Sermon for Easter Tuesday
admin | 26 April 2011“Then opened he their understanding
that they might understand the Scriptures”
It is Luke’s recurring theme about the resurrection. It is about the opening of our minds through the understanding of the Scriptures. We saw that on the road to Emmaus. We see it here with Jesus “[standing] in the midst of his disciples.” Somehow we make sense of the resurrection through the interpretation of the Scriptures. Jesus is our exegete, our interpreter. This is itself a key insight into the Christian faith.
It is an astounding scene. We had, on Maundy Thursday, the institution of the Holy Communion at the last supper in the Upper Room. That intimate and intense event set in the context of the ancient Passover story takes on a whole new meaning through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Luke’s accounts of the resurrection convey a sacramental understanding that underscores the reality of human redemption.
“Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself,” Jesus says to the disciples before going on to ask if they have any food and taking a piece of broiled fish and a bit of an honey-comb. What is it all about? It is all testimony to the mystery and the reality of the resurrection. Christ is risen, body and soul. The body is not nothing. Neither is it everything. There is a mystery. The mystery is about human redemption. The mystery is about the larger understanding of our humanity that is opened out to us through Jesus and especially through the interpretation of the Scriptures.
In other words, this meal, too, with Jesus is a learning moment. He teaches them and us about the meaning of his passion and death and about his rising to life again from the dead. The further message that flows out from those events is that “repentance unto forgiveness of sins [is to] be preached in his name unto all nations.” It begins with the disciples in Jerusalem but it continues to the ends of the world and to the end of time. This is the resurrection and its meaning for us. We live in the power of the resurrection. It is about new life and new hope. It is about repentance and forgiveness.
Such things are lived out in the body. They are realised in the every day aspects of our life. We live the resurrection through repentance and forgiveness. For it is Christ who lives in us. If we are the witnesses to these things then we must live what we proclaim. We can only do it in his body, the Church.
For here we wrestle with the understanding of the Scriptures. For here we encounter the Word audible and the Word visible. For here we are fed and nourished in our souls and bodies with the Word proclaimed and the Sacraments celebrated. For here we learn what it means to be with Christ. If we will learn.
“Then opened he their understanding
that they might understand the Scriptures”
Fr. David Curry
Easter Tuesday, 2011