current events. Since they were followers of Jesus in His ministry, they were talking about the suffering and death of Jesus.

 

The Gospel describes them as downcast. They were still living the shock of what is an essential part of our faith. Either by personal witness or by simple knowledge of what others had verified, they were aware that Jesus had suffered the bodily torture recorded in the Gospels. Further, He had truly died and so had undergone burial.

 

Perhaps because they had been engrossed in this conversation that profoundly touched their troubled hearts, they seemed not to notice the approach of Jesus until He was with them. Jesus, unrecognized, falls into step with them and asks what they are discussing.

 

We can, perhaps, see elements of ourselves or others that we know in the two travelers. For some, the path to faith has been step by step, incremental and not all at once. For others, even once having been introduced to the faith, perhaps in the family, perhaps by conversion, faith can have challenging and even doubting moments. Either way, there can be moments of uncertainty, of temptation to despair.

 

But in the story, they are not reaching out to Jesus. Their sorrow prevents that. They tell Jesus that “we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel.” (Lk 24: 21). The implication is that they now believe Jesus’s suffering and death has proved more powerful than their hopes. They comment, however, that there is a mysterious and confusing report of an empty tomb and a vision of angels, but no one had seen Jesus.

 

In their moment of sorrow, it is Jesus who now reaches out to them. So, Jesus speaks to them as they walk. He puts the pieces of Scripture together so that they understand for the first time what had been foretold took place in the death of Jesus. They later recognized that, “our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us.” (Lk 24: 32).

 

That sense of having a heart burning is not unfamiliar to the faithful. Sometimes in moments of joy, sometimes in times of trouble, a Gospel passage or some element of the faith or Church teaching finds a particular place in our own souls.

 

Motivated by a glimmer of hope they urge Jesus to stay with them. That leads to Jesus breaking the bread with them and suddenly they know who He is. Jesus identifies Himself to them in the Eucharist, through the Mass.

 

This reminds us even today that the Mass, especially Sunday Mass, is not some sort of optional gathering for us. Jesus associates it with Himself and with the resurrection. It is an essential part of how we are to know Jesus.

 

Jesus then disappears and the disciples run back to the others to tell what they have seen. We live in the time of Jesus’s disappearance, at least physically. But as St. Peter says, “Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy.” (1 Pt: 2, 8).

 

Doubt, joy, searching hearts, the presence of Jesus in the Church, in the Eucharist, in our hearts. The lessons of Easter surround us. They do help us to live in our challenging world.