Text: Luke 24:13-35
Focus: Incarnation
Function: to help people see the incarnation of Christ in each other and everything. (St. Francis)
We are going to do the prayer of St. Francis
13-16That same day two of them were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem. They were deep in conversation, going over all these things that had happened. In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not able to recognize who he was.
17-18He asked, “What’s this you’re discussing so intently as you walk along?”
They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend. Then one of them, his name was Cleopas, said, “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard what’s happened during the last few days?”
19-24He said, “What has happened?”
They said, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene. He was a man of God, a prophet, dynamic in work and word, blessed by both God and all the people. Then our high priests and leaders betrayed him, got him sentenced to death, and crucified him. And we had our hopes up that he was the One, the One about to deliver Israel. And it is now the third day since it happened. But now some of our women have completely confused us. Early this morning they were at the tomb and couldn’t find his body. They came back with the story that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. Some of our friends went off to the tomb to check and found it empty just as the women said, but they didn’t see Jesus.”
25-27Then he said to them, “So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets said? Don’t you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?” Then he started at the beginning, with the Books of Moses, and went on through all the Prophets, pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him.
28-31They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if he were going on but they pressed him: “Stay and have supper with us. It’s nearly evening; the day is done.” So he went in with them. And here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. And then he disappeared.
32Back and forth they talked. “Didn’t we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?”
33-34They didn’t waste a minute. They were up and on their way back to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and their friends gathered together, talking away: “It’s really happened! The Master has been raised up—Simon saw him!”
35Then the two went over everything that happened on the road and how they recognized him when he broke the bread.
Well, this morning, we are still focusing on the First Easter Sunday and its events.
I mentioned briefly last week how this was an important part of the story because the disciples who were walking with Jesus were ones well enough known to the eleven to be included into the inner circle because they mentioned the two Mary’s as two of “our women” and they were familiar enough with the hiding place that the apostles were using after the crucifixion.
We look at them as people of great faith, but it is important to remember that they were human, just like us. They were afraid and were hiding. But until these moments on that first Easter day, as the realization of the resurrection grew, they were ignorant and not to be held accountable. So far, the only ones who believed it were the two Mary’s.
And this is the famous walk to Emmaus, whereby Jesus reveals to the disciples how the OT scriptures were pointing to Him and the plan of God to redeem their nation. They didn’t understand yet that this was not just going to transform their nation, but it was going to transform the world entire.
All of that is for the future at this moment. At this moment, this is a small group of people whom are just now having the dawning of realization that their greatest fears were to be wiped away by the power of the Christ through the resurrection.
For some reason, the fact that no one recognized Jesus that first day initially has stood out to me this year during the Easter season.
I never really contemplated why. I mean, I remember questioning it, along with many other things when I was young, to be answered probably correctly that it was because Jesus had a glorified body that they didn’t recognize him.
Jesus said our resurrected bodies will be this way when arguing with the Sadducees who don’t believe in the resurrection. He told them that our resurrected bodies will be more like the angels in their nature and be without any gender identity. More like the angels might explain how Jesus was able to eat with the apostles and yet walk through walls to appear to them, or suddenly disappear from the men once they got to Emmaus and broke bread with the Christ.
Jesus the Nazarene was crucified on the cross as part of God’s plan of restoration. Jesus the Christ, the eternal Christ rose from the dead.
And yes, it was the same person, but as I have come to discover this year, a different identity. It was so different that his physical appearance, although human had changed and it wasn’t until he did something familiar, or spiritually familiar, that they recognized him.
It was when he called Mary by name, that she recognized him.
It was when the two men broke bread with him that they recognized him.
He appears again beside the lake after the men had seemed to have given up and went back to fishing and he blessed them. This is the time he ate with them to prove that he has a corporeal risen body and again, during this occasion, it wasn’t until he preformed the same miracle he performed when he called them, filling their nets with fish, that they recognized him.
Today we look at how they recognize him while they are breaking bread with Jesus, the Christ.
Somehow Jesus is able to convey a spiritual component to his interactions with these ones who, although they are hiding, have not fled.
He appears to them to build their faith. And he does it in the familiar surrounding and trappings of their everyday lives.
I am impressed this year as I went through Lent, I also went through the rigorous training that we have preparing for our Kairos weekend.
We are a diverse group of guys. And we come from varied backgrounds. There are baptists, Methodists, Roman Catholics, there is one Monk on the team, he plays the guitar, of course there are Ken Oren from the Pitsburg Church of the Brethren and me on the team.
We have very different opinions about what is important for churches to focus on. We have very different opinions about politics.
But none of that gets in the way of our desire for unity. I think that it is precisely because we are willing to lay aside our differences and work together in Christian unity that God blesses the weekend so much. God loves it when believers love one another and the world that he gave himself to redeem.
We break bread together and we join with the Christ in so doing.
I am reminded, then, by the Holy Spirit that Christ is in everyone, especially the incarcerated because Jesus numbered them among the least of these, my brethren, in Matthew 25.
When they broke bread in fellowship, the Christ was revealed to them at Emmaus.
When we live in community together, the Spirit of is incarnated within us.
So, next week, because of your help, we are going into a prison. Pray for me as I am going to break bread with the Christ in every one of the residents of Warren Correctional Institute.
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