“I can’t look.” Perhaps you’ve said these words when watching some terrible, either on the media, or in life. It’s too much for you to take in and so, quite naturally, you close your eyes to what you’re looking at, to somehow lessen the pain of apprehension.
Perhaps that’s what happened to these disciples of Jesus who were witnesses to His suffering and death. It was too much for them to take in, and so, many chose not to be there at the cross, at Golgotha, so that they wouldn’t have to look. And even those who were there, who saw with their eyes, shut the eyes of their hearts, blotting out the full reality of what was happening, which Jesus had warned them about, including the surprise ending, which we read about today.
As such, they were initially unprepared for the surprising events which unfolded that first day thereafter. We saw this in yesterday’s reading, when the women came to the tomb and found things as they were: the eyes of their hearts took a while to open. The same was true of the disciples in Jerusalem who heard the women’s story of new life: they thought it an idle take, told by idiots. Jesus would say of them that they were “slow of heart” to believe.
But then, gradually, as in today’s stories, their eyes began to open, wide open to encompass a reality bigger than they had ever imagined. Peter, initially skeptical with the rest, ran to the tomb, looked in, and saw, with his physical and spiritual eyes, and returned home, amazed at what had happened. And these two, perhaps husband and wife, on their way out to Emmaus, initially couldn’t even see Jesus walking with them. But as He opened the scriptures to them, as their hearts burned within them as He spoke, as they invited Him to stay with them, and as He broke the bread with them, their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him (Luke 24:31). They saw Him and they saw it all, the fulfilment of all that Jesus was, and is, and is to be and to do. And so they returned to Jerusalem declaring with confidence, the Lord has risen indeed (Luke 24:34).
No doubt there have been things that have happened to you and me that have caused us to close the eyes of our hearts. We’ve become unable to recognize Jesus with us, and are incapable of seeing the fullness of His plan for us and for the world. We need to have our eyes opened, freshly, every day as we look into His Word and hear Him open them to us; and each week as we break bread with Him and receive the Word made flesh within us.
So today, I join with St. Paul in praying that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know Him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power for us who believe, according to the working of His great power (Ephesians 1:17-19)
