The Pattern and Presence of Jesus - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

0:00 Peace be with you. Friends, for this third Sunday of Easter, we read once again the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. You know, this story is such a masterpiece, but it's like Hamlet. You don't just see Hamlet once and say, I've seen Hamlet. You go back again and again to see different productions of it. You read the text over and over again with different commentaries. Or you don't say, well, yeah, I heard Beethoven's Ninth Symphony once. No, you want to go back again and again and again. And when things are truly great, when they're classics, they always deliver up new meanings to us. And I think the Road to Emmaus story in Luke chapter 24 is like that. So the church again and again invites us to enter into it. So what do we see? It's all about us. That's the point. See, it's about something that happened long ago, yes, but it's also about the church now. Every dimension of the story is about the church today.

0:58 and the church of all time, really. So the two disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus. There's our first clue, isn't it? They're walking the wrong way. Everything in Luke, everything in the Gospels moves toward Jerusalem. It's the city of the cross and the resurrection, the sending of the Spirit. It's where everything's happening. These two are walking the wrong way. It's a basic truth that talking and walking are related, meaning if you're walking the right way, you'll tend to talk the right way. You'll tend to act the right way. If you're heading toward Jerusalem, you'll get it right. You're heading away, you're going to get it wrong. Well, that's all of us, most of the time, heading the wrong direction. They were conversing about all the things that occurred, and as it happened, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. Now, we can read this in a hundred different ways. Can I suggest this?

2:02 How many times in your life has Jesus walked with you, but you didn't recognize him? What I mean is the risen Lord has a way of using secondary causes. He uses people, especially in events in our lives, that mediate his presence to us. And we don't recognize what's happening or recognize that person as Jesus, but he was indeed accompanying us. I just think of, gosh, in my life, all the people from my parents and teachers and coaches and friends who at decisive moments set a new direction for me, at decisive moments opened something up. Who were they? Well, they were Christ, even though I was prevented from recognizing him, Christ using people as secondary causes. Maybe as you've taken this story again, reflect on that. All the people in your life who were Christ to you, even though you were unable at the time to recognize him.

3:03 Wonderfully, of course, with delicious irony, what are you discussing as you walk along? And then, are you the only one that doesn't know what went on in Jerusalem these last days? And then, you know, with kind of faux innocence, well, what things? Tell me. See, what this is, is an invitation to try to understand Jesus. So the first level, when he says, okay, tell me what happened, they recount accurately enough all the data about Jesus.

3:37 Prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. Our chief priests handed him over to a sentence of death, crucified him. We were hoping he'd be the redeemer of Israel, but he's not. But then besides all this, it's the third day, and some women in our group have astonished us with a tale of his resurrection from the dead. You know, if you talked still, even though we're becoming more and more secularized, most people in the Western world, certainly, if you said, hey, who is Jesus of Nazareth? Well, they'd say, well, they'd rehearse all these things. They'd tell the story in its basic outline. Most people still know that. So why aren't they following him? Because though they've got all the data, they don't have the pattern.

4:23 Exceptionally important here. And you see it all the time in life that you can take in the data of something. Let's say someone go to a baseball game for the first time and they sit down, their eyes are wide open, they see all that's going on in the stadium, but they don't get it at all. Like if I were taken to a cricket match or something, I'd see everything. I could describe what's happening, but I wouldn't get it. I don't know the game. Or you bring someone to, you know, Hamlet, and they're taking in the characters, and they're kind of hearing the language. The data is all there, but they don't get the pattern. You know, we talk about getting a joke. Same thing. Someone tells you a joke, and you've heard everything in the joke. The character is what they say, what's being described, but you don't find it funny. Why? Because the pattern is still opaque to you. It's exactly where they are now with Jesus. They have the data, but they don't have the pattern.

5:21 And see, doesn't he himself say that? How foolish you are. Well, what makes them foolish? Not because their eyes weren't open. They did see all these things, but they didn't understand it. how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke. Then listen, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scripture. Let's just stay there for a second, because that is such a powerful line. And folks, it's the only way adequately to get Jesus. We have to read him through the template, through the lens of the Old Testament. And, you know, anyone that loves the Bible has tried to interpret the Bible. It's sort of like a fantasy. I could have been a fly on one of those people's shoulders when he was doing this. What was he talking about when he took them through all that referred to him in the scriptures?

6:26 I don't know, but I bet he talked about Adam, the first man. and the Messiah, Jesus, is the first man of the new creation. I bet he talked about Noah. Noah builds the ark, allows him to survive during the great flood of sin. And so Jesus is the new Noah. And on that great ship, we find salvation. I bet he talked about Abraham, our father in faith. Abraham, to whom God promised his descendants would be more numerous than the stars in the sky. Abraham, the one who initiates the covenant I'm sure he spoke about Abraham's son Isaac Remember, Abraham brings him to Mount Moriah to sacrifice him A father sacrificing his son The heavenly father Who brings his son to the sacrifice of the cross I bet he spoke about Jacob, Isaac's son Jacob who puts his head on an unlikely pillow, this rock, and then he dreams of a ladder connecting heaven and earth and angels ascending and descending upon it. Didn't the Son of Man say, didn't Jesus say, you'll see greater things. You'll see angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. I bet he spoke of the Messiah as the true ladder connecting heaven and earth.

7:54 I bet he talked about Moses. Moses, the lawgiver, yes, brought the law down Sinai. Jesus, the lawgiver who from the mount of the Sermon on the Mount brings forth a new law. Moses who brought his people out of slavery into freedom. Jesus brings them from the slavery of sin to the freedom of the sons and daughters of God. I bet he spoke to them of David. David, the great king who united the tribes. David who took on the enemies of Israel. I bet he spoke of David fighting Goliath. And so Jesus on the cross, taking on the powers of the world. I bet he spoke about Jonah. Jonah would spend three days in the belly of the fish. Didn't Jesus say, this generation wants a sign? The only sign it'll get is a sign of Jonah. Because the Son of Man would spend three days in the belly of the earth. It says he spoke of Moses and the prophets.

8:50 I bet he spoke about Isaiah chapter 53, the suffering servant, the one who would bear the sins of the nation. I bet he spoke of Zechariah, who said when the Messiah comes, the people will look upon him as someone who's been thrust through, who's been killed. I bet he spoke of Jeremiah, where Jeremiah anticipates a new covenant. didn't Jesus now the night before he died said this is the cup of my blood the new covenant in my blood see what he did everybody he took them on a great tour of the Old Testament and showed how all of it speaks of him and you know I've always had this experience in my own life that when you understand Jesus in light of the Old Testament your heart begins to burn within you.

9:48 It's exactly what happened to them. Because in this process of interpretation they were getting the pattern. They were understanding the pattern. listen was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and so enter into his glory that's what he explained to them by opening up the scriptures so because they were so intrigued as you would be too if you read Christ in light of the Old Testament they said stay with us he made to go on further and they said no no Lord stay with us And so he sits down at a table and he breaks the bread and says the blessing and gives it to them. The great Eucharistic gesture. And in that moment, they get it.

10:42 They were getting it as he took them on the tour of the Old Testament. Their hearts were burning. They were beginning to understand. But in the Eucharist, which is what? it's the sacramental representation of the cross this is my body given for you this is my blood poured out for you in the breaking of the bread in the sacrament, in the Eucharist that's when they get him that's when they understand what his suffering means it's in the Eucharist that Adam and Abraham and Moses and Isaac and Jacob and Jeremiah and Zechariah and David and all of them come to their fulfillment.

11:29 That's when they got him. Can you see now, my fellow Catholics, every time we attend the Mass, what happens? In the liturgy of the Word, when we read these stories and we understand these people, we listen to them again, our hearts are burning within us because the Bible is providing the template. But then we move to the liturgy of the Eucharist, And we replicate this same gesture of Jesus. We speak his words, the priest does. This is my body. This is my blood. And in that moment, we get the pattern. We see him. You know, to me, it's not puzzling at all that there's a correlation between people who have stopped going to mass and people that just don't understand who Jesus is. who see him as an old guru or an old spiritual teacher, you know, a prophet from long ago.

12:26 Of course they won't get him. Of course they won't get him, apart from these two interpretive moves that are on display here. And then, of course, the one last move, which I think is so important. Now that they saw him, they start the story walking the wrong way. They're walking away. But now, now, despite the late hour, despite their fears, They hightail it back to Jerusalem. Now that they understand him, they go back to his city, the city of the cross and the resurrection and the sending of the Spirit. at the end of mass once we've taken in the word once we've taken in the Eucharist priest or the deacon or the bishop says now go the mass has ended go to love and serve the Lord go in peace go out into the world now with this great message the road to Emmaus everybody it's the whole story It's the whole story in a nutshell Crack open your Bibles It's in Luke chapter 24 Read this masterpiece again Literary masterpiece, yes But above all, a spiritual masterpiece That tells us who Jesus is