First Reading
Acts of the Apostles 3:13-15, 17-19
Peter said to the people: “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and denied in Pilate’s presence when he had decided to release him. You denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses. Now I know, brothers, that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did; but God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer. Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.”
Second Reading
1 John 2:1-5a
My children, I am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is expiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world. The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments. Those who say, “I know him, ” but do not keep his commandments are liars, and the truth is not in them. But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.
Gospel Cycle Cycle B
Luke 24:35-48
The two disciples recounted what had taken place on the way, and how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of bread. While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them. 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 and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”
We move further into the Easter celebrations today. Our readings, especially the first reading and the Gospel, are very clear. If we want to understand Jesus Christ we must know the Scriptures of our ancestors in the faith, the Jewish people. Christ can only be understood as the fulfillment of the prophecies and the sacred writings which all point to Him.
This leaves us the challenge: How well do we know the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures? If we don’t know them, we must begin to study them. We are not taking an academic course on them, but we want to understand them as our religious ancestors understood them. If we can begin to understand the Hebrew Scriptures, we can begin to understand more profoundly Jesus Christ as our Savior and the Messiah.
We can agree with the First Letter of Saint John: By keeping the Word of the Lord Jesus, the love of God can be perfected in us. Keeping His word! Most of us have some idea of what it means to keep our word, to keep our own word that we may have given to someone else. The Scriptures invite us to keep the Word of Jesus.
Keeping the word means that we must know the word. So often we think that we can just read the words of Scripture in English and understand them. There is some truth in that, for sure. But we need to really study and to try to understand more and more the word of God and the teachings of our Lord Jesus.
Christ is risen from the dead. That is what these weeks after Easter keep trying to help us understand. Jesus came as the fulfillment of all that God had promised to His people, as the fulfillment of God’s word. To understand Jesus, we must understand all that speaks about Him in the Hebrew Scriptures.
We don’t have to understand everything right at this moment. This is important for us to understand. Just as we cannot understand another human being in one instant, so neither can we understand our Lord quickly. We come to know Him by seeking Him, by struggling to understand His word and by striving to live as He did.
Faith requires patience on our part. Just as the early followers of Jesus did not recognize Him right away after He rose from the dead, neither can we always recognize the Lord. The first place where Jesus is recognized is in the breaking of the bread, the Holy Eucharist. But then He is understood more when we begin to struggle with His Word, the Holy Scriptures.
Today we can commit ourselves to knowing the Lord more, to taking the time to spend with His word, to spending time in His presence. When we say “Christ is risen,” we want to believe that with all our heart and soul. Christ is risen!