A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Two of the disciples of Jesus, that same day, the first day of the week, Monday, our Monday, were making their way to a village named Emma House, which is just about seven miles out of Jerusalem, discussing as they went along everything that had happened. In the course of their lively conversation, Jesus approached and began to walk along with him. However, they did not recognize Jesus said to them, what are you discussing as you go your way? They halted in distress.
Notice, they were so astonished, they stopped. And one of them, Cleopas by name, asked Jesus, remember they didn't recognize him, are you the only resident of Jerusalem who doesn't know the things that went on there these past few days? See they're utterly astonished that anybody could be ignorant of what had happened. And Jesus said, what things? And they replied, well, everything that had to do with Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet powerful in word and indeed in the eyes of God and all the people.
Notice what they said. They didn't say the messiah. How our chief priests and leaders delivered him up to be condemned to death and then crucified him. We were hoping that he was the one who would set Israel free. That's exactly what they thought, that he threw out the Romans and give the Jerusalem back to the Jews.
And besides all of this, today, the third day since these things happened, some women of our group have just brought us some astonishing news. These women were at the tomb before dawn and failed to find his body, but returned with a tale that they had seen a vision of angels who had declared Jesus alive. Then some of us went to the tomb and found it to be just as the women had said, but the body, they did not see. Now is there any document? Is there any little story that could be more human than that?
Is there any sign here that they expected the resurrection? That they expected anything but from Jesus except to restore the kingdom of Israel? I mean, the the temporal kingdom. And then Jesus said to them, what little sense you have, how slow you are to believe all that the prophets have announced. Did not the messiah have to undergo all of this so as to enter into his glory?
And then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus interpreted for them every passage of scripture which referred to himself. By now, they were near Emma House, the village to which they were going. And Jesus acted as if he were going to go farther. But they pressed him and said, stay with us. It is almost evening, and the day is practically over.
So Jesus went in to stay with him. They still didn't recognize him. When he had seated himself with to eat, notice he sits down with him, and he's going to eat food, real food. He took bread and pronounced the blessing, and then broke the bread and began to give the bread to the disciple, the two of them. With that, their eyes were opened, and they recognized Jesus.
Very mysterious. Whereupon he vanished from their sight. Then they said one to another, were not our hearts burning inside us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures? They got up at once and went back to Jerusalem where they found the 11 and the rest of the company of assembled. They were greeted with the lord has been raised.
It is true. He has appeared to Simon. Now, notice that's entirely independent of the two men going to Emma's. Then they, the two disciples who had gone to Emmaus, told what had happened to them on the road and how they had come to know Jesus in the breaking of the bread. This is the gospel of the lord.
Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. As regards the resurrection of our lord, one, practically all the theories that try to explain it away assume that he that his death was only apparent, and that in some way or other he was revived. Now that I mean, that the latest book on the subject, that's its main and essential point.
And of course, it's completely untenable. I mean completely untenable. Now, a more basic argument is inconsistency. Now, this argument of inconsistency when you're dealing with witnesses testimony, and that's what you're dealing with. And this this applies to the to the infancy narratives of Luke.
It applies to a lot where you have you see, you have Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They are the three synoptics. They're called synoptics because they give one view. But there are three independent writers who are dealing with the same material. And then you have the fourth man, John.
Then you have the book of the acts. Then you have the all the epistles of Saint Paul and Peter and James, and you have the revelation of Saint John. These are all separate books. They're written by different authors, and when we accept it, it's a matter of testimony. Now, when you're dealing with testimony, you're dealing with a fragile thing, when you're dealing with human witnesses.
And mean, just if anyone studied a little bit of law, if you've been involved in law, or or followed any cases like the witness chambers, that very good serial that we just had the last episode of, why you will understand what I'm trying to say. See, when you're dealing with a number of witnesses, you have this anytime you have an accident. Let the police ask six people what they saw, and you have six people, three people, two people, a half a you have a dozen people. They all saw it or they say they saw it. Obviously, they're supposed to have seen the same thing.
There was only one accident. And you and you you can deal with a half a dozen with three, four, five, don't care how many. It just gets worse as the numbers increase, And they will and graining that they're honest. No question. We would or that they're sincere, they wanna tell the truth, they wanna give it give you the facts as they saw them, and then just read what they say.
Alright. This happens every single day. Now, when you have a number of witnesses, two or more, giving testimony, if their testimony is too consistent, that is if it's too exact one with the other, it defeats itself. Because immediately the the the attorney on the other side will say there has been been conspiracy. They have gotten together.
This story has been proposed to them and they've memorized it. This is commonplace and a court and a judge will uphold it. On the other hand, if they're too inconsistent, that will disprove the testimony. You don't know which one to believe. Supposing one man says he had a red coat on and the other said he had a black coat on.
Who's telling the truth? So, if you have too much consistency, it disproves itself by internal evidence, you might say. And if the if there's if there's too much inconsistency, then it's thrown out. So, where does truth lie? Now just two Sundays ago, the first Sunday I was back here, from this very pulpit on a Sunday, I quoted now listen to this, Saint Peter Chrysoglou.
Saint Peter Chrysoglou. His name is Greek, but he was a Latin father. And I mentioned that in my well chosen remarks, that he was a Latin father, one of the fathers and doctors of the church. After mass, the 07:30 mass, a gentleman came up and said to me, what was that quotation from Saint Joseph? He thought I quoted Saint Joseph.
If you'd have asked him, well, what who was that man that was quoted in the in the homilest one? He'd have said Saint Joseph. How do you know it was Saint Joseph? I heard it. Now, the point all of this is coming to this.
Of course, there were inconsistencies. Inconsistencies. I've heard priests get in a tither over about over the the description of the head wrappings in the tomb. If there were not some inconsistencies, we would say there was collusion. Now if there's one thing that is perfectly clear in all these different accounts, and they're different accounts of the resurrection of our lord is that they are they don't have that much.
They don't have that against them of being utterly consistent, word perfect, which would certainly show collusion. They are far from that. They do show certain inconsistencies, But what do you make of those inconsistencies? There's the point. Are these inconsistencies about important things?
Or are our witnesses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Saint Paul, or are they perfectly consistent in the basic facts of the matter? And the answer is absolutely yes. Yes. And that's all that we need to know. That's more than enough we need to know.
That the basic facts are that you had a dead man put in a tomb. You had an empty tomb. You had that man appearing to plenty of people, plenty of people. And here is the most important point. In not one single instance did the people expect, or anticipate, or were looking forward to, or were preparing to see the risen Lord.
Quite the reverse. They were in the dumps. They were in despair. It was all a lost cause. In other words, it wasn't any psychological anticipation and that that had had them see some kind of an illusion.
And furthermore, illusions don't sit down and eat with you. Illusions don't have you touch them. Illusions don't have you grasp them. Illusions don't prepare a breakfast for you over a fire on the side of the lake. It's that simple, and it's exactly what you would expect.
That if the resurrection of our lord is so frightfully I mean that word frightfully important to our faith. Wouldn't God see that we had plenty of evidence for it? And indeed, we do. All you have to do is to look at it. There it is.
But you do have to look at it, and your mind has to be prepared to follow the way of truth, the way of our Lord. And so we wind up as we begin. We are resurrection Christians, Christians and hallelujah. Praise god is our song. In the name of the father and the son and holy spirit.
Amen.