Third Sunday of Easter, April 30, 2006
BCP: Acts 4:5-12 or Micah 4:1-5; Psalm 98 or 98:1-5; 1 John 1:1-2:2 or Acts 4:5-12; Luke 24:36b-48.
RCL: Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36b-48.
In the collect for the Third Sunday of Easter, the faithful petition for a present blessing on the basis of a remembered event. We pray for the blessing that “the eyes of our faith” might be opened to “behold [Jesus] in all his redeeming work,” recalling that Jesus “made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread.” Our Easter faith is celebrated in the present moment as an act of recollection of the victory over sin and death accomplished when Jesus rose victorious from the grave, and in this faith we come into contact with the sacred presence of the Lord in the eucharistic feast.
Holy scripture challenges the worshipers on this day to recognize that this experience of faithful remembrance and encounter with God is not just for our personal, religious enjoyment. Rather, we are to be enlivened and emboldened to proclaim the gospel of the Lord. In either reading appointed from Acts, St. Peter is described as using the commotion caused by the healing of a lame man at the gate of the temple to proclaim the death and resurrection of the Lord and to extol the power of the Name of Jesus. Both the healed man and the apostles through whom there was “a good deed done to a cripple” might have been tempted to hold onto their experience solely for their own edification. But with their opened eyes of faith, the disciples knew the miracle to be but a part of the redeeming work of the risen Christ that will not be completed until, as declared in Psalm 98, “all the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.”
The gospel reading makes it abundantly clear that our Easter faith is to be proclaimed, not merely experienced, as a religious emotion or conviction. Two disciples who had encountered the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus were speaking of their experience of “how he was known to them in the breaking of bread” (Luke 24:35). While they spoke, “Jesus himself stood among them.” Assuring those gathered of the reality of his presence, Christ then “opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” But this was not only so they would come to faith themselves. The faithful among whom the Lord’s presence is made known “are witnesses of these things,” charged with the responsibility to likewise make Christ known to all peoples. This Easter challenge continues to be the vocation of all of us who encounter the Lord Jesus in scripture and the breaking of bread.
Look It Up
Pray the Collect for the Presence of Christ in Evening Prayer (BCP, p. 70 or 124), and reflect on how remembrance and the present moment are interrelated.
Think About It
What one thing has happened in your Easter worship that you would like to share with a friend who may not have a church home?
Next Sunday
Fourth Sunday of Easter, May 7, 2006
BCP: Acts 4:(23-31)32-37 or Ezek. 34:1-10; Psalm 23 or 100; 1 John 3:1-8 or Acts 4:(23-31)32-37; John 10:11-16.
RCL: Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18.
