I heard behind me a voice as loud as a trumpet
Sometimes little things go unnoticed in the readings for our Sunday liturgies. For instance, despite their focus upon the marvel of the resurrection, I can’t help but reflect upon the way Jesus and even Peter (in the first reading) make their presence felt. In Peter’s case it’s his shadow that heals people, so that residents carry their sick out into the streets on cots and mats to experience his power. It reminds me of the scene in To Kill a Mockingbird in which Atticus Finch (played by Gregory Peck) rises to leave the court room after his exonerating but – due to local prejudice – failing to acquit Tom Robinson, a black field hand, for assault. As of one accord all the African American observers in the court room balcony rise as well, telling Finch’s daughter to do the same because: “Your father is passing.” The scene makes the mere passing of Atticus Finch a holy event, of a presence laden with a power that can heal. It’s a subtle way of saying God himself/herself was present in that chamber.
For another subtle way, look at the second reading from The Book of Revelation. The writer John hears a voice behind him and has to turn to see whose voice it was. The voice comes out of the future, because do we not always advance through life walking backwards? We see the past, we record it, we know what has happened – good and bad – but the future is, as it were, behind us – and that’s whence the voice of Jesus speaks to John – out of the future. If John but turns around he will see the whole drama of life revealed from the point of view of the risen Jesus.
And then there is the Gospel for today. The disciples are behind locked doors, hiding, frightened since the death of Jesus. Except that Jesus materializes right there among them, within their locked chamber and says, “Peace be with you.” By way of shadows, voices from behind our backs, materializing among us right out of nowhere! The subtle presence of God’s power, God’s voice surrounding us throughout our lives – in the hope that gradually we will feel the healing shadow, want to turn around, experience the surprise of his transient presence by way of a thought, an insight, a recovery of hope, a belief in love.
It takes some kind of awakening, a kind of coming out of our tomb to meet this subtle influence of Jesus, of God’s grace with increasing conviction. Somebody is in the room; the coolness of somebody’s shadow just fell over me; I feel drawn to stop dwelling, brooding over the past, drawn to turn around and take a chance on the future – or, as in next Sunday’s Gospel, pause in my wearisome fishing around to take note of somebody standing over on the seashore – signaling . . .
It is our Easter Season. Time to be prepared to sense the presence of Christ, to accentuate our faith in such a way as to see him in other than just bodily ways – to see him and hear him as probably all around us if our senses were truly awake. As he was for the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus, who as a stranger (in the words of John Shea) falls upon their loss with excited words about surprises hidden at the heart of death . . . and that every scream is redeemed for it echoes in the ear of God.
The Emmaus reading ends with the disciples recognizing the stranger for what he was: the arsonist of the heart — as Shea puts it. I once applied that term to my now deceased son. For all his problems with drugs, he was nevertheless and even providentially – the arsonist of my heart, the shadow of Christ.