Clergy Notes — Fifth Sunday in Easter, May 15 2022

This Sunday’s Collects focus on Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life (see John 14.6). We shall pray for grace, to recognise God’s truth, to walk in the way, and to share in the divine life: we do this above all by learning to love God, one another, and indeed ourselves, as Jesus told his disciples (Luke 10.27). This is a lifetime’s journey!

However it is a journey not in isolation but together, and a journey with Jesus who is himself the Way. Strangely this year’s Lectionary, for the Year of Luke, does not include in Eastertide Luke’s resurrection account of the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24.13-35). At the end of the first Easter Day, two disciples of Jesus leave Jerusalem to walk the twelve or so kilometres home, despondent, disillusioned. A stranger joins them, and they walk together. He asks what is troubling them: they have seen their master dead and buried, they and their friends are grief-stricken and afraid, and now some of the women are saying that the tomb is empty, and that angels had told them Jesus is alive! Luke tells us that this stranger is Jesus, but they have not recognised him. “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” the stranger says. When they reach home they invite him to stay with them overnight, and prepare a meal to share. The stranger takes the bread, blesses and breaks it, and gives it to them. At that moment, Luke tells us, their eyes were opened, and they realised it was Jesus! And he disappears. “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” They return immediately to Jerusalem to tell the others how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

So now Jesus reveals himself to us, today’s disciples, if we allow him, when we journey together, when we share in the breaking of the bread at the altar, when we reflect on the scriptures. Take some time this week to ponder these things, how this Eastertide, in the unsettled and disturbing times in which we live, Jesus is journeying with you in the Way, where you recognise him in the lives of those around you, how his Truth challenges and inspires you, how he strengthens you to live his Life and his Love now, today. May our hearts burn within us!

Easter Blessings, Fr. Kevin

 

Download Sunday booklet here: Liturgy at Home Easter 5 Sunday May 15 2022