Make a good second impression: April 3, 2008 Youth Group News

If I were ever raised from the dead, I think I'd jump around and run wild through the streets screaming like a mad-woman. See! See! Look at me! Check this out! Can you believe it??! Jesus is much cooler than me though. Maybe his last temptation was to resist being a show off-- yeah, I conquered death--no big deal. And his ultimate miracle was his subtlety. In this week's gospel we hear the strange story that takes place on the road to Emmaus, where Jesus is outrageously reserved. No one recognizes him. And he allows himself to play the village idiot. "Are you the only one in all of Jerusalem that has not heard that they crucified the one we thought would redeem Israel?" his disciples ask him. At one point he is ready to leave them, but they invite him to dinner. "OK, I guess I can stay..." Jesus ups the anti, begins to wax eloquently about the scriptures and finally the climax of the story comes when he breaks the bread and then it all clicks for the disciples. "Oh! It's him!" But just as they get it, he disappears. No time for the big laugh, the high fives, the "I really had you guys going!"

Like any well crafted scene, this story has a turning point: the disciples' despair at the beginning transforms into hope at the end. And that is the real resurrection that continues to happens in each of our lives as we witness hope blooming in the deserts of despair.

The good news is that Jesus is in our midst, we just don't recognize him at first glance. Christ is hidden behind our first impression of others. So we welcome the stranger, we look closer, we toss out our first impression and help create a good second one. Like St. Francis said, "where there is hatred, sow love."