The Upper Room

2nd SunSt-thomas5day of Easter – Year C: John 20:19-31 – Jesus Appears to the Disciples in the Upper Room

Something to consider. We have come to know this passage as the story of “Doubting Thomas.” Yet among all the Greek words for “doubt” [diakrinomai, dialogismos, distazō, dipsychos, aporeō, or aporia] none of these appear in the gospel text. Thomas is described as apistos, that is, without trust, lacking assurance, or questioning. What, if any, difference is there between “doubting” and “questioning?” Continue reading

The Gospel of Luke – The Road to Emmaus

 

In Luke’ narrative there is no account of the Resurrection; there in only the empty tomb – which is not the source of faith for people in Luke’s rendering of the gospel. Rather, in Luke’s gospel it is the empty tomb and the encounter with the person of the Risen Jesus.

The empty tomb is what Jesus had said would happen “on the third day.”  The event of its discovery points back to Jesus’ word.  A word mostly fully realized later in the ‘breaking of the bread.”

Luke 24:13 Now that very day two of them were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,14 and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.15 And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,16 but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.17 He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast.18 One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?”19 And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,20 how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him.21 But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Continue reading