Third Sunday of Easter (B)

Acts 3:13-15, 17-19
Ps 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9
1 Jn 2:1-5a
Lk 24:35-48

Hello, I’m Father Greg Friedman, with the “Sunday Soundbite” for the Third Sunday of Easter. When new employees join a company, it’s common to have an orientation to bring new people “on board.” A new employee needs to understand both the past and the future history of the company. How can they connect with what’s gone before? How can they be part of the company’s mission for the future?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus conducts a kind of “Christian orientation” for his startled and frightened disciples—most of whom are encountering him for the first time as the risen Lord. He first reassures them that he—Jesus—is the one they knew before the crucifixion. But there have been a few changes! He’s not a ghost, he is truly alive. And he shares a meal with his friends to prove it.

But they have their doubts anyway—perhaps some of the same doubts shared by Luke’s communities years later: How could Jesus be the promised Messiah, and have suffered the terrible death by crucifixion?

And so Jesus patiently interprets the Hebrew Scriptures to explain his mission as God’s “Suffering Servant.”

But the past is only preparation for the future! The message of Good News must be preached to the ends of the earth. The disciples are now his witnesses, commissioned to carry his message to the world. And so are we who gather at our Easter Eucharist with the Risen Lord today!

Scripture:

•The author of life you put to death… (Acts 3:15)

•…you who relieve me when I am in distress; have pity on me, and hear my prayer! (Psalm 4:2)

•…the love of God is truly perfected in him. (1 John 2:5a)

•Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day (Luke 24:46)

Reflection:

•How do you die with Jesus?

•How do you live with Jesus?

•How do you exhibit the perfect love descended on you by Jesus’ actions?

“What then will you give us, Lord? What are you going to give us?” “Peace I give you. My peace I leave for you,” says the Lord. That is enough for me: gratefully I accept what you leave, and I let go of what you retain. If it pleases you, I do not doubt that it is for my own good….I want peace, I desire peace, and nothing more. If there is anyone unsatisfied with peace they will be unsatisfied with you. (Bernard of Clairvaux)