Today we celebrate the third Sunday of Easter.  The gospel readings these three weeks have been focused on the resurrection of Jesús and on those who had witnessed Him alive again.  In today’s Gospel, we see those two disciples who were returning home, to a village some seven miles from Jerusalem. 

They had beheld the events in Jerusalem, from the arrest to the trial and crucifixion, to the discovery by the women -- and later by some of the other disciples -- that the body of Christ was gone.  They had heard that the women had even spoken of seeing angels in the tomb of Christ, angels who had proclaimed that Christ was alive.  And yet these two disciples still leave Jerusalem and begin the trek back to their village. When Jesús -- unrecognized by them -- begins to walk with them, we see these two disciples in a condition which could only be disappointment or hopelessness, in spite of all they had seen, in spite of all that they had heard.

These disciples had listened to Jesús during his ministry. They had listened to his teachings.  They had most likely seen, or at least heard tell of, Christ healing the sick, healing lepers. Of him giving sight back to the blind, of making the deaf hear again, of the lame walking.  And the bringing back to life of more than one person would most certainly have not been missed by them. And yet when they hear tell of his body being missing and the words of angels claiming his return to life, they still chose to leave jerusalem. 

How foolish indeed. Looking back upon scripture, having the hindsight of it and two thousand years of history between us and the time of Christ, it seems unthinkable that these followers of Christ could have been so doubtful, or as Christ himself said, so slow of heart to believe.

But are we any different, even with everything we know about what happened?  Are we any different, even though we have the Gospels and the completeness of the new testament?  Are we any different than these two disciples even though we have two thousand years of history, of teachings by learned men and women?  Are we any different? Do we have hearts which are slow to believe?

When we choose to follow Christ, when we choose to believe in his message, we ourselves are sometimes disappointed.  We are sometimes let down.  We sometimes lose hope, lose faith. The disciples tell this stranger walking with them that they had hoped Jesus the Nazarene would be the one to redeem them.  These disciples – and perhaps there were many such disciples – had expected more, had expected something different from Christ.  And when he did not come in on a white steed, as a political or military leader to banish the Romans with a sword, they lost hope and they mourned.  They mourned the death, not of Christ, but of their misunderstanding of the type of salvation and liberation that the messiah was to bring.

Our misconceptions of Christ at work in our lives, our misconceptions of how our lives should be once we decide to dedicate our lives to him, many times causes us to step away from our faith, to lose it altogether even. We believe that because we are followers of Christ that our lives should be different, should be better, should be more perfectly ordered and that there should be no problems. We are shaken when we experience suffering in our lives, when we find ourselves passing through trials and tribulations.

But we must remember that there is no glory without a cross, no victory without sacrifices. In suffering, in disappointment, in death even, we must recognize the value of these things as they are the precursors to a new life, that this is the path of life, the path to eternal life.  We rejoice because the Lord is with us always.  We rejoice at his presence with us during our suffering.  

As Pope St. John Paul the Second so eloquently stated it:  We do not pretend that life is all beauty. We are aware of darkness and sin, of poverty and pain. But we know Jesus has conquered sin and passed through his own pain to the glory of the Resurrection. And we live in the light of his Paschal Mystery – the mystery of his Death and Resurrection. We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song. 

We are the brothers and sisters of the resurrected Christ.  We are the sons and daughters of the church which he founded here on earth. We are a people of faith, of hope and of charity.

In our faith, we can find ourselves just like those two disciples.  But instead of returning to our town, instead of returning to our old way of life when things do not go as we think they should, we set our sights on returning to Jerusalem.  No.  We set our sights on the New Jerusalem, where the Lord awaits us. 

We know about the resurrection of Christ.  We know about his ascension and return to the Father.  We know about the descent of the Holy Spirit which animates us and motivates us to preach the Good News of Christ. Knowing what we do, it is our turn to act, not as those disciples, but as Christ did with those two disciples.  

On our way to that New Jerusalem, when we come across christians that are losing their faith, we walk with them.  We talk with them.  We study scripture with them to show them, to show ourselves, the promises of God which were realized through the Son. We invite our brothers and sisters into our home, which is the church, we invite them to the breaking of the bread that we participate in during the Holy Mass. Only then can eyes be opened to the truth that is Christ.  Only then can hearts be set ablaze with faith, hope and love. Only then can we all set our sights on the New Jerusalem and the promise of eternal life

Let us then, in service to our Lord, in service to our brothers and sisters, live our lives with our faith in the Risen Christ. This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad. For we are indeed an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.