E3A.

Acts of the Apostles 2:14, 22-33.  These Acts of the Apostles are a record or history of the very early days of the Church.  Peter here proclaims the truth of Jesus the Nazorean. (Jesus the Nazorean is the full human name by which the man, i. e., the citizen of Israel Jesus is known.)  God worked mighty deeds through Jesus the man.  God raised up Jesus from the dead.  Peter sees this resurrection of Jesus as predicted by David in Psalm 16.  Now Jesus sits at the right hand of God, from which seat of authority Jesus poured forth the Spirit upon his chosen followers.

Luke 24:13-35.  Luke relates this treasured event of Jesus’ appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  It helps to understand how devastated the disciples of Jesus were at his death, seeing in it the apparent termination of their hopes in the redemption of Israel.  They were bewildered by the stories of the vision of angels and the empty tomb. They were on their way out of Jerusalem because, despite those stories, they still had no hope.  Jesus said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are!  How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!”  Their hearts and minds could not get passed what was commonly held by the ordinary people of their time and place.  This same thing happens to all of us. Only by rereading the Scriptures year after year does the Holy Spirit have a chance develop in us an ongoing understanding of what God wants us to know and so help mature us in holiness.   The disciples said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” What joy there is in growing in the Lord, in mind, heart and soul!  They return to Jerusalem to learn of Jesus’ appearance to Peter and to share their experience of Jesus’ appearance to them.  How important it is to have the eyes of faith so to experience the presence of Jesus not only in the breaking of the bread, the Mass, but also in so many times and in so many ways in our daily lives.

1 Peter 1:17-21.  “Beloved: If you invoke as Father him who judges impartially according to each one’s works, conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning, realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct.”  Nothing from our past, except for “the precious blood of Christ” releases us from our sins.  In the Gospel reading, the phrase ‘on the way’ and the word ‘walk’ appear a number of times.  In this reading the word ‘sojourning’ is used.  The Church in its wisdom in the funeral liturgies uses the concept of life as a journey to the Lord and death as a transitioning to our destination, if, of course, we were on the right road.  “Jesus said (to Thomas), I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.’”   (John 14:6)  Jesus himself is the right road.  In the Gospel with the death of Jesus on the cross the hope of the disciples in Jesus died or was close to death.  Peter makes it clear at the end of his epistle that, if our faith and hope are in God, our faith and hope has been resurrected and so we have life for eternity.