The Annunciator Newsletter of the Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Anglican Patrimony within the Catholic Communion Canadian Deanery of St John the Baptist Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter 289 Spencer Street Ottawa ON K1Y 2R1 613-722-9139 www.annunciationofthebvm.org Vol. 22 No. 06– MAY 2020 ********************************************************************** OPENING UP OUR EYES Third Sunday of Easter, April 26th, 2020, Acts 2:14, 22-33; I Peter 1:17-21; Luke 24:13-35 And He said to them, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself. Sometimes, when we are struggling to make sense of what is going on in our lives and what God is up to, someone will suggest that we might do well to picture this life as a kind of Tapestry, which the LORD is weaving: He beholds the front, and the picture which He is creating, while we are limited to the backside, which often appears to be just a tangled mass of threads. We long to see what He sees, one day we shall. As I read in Luke 24 of Jesus opening up the Scriptures and His disciples’ minds to understand them, it strikes me as though He were turning around God’s plan—the Tapestry of Scripture, if you will—to show us the front—i.e. God’s view—and the picture revealed is CHRIST: the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus! We are never to forget that, although many human writers were employed in the writing of the Bible, each person in his own time and space, viewing only a portion of the whole—so the Bible’s properly a library of books—there is yet one divine Author, weaving the whole together, such the whole has become the ONE BOOK: God’s WORD written. (I have talked Tapestry, but quilters might imagine each writer embroidering his own square, having no idea what the effect will be until the Master pieces them all together as one). The disciples on the road to Emmaus, to say nothing of those back in Jerusalem at the end of the chapter, were distraught and confused, struggling to make sense of the mess: the Messiah crucified; the empty Tomb; rumors of Resurrection; a roller coaster of emotions. They needed Jesus to pull together for them all of this confusion of threads and scattered pieces—although, at first encounter, they thought Him to be ignorant… We read that He began with Moses and all the prophets, [and] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. “Moses” in this case refers to the first five books of Scripture, the “Pentateuch”, often referred to as “Books of Moses”, traditionally ascribed to his handiwork. On the other hand, the “Prophets” covers what comes first to mind—i.e. “Major” and “Minor”, from Isaiah through Malachi, (although Daniel was grouped by Jews with other “Writings”)— but also the “Former Prophets”, i.e. those history books, Joshua Judges, I and II Samuels and Kings, which provide the context for the prophesies found in the others. Jesus was asserting that all of these were pointing to Him—were fulfilled in Him—and that were anyone to truly turn to the LORD, he would see the Gospel there; i.e. Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection and the way opened thereby for forgiveness of sin, and reconciliation with God. You might recall Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, recorded in Luke 16, in which Father Abraham declares that the unrepentant brothers have “Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” When the “Rich Man” protests that they need Lazarus sent back from dead to convince them to repent, he replies, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.” What Jesus opened up became the Apostolic witness, as we find in St. Peter’s declaration that Christ was destined (Greek: ) before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake. In fact, as the New Testament witness unfolds, we see Him presented as being at the …continued on page 2… heart of the whole world’s story, for He is the Beginning them the Scriptures. Perceptually, there was something & the End. Look at the opening chapters of St. John’s different about Him. St. Mark (16:12) records that, He Gospel, Colossians and Hebrews, as well the beginning appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking and ending of the Revelation: every-thing was made by into the country. Although it was the same body which had Him and for Him, and all things hold together in Him; been laid in the tomb—for He did display the wounds, He is the Beginning and the End, the culmination of and invited them to handle His flesh and bone—it had God’s Word written, for He is the eternal Word. been transformed; i.e. it was no longer mortal, subject to suffering, aging and death, but now immortal: fit to As we reflect upon what He was showing them on the ascend and dwell in heaven. Then, enroute to Emmaus, road to Emmaus, I think we get a clue as to why the St. Luke tells us that there was something more; that disciples failed to recognize the Stranger who suddenly their eyes were kept from recognizing him. The Greek verb appeared to join their company. While some he employs, , indicates forceful restraint—i.e. their commentators have suggested that they were distraught, eyes were being held closed; but by whom or what? Was perhaps the light was beginning to fade, or maybe He it a demonic force? Surely not, for Jesus has just put His had a prayer shawl over His head, we might counter that foot upon the serpent’s head to crush it, trampling down surely they would have known His voice when He Death by His death and Resurrection. Then it must be addressed them, or noticed something familiar about His God’s doing; but why? Perhaps because they needed to very presence; and what of two similar incidents which have other eyes opened. occurred, one that same day, the other sometime later. If we want to hear or smell something better, we often First, we find Mary Magdalene back at the Tomb, close our eyes in order to sharpen those senses. It would weeping. She had found it empty, then dashed off to get seem that God desired their natural eyes to be closed to Peter and John, who having seen for themselves, enable them to perceive in other ways with hearts and departed, leaving her alone, overwhelmed in her grief. souls, thereby seeing more deeply what He would reveal. Now she gazes into the Tomb and is confronted there by angels; but no sooner have they addressed her, than she Jesus was about to depart from them to ascend into becomes conscious that they are not alone; apparently heaven, thereby removing that physical presence by the “Gardener” has arrived. It is, in fact, Jesus—and which they had come to know Him over the past three confusing Him with the Gardener is delightful, and the sort of years. Thereafter, they needed to be able to recognize detail John would not overlook; first because it makes us think of and get to know Him further through His word written: John 15 and the Father as Vinedresser rgos: literally a worker the Holy Scriptures. Yes, at Pentecost, with the of the land; elsewhere rendered as “Farmer”, but by some at outpouring and subsequent indwelling of the Holy Spirit, John 15:1 as “Gardener”); but secondly, because it connects this they would come to know His presence within their Last Adam to the First Adam in another Garden, Eden, where he lives—and it is by that very Spirit that His Word was set to guard and keep continues to be opened to us—but at that moment, Jesus pourós: the more common Greek for Gardener (John 20:15)— began the work of removing the veil to display, beyond c c b P the tangled threads, the tapestry unfurled. “Why are you the Temple (see the Septuagint: LXX Greek O.T.). so slow to believe all that God told you that He was going to Still, when Jesus addresses her, “Woman, why are you weeping? do…?” Whom do you seek?” she does not twig at first to who is Still, even then there was more to be revealed—another speaking, but offers to take charge of the body of her form of encounter with the risen Lord. Suddenly they Lord, if He has taken it. No, it is not until He speaks her realize that they have arrived at their destination, and it name, “MARY!” that her heart leaps and knows Him, appears that this Stranger would continue beyond, but even if her brain is yet a step behind. Perhaps her they urge Him to stay; “For it is toward evening and the day blindness came of eyes filled with tears, the dimness of is now far spent.” So He does abide with them. Then at the light, and that she had no expectation of seeing Him supper, He takes, blesses, breaks and gives to them the again.