Cycle B - Year I:  

18 April 2021:  Third Sunday of Easter 

(Liturgical Color: White)

Readings:

First Reading:        Acts 3:13-15, 17-19

Second Reading:   1 John 2:1-5

Gospel:  Please Read  Luke 24:35-48

"To witness the risen Lord by our lives!"

 On Easter Sunday we believe and proclaimed that our Lord Jesus Christ has risen from the dead.  Up to this time, however, none of His disciples have seen the risen Lord physically.  This third Sunday of Easter we will hear the Gospel narrative about Jesus' appearance to the disciples after resurrection.

The Gospel narrative begins with Cleopas and his companion sharing with the other disciples their physical encounter with the risen Lord on their way to Emmaus.  They were still joyfully sharing that experience with the group when Jesus shows up out of nowhere, interrupting their conversation with His greeting "Peace be with you."

At first the disciples were startled and terrified, thinking it was a "ghost". The risen Lord calmed them down, assuring them He is truly alive in flesh and bones, and allowed them to touch Him.  Jesus even ate in front of them as further proof He was not a ghost.

Something is worth noting in the way Jesus reveals Himself to His followers after the Resurrection.  The risen Christ usually made Himself known to His disciples when they were gathered together as a group or community.  There is a message that Jesus wants to convey in this.  Easter is a good season for us to realize that followers of Jesus are called as community of believers, the new People of God, or the new Church.

Going back to the Gospel narrative, Jesus then commissioned the disciples to be witnesses to what God has done to His people through the death and resurrection of Jesus, as He opened their minds to understand fully the Scriptures in the context of Jesus' Paschal Mystery, meaning His passion, death and resurrection.

So the disciples have clearer understanding that everything Jesus said and did during His public ministry pointed to the Paschal Mystery. Every miraculous healing, every powerful sermon, and every life-changing  encounter with our Lord Jesus was in fact pointing to and drawing power from these saving events.  Jesus conquered sin and death by offering His life on the cross in complete obedience to the Father and rising again on the third day.

Thus, our Lord won victory in the most important war that we all face as humans, achieving forgiveness from the Father, reconciling us to God, and restoring us to a life of grace.

We are the new Easter people of our generation.  This means, we, too, are sent to preach the Good News of the Easter event in our world today.  The Easter experience is our own "commissioning" to become witnesses of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ to all who live on the face of the earth.  Incidentally, the theme of our 500th Year of Christian Faith in the Philippines urges us to do just that: "Gifted to give" as we also share our gift of the Christian faith with others.

In practical life, for example, when we break bread in the Holy Eucharist, or share what we have with the needy, we are witnessing to the risen Jesus as we literally become the face of the risen Christ to them.

The second point in our reflection is the "hint" that St. Luke is telling us today about our "glorified" body on judgment day.

Notice St. Luke's vivid description of the Lord's first appearance to the Apostles after the Resurrection as it presents us with significant details about the status of the resurrected body.  St. Luke is telling us about  the importance of both body and soul in our personal salvation, and what will happen to each of us at the end of time.

Just as our risen Lord is resurrected in both body and soul, these resurrection realities should remind us that our bodies are an integral part of our salvation.  Thus, on judgment day we will all be reunited with our earthly bodies and will be saved, or condemned, in both body and soul.  Our Blessed Mother Mary already enjoyed heaven in body and soul by virtue of her Assumption.  

A blessed Sunday to us all.  And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!