The Jerusalem Heartache

The Good News that they’ve heard and the best meal that they’ve ever had have permeated their whole being with great joy and a compelling sense of mission. They can’t wait to return to Jerusalem to serve the Lord and help people entangled in the Jerusalem heartache.

 “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?" the two disciples wondered out loud after a mysterious encounter with the risen Christ on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus (Luke 24:32).  

For people who have the blessing of encountering Christ through the Scriptures, the way from Jerusalem to Emmaus is a powerful spiritual journey they traverse often. It is heavenly to hear the divinely inspired word directly from the mouth of Christ who, as the Word of God, embodies the sacred Scriptures, and is the only “one in heaven or on earth or under the earth” capable of opening the sacred scroll (cf. Rev 5:3-5). They hear, as Pope Benedict XVI articulated it with so much eloquence, “a polyphonic hymn”, “a single word expressed in multiple ways”, a “symphony of many voices in which the one word is spoken” (Verbum Domini 7). No wonder the two disciples found their hearts “burning” during the mysterious encounter!

Jerusalem is a city of dejection and danger for the two disciples. Their conviction that they have finally found the Messiah in Jesus the Nazarene has just been crushed and shattered into pieces when he died like a criminal on the cross. And the Roman authority and the Sanhedrin are aggressively hunting down his followers. But now they are hearing that he might still be alive, and that his tomb was found empty. What’s really going on? It’s nothing but heartache, confusion, and fear.

Unfortunately, the ”Jerusalem heartache” that haunted the two disciples is in many ways also haunting all of us. Every descendent of Adam and Eve living in a world order deprived of its original innocence and holiness because of our first parents’ unbelief and disobedience must experience it again and again. Sometimes, it seems there’s just no breaking away from Jerusalem!

But the loving Father will not leave us hopeless and despondent. For every heartache or confusion or fear that we experience in the Jerusalem of our hearts, there is always hope that a joy or enlightenment or comfort is out there waiting to be found - if only we have the courage, the will, and the resilience to turn our back on Jerusalem and set out for Emmaus, as the two disciples did. Where is Emmaus? A Judean village of uncertain location according to Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. But it doesn’t matter where it is really. What matters is that somewhere out there, away from Jerusalem, there is hope, there is an opportunity to start anew, there is Emmaus.

On their journey in search of hope and comfort, they encounter the risen Lord, who enlightens them and makes them understand that it is “necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory” (Lk 24:26). How does Jesus do that? Using the sacred Scriptures. “Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him” (Lk 24:27). In other words, he gives them a quick overview of the whole salvation history, how it progresses from Moses and the prophets to Christ; from the law as our disciplinarian to faith as fulfillment and justification; from, in a word, the Old Covenant to the New (cf. Gal 3:24-25). What a rich and profound scriptural discourse that must have been!

As rich as the scriptural discourse is, Jesus does not stop there. He goes on to share a meal with them. What happens next is a sequence of actions reminiscent of what he did at the Last Supper: “he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them” (Lk 24:30, 22:19). Clearly, this is no ordinary meal. It is the Eucharistic liturgy! It is only then that the “[disciples’] eyes were opened, and they recognized him” (Lk 24:31) The road to Emmaus is in fact a Mass liturgy in which Jesus gives himself to the Church in word and in Sacrament (the Eucharist); it is the miniature of the Mass liturgy, beginning with the liturgy of the Word and ending with the liturgy of the Eucharist. The Church’s response to Christ’s self-emptying, as shown by the two disciples, is thanksgiving expressed in the form of “heart burning” on hearing the word and “eyes opened and see Jesus” on receiving the Eucharist.

But it’s at this point, just when the disciples have heard the word and received the Eucharist,  that the most amazing thing happens: “So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem” (Lk 24:33)! They can’t wait to return to Jerusalem, the city of heartache and danger, the awful place that they’ve tried to run away from. Why? The Good News that they’ve heard and the best meal that they’ve ever had have permeated their whole being with great joy and a compelling sense of mission. They can’t wait to return to Jerusalem to serve the Lord and help people entangled in the Jerusalem heartache. So must we do the same after hearing the word of God and receiving the Eucharist at Mass. This is what the Church asks of us when the priest concludes the Mass celebration with this simple commissioning: Go forth, the Mass is ended; “Ite Missa est” (cf. Pope BXVI, Sacramentum Caritatis 51).

The Romance at Jacob’s Well

The symbolism in this Sunday’s gospel is dense, its meanings rich and multi-layered. This comes as no surprise to the readers, knowing that the scriptural passage is selected from the Gospel of John, whose author is widely acclaimed by all exegetes, both ancient and contemporary, for his artistry of allegorical  expression and imagery. 

The scene depicting Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well immediately brings to mind three classic marital arrangements in the Pentateuch that took place in similar settings: the encounter of Abraham’s servant with Rebekah at a spring that ended with her marriage to Isaac; Jacob’s encounter with Rachel at a well, whom he eventually married; Moses’ encounter with his future wife, Zipporah, at a well in Midian (Gen 24:10-67, Gen 29:1-30, Ex 2:15-21; Ignatius Catholic Study Bible Jn 4:6). 

Drawing on the nuptial meaning of these ancient marital encounters and using the special backdrop of the well – the place of courtship in the Pentateuch - as the common denominator, John sees in Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the Jacob’s well a romance leading to a new and everlasting marital relationship. The God who throughout the Old Testament scriptures has been persistent in wanting to win over the heart of his beloved people, Israel, reveals his Trinitarian Self in his Son, the incarnate Jesus, in the New Testament. At the Jacob’s well, Jesus, the divine Bridegroom in search of believers to be his covenant bride, speaks prophetically in the sweet and irresistible language of love to court his beloved bride as embodied by the Samaritan woman. 

The courtship is apparently a fruitful one. The love story continues to unfold with the woman departing in a hurry. In her rush to leave, she abandons even her water jar – an important tool for her livelihood. She can’t wait to tell her people about this charming Lover that she has just encountered: “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?” (John 4:29). She calls Jesus “Christ” or “Messiah”!  A stone-cold conversation that began with the Samaritan woman calling Jesus “a Jew” and “sir” has turned into an affable, heart-melting, life-changing dialogue of the lovers. She has fallen in love with the divine Bridegroom head over heels. She can’t wait to proclaim the good news to her community and to the world, if necessary.

The Samaritan woman is in fact an image of infidelity and faithlessness. The fall of the northern kingdom of Israel to Assyria in the 8th century and the resettlement of foreign peoples in the region had forced the remaining Israelites to intermarry with the pagans. Over time they gradually adopted the pagan way of worship and religious practices. They became the Samaritans who were considered “defiled” by the Jews. The enmity between the two peoples remained even in Jesus’ day. The “five husbands” that the Samaritan woman had refers to the pagan deities and idols of Samaria (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible Jn 4:18). 

But the Samaritan woman is an image not only of Samaria, but also of Israel, Judah, and indeed you and me. The divine Bridegroom’s courtship is not reserved for the Samaritan woman alone. It’s also extended to you and me. Let’s retrace the myriad footsteps of our lives. When was it that Jesus met you at the well for the first time? What was it like? Can you recall the sweet dialogue of love and how it touched your heart? Did you proclaim the good news to your neighbors the way the Samaritan woman did? If yes, how? The author of this reflection, for one, is doing just that!