There’s a story, perhaps apocryphal, that the great French organist and improviser Marcel Dupré climbed out of bed on his fifth birthday only to be greeted by his father who said to him, “Marcel, for your fifth birthday, you may now modulate to the dominant.” If this means nothing to you, just imagine a parent telling you on your fifth birthday that now, you can finally ride your bicycle without training wheels.
Waiting is simply a part of life, even though we’re an impatient lot these days. And our restless mindset ignores the fact that waiting is often for our own good and the good of others. Indeed, waiting is often necessary.
And yet, we rightly feel impatient at times. One more natural disaster reminds us that we’re moving ever closer to environmental ruin. One more mass shooting jolts us out of our complacency to say that enough is enough. One more suicide because of loneliness compels us to change something about our lack of social interactions. It’s a struggle to hold the infinite patience of God with the need for earthly action, and it can seem like a hopeless problem. In the quest to alleviate our guilty consciences, there’s a grave temptation to ignore the perfect timing of God’s providence.
Waiting is at the heart of the conclusion of Luke’s Gospel, although it’s not immediately apparent from today’s reading. Just before we pick up the story today, Jesus has appeared to two of his disciples journeying on the road to Emmaus. Only when Jesus breaks bread with them do they realize who he is. Only now can their eyes be opened; before, they couldn’t understand. Now, they know it’s Jesus precisely because he repeats the action that he commanded them to repeat incessantly on the eve of his passion and death. And when Jesus does this, their eyes are opened. Until that moment, we’re told that “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” It’s as if they had to wait for the right moment for their eyes to be opened, which is the moment that Jesus breaks bread with them.
And so, in today’s Gospel story, when Jesus appears to a larger group of disciples, including the two who have met him on the road to Emmaus, it’s finally the right time for the disciples to understand who he is and what their mission is. The disciples are, at first, startled by Jesus’s glorified body. They’re startled by the power of the resurrection. So, Jesus shows them the physicality of his body, however changed it may be.
But then, he does something very strange. He asks them if they have something to eat, and what they offer him is surely a profound sign of the startling power of the resurrection to make the impossible possible. They offer him a piece of broiled fish, and now, they must see that it was with five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish that Jesus fed the 5,000.
Only now, can Jesus speak to them and interpret the Scriptures to them. Now is the right time. Now they can see everything in a way they couldn’t see before. Before, when they encountered a vast crowd of hungry people, those disciples couldn’t imagine how they would all be fed. Then, they could see only scarcity and not abundance. Now, they have witnessed Jesus’s passion and death. Now, they see that Jesus has been raised from the dead by God. Now, they feed Jesus with a piece of fish. And now, their minds are opened. They could never have opened their own minds. Christ had to do it for them. Until now, these fickle, immature disciples have ventured no farther afield than their homeland. But soon, again, when it’s the right time, when the Holy Spirit has empowered them, it will be the right time to go to the ends of the earth.
Timing is everything. Before, Jesus fed the disciples and the crowds in his earthly ministry, showing abundance where there seemed to be only scarcity. Before, in his miracles, Jesus embodied God’s uncanny ability to do the impossible. But now, in the aftermath of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, it all makes sense as it never could before.
This is the startling power of the resurrection, where God’s infinite patience offers us peace amid our impatience, where the impossible becomes possible, where despair turns into hope. Through the startling power of the resurrection, God demonstrates a relentless capacity to make new what has grown old and to give life to what is dying. But for our eyes to be opened to this incredulous reality, we must submit to God’s time. It’s God who must open our eyes.
Right up through the Emmaus appearance, Jesus’s disciples have been fed by Jesus, in the actions of his earthly ministry and, literally, in the bread and the wine. In their post-Easter grief and despair, Jesus appears first on the road to Emmaus and then to a group of disciples trying to process their encounter with the risen Christ. But when Christ appears again and offers his peace, he opens their minds when he asks them to feed him. It’s what they couldn’t do back with the 5,000, but it’s what they can do now. Now, is the right time. They can do the impossible because of the startling power of the resurrection. They will even travel to the ends of the earth, and they are the reason we’re here today.
But those flawed, hearty disciples had their eyes opened to something about which we, in our modern impatience, can often be quite dense. Jesus opened their eyes to see that their mission could only be sustained after having first been fed by him. Jesus needed to feed them before opening their minds. The timing must be right.
And this is a remarkable challenge to us. For too long, the Church has rashly skipped over the only thing that will clarify her future mission. She has too frequently failed to be fed by Christ before feeding others. It’s dangerous for us to presume to feed others before we have first been fed, for then, we will only feed them with our anxiety and dysfunction.[1] It’s spiritually reckless to alleviate our own privileged guilt by using the needy among us as pawns in our selfish projects. We can only understand our mission in light of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, by sharing in the breaking of bread and the prayers, by coming here weekly, by letting Christ feed us, by letting God open our eyes and minds to what he would have us do, rather than what we want to do.
All our pangs of conscience and rightful indignation about the injustices of this world should compel us to be here first. Here alone, in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers, will God open our eyes and minds to the action he has in store for us. Here alone will privileged guilt be converted into self-emptying service. Here alone will we come to know just how God desires to include us into his remaking of a broken world by sending us out as ambassadors of reconciliation.
Before we came to this place, we, like those early disciples, could only see the impossible, but only now, as we are nurtured by Christ, can we have the courage to believe that anything is possible. Before we came here, we thought there wasn’t enough, but now, as we are fed with Christ’s abundance, we can trust that God has given us everything we need. Before we came to this feast, we thought we were no people, but now, God has assured us that we are his people and that because of his boundless grace, we, too, are witnesses to the startling power of the resurrection.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Third Sunday of Easter
April 14, 2024
[1] This roughly paraphrases Thomas Merton, who has written about the importance of contemplative prayer before action.