Young couples say, “We have true love.” They rightly focus on the happiness and a future together. When there is mutual reciprocation, the couple continue down the road together… sometimes for many years…until there’s a “trouble” or sadly the discovery of a “trouble.” For many couples, “trouble” is a conflict that is rooted in some kind of deceit.
A deceit is discoverable. We cannot hold onto a lie for so long without thinking that the truth might surface. I supposed that many people can go only so far pretending that things are okay when they’re not. We cannot keep up the illusion of love. Once a lie is disclosed, the deceit must be dealt with by honesty and frankness. The relationship either gets stronger or it ends. Now let me give a caveat here: confessing something is not the same as talking something out. Confession is just letting the cat out of the bag. A relationship requires is dialog, that is, a mutual commitment to stay at the table and work it out. The Acts of the Apostles says, “Repent…and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.” Repentance requires both parties staying at the table - facing trouble head on. When we expose and confront deceit then we can move on to make a decision whether or not we can move forward.
Now, let’s look at denial. When our “trouble” is denial, we have a much more difficult situation. Denial makes us think that we’re in love, when we’re not. Denial gives us the illusion that things are great, when they’re not. Denial covers things up rather than allowing us to see what’s really there. That’s why I feel that denial in the long run is more damaging than lying. Ask yourself, have you ever thought that you were in love but after talking it out, you discovered you weren’t in love? It seems to me that we have to put ourselves out on the line, reveal our in-most thoughts and feelings and then see where the chips fall. If we’re going to say we found “true love” then we have to trust that dialog is the way.
Dialog goes beyond the warm and fuzzy and the comfortable. Dialog allows us to bring things up and not avoid the hard conversation. Dialog opens us up to realize that we all have choices and that we are free to choose love. True love is not about living for ourselves or for the moment, or for the pleasure. True love is about making a choice to live for an Other and not only for ourselves just as Jesus did for us. When we live our lives as if we are living for an Other, we are released from being possessed by an Other. We no longer feel controlled or the need to control an Other. We don’t feel like we’re crushed nor do we feel a need to dominate an Other. True love is an openness to a never-ending process of freedom and discovery. True love is the Resurrected Christ.
Today’s reading picks up after the disciples’ discussion about what happened to Jesus. They were at first disillusioned with they thought was a complete loss. They had given up and were walking away from Jerusalem until they encountered Jesus on the road. They were caught up in denial - they heard that the tomb was empty, but they refused to look at that empty tomb might mean TO THEM. The disciples’s denial of dealing with the tomb was a denial of Jesus the Resurrected. When Jesus walked with them and then went to the other disciples and stood in their midst saying, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?” Jesus the Resurrected One made an overture of love. He called out the Disciple’s unbelief. Rather than trying to prove that he is the Christ, he made himself vulnerable to them. He showed them his wounds, his brokenness. In short, he showed them his humanity. “Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”
True love is about being real, it isn’t something built upon a foundation of falsehoods and denial. True love is built upon people who are willing and able to embrace their own wounds and accept their partner’s wounds. Let’s go back to Jesus, he showed them his hands and his feet and then he broke bread with them. The meal of “fish” (the ICTHYS) is a literary hint that Risen Christ was in fact in their midst in the meal. (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/asktheexpert/oct26.html) Jesus true self was fully disclosed in the breaking of the bread. After Jesus revealed his true self to them, he opened up the Scriptures to them and so the dialog went deeper. Rather than leaving the disciples for their cowardice, he stayed and told them, “…the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” True love forgives and releases. The dialog led them to understand that true love will result in healing and the forgiveness of one another’s sins. In some cases, particularly in my own life, I have seen friends and even myself forgive and release in the name of love. It’s not easy and it doesn’t always end with everyone living the same was that they were as in the past. Sometimes in love, we forgive, release and move forward, but not necessarily together. Dialog and sitting together at table requires that the only thing we serve is love.
This Easter Season is about the Emmaus Journey. We should talk to Jesus about where we are with our faith and not be afraid. We should talk about how we feel about Church and our sisters and brothers…after all “Jesus-the-Resurrection” (Cristo Resucitado) discloses himself in strangers and in the unknown, not in the familiar and comfortable. If we trust this LOVE that God has for US, then this will, like true love, change us. We will be better persons and we will be better disciples. And, like Jesus, we will touch one another’s wounds and gather at table and share in a meal that signifies that Risen One is indeed among us.
