Redemption In Christ
Commentary
Many years ago, I was invited to the home of a parish family for Easter dinner. It was a big family, and some of us were standing around the edges of the dining room, waiting for the fragrant aromas to turn into something to eat. It’s always tricky for a woman pastor too. Should I be helping in the kitchen? No. I was the pastor. Still, the offer was greeted with smiles. The grandfather of the clan walked over to me and said, “Pastor, I have a question about your sermon this morning. What’s your definition of a Christian?”
“That’s easy. A Christian is a person who believes that Jesus rose from the dead.”
“What??? Seriously?”
“Well, yes. Without the resurrection, all we have is a guy who died because it was becoming clear to those with the power that he was dangerous. He evidently miscalculated, because he was crucified. But if he actually rose from the dead then all those things he said are true, and we can be strong and challenge the evil in this world without fear.”
“Well, then I guess I don’t know many Christians,” he replied sadly.
“That’s probably true,” I said. “We’ve been shamed by the world to think that this is something ridiculous to believe, that those people of old were prone to believe nonsense. But I think they didn’t believe it any more than we would -- at first. And then Jesus started appearing to various disciples, suddenly standing in the midst of his followers, letting Thomas touch the holes the nails caused in his hands, talking to them on the lakeshore.
“But here’s the thing: once we understand the meaning of the resurrection, we can do anything, accomplish anything, because all our fear has been washed away.”
He was still uncertain about what I was saying, but I deeply believe that people have put their lives on the line for moral causes because they believed that no matter what the world did to them, God would reward them. The early church had more overt persecution, and open hatred has a way of frightening us. Yet they persevered, even in the face of death. The problem in the Western world is that we are not hated for being Christians, we usually are reacted against with mockery. “Nobody with a brain could believe in that stuff!” has a power that is worse because it is subtle. No threat to undo us, just a loss of the respect of others. We become unimportant, unworthy of actual opposition.
Most of the scriptures for the Easter season present us with the disbelief of the first disciples, their struggle to accept the reality of Jesus’ resurrection, and the impact of the Holy Spirit in empowering the early days of the Christian faith.
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Luke was the author of both the gospel named for him and the Acts of the Apostles. For him, the resurrection is the end of the story about Jesus’ life on earth and the beginning of the story of the Church. For Luke, the Church consists of the followers of Jesus the Christ, scattered around the known world, as one body, regardless of gender, cultural and language differences, and previous religion (Jews or Gentiles).
As we well know, every movement needs a leader, someone who knows where the movement is going, what the central workings of the movement are, and who integrates new members into the life of their fellow travelers. While he was on earth, Jesus was that head. His disciples followed along, as every good student follows a brilliant teacher. But what happens when that leader has died, especially if the leader is killed? How will the movement they started fare when leadership must be passed on to a new generation?
Luke’s answer is that God’s Spirit filled Jesus’ disciples so that they had the courage and vision to go on with what Jesus had started. He presents us with Simon Peter, who denied that he had anything to do with Jesus for fear that he too would be crucified. Yet here he is, not two months following the resurrection, standing in Jerusalem, preaching to a multinational group of Jews, telling them about Jesus and how the disciples had come to believe that he was the promised Messiah, only to see him condemned because of false testimony. He speaks so strongly and convincingly (and in language they could understand) that 3,000 of those listening “were cut to the heart,” repented, and were baptized into this new group.
Luke makes an interesting statement about Jesus in verse 36: “God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Compare this to John’s gospel, which talks about Jesus as the pre-existent Word, who was not made, who shared the divine nature from the beginning of the creation. We may think that all such conversation about the nature of the Christ has long been settled, but even a brief conversation with the people in the pews will disabuse us of that thought.
I still shake my head at the memory of talking with a woman whom I hadn’t seen in church in some time. When I asked her son about her, he said, “Oh Pastor, I wish you would call on her. She’s been studying with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and we’re really worried about her.” Since I was fully familiar with the history and teachings of the Witnesses, I was glad to make the appointment. In the midst of our conversation, she said, “Are you telling me that Jesus was a Jew?” She was clearly flabbergasted and a bit turned off at this idea, and I nodded. “He was a Jew, born of the house of David the King. You remember him being born in Bethlehem?” She did, but it had never registered with her that this made him Jewish. She had thought of Jesus solely as God’s Son, removed from our human condition.
It is very suggestive of the conversations of the early church that Luke quotes Peter as saying that God made Jesus both Lord and Messiah. Luke’s entire gospel moves us to ask ourselves “Who is this man?” In the beginning, it was only the women in the story who knew. As Jesus’ ministry takes shape, those observing ask “Who is this man, who speaks like this? Who can do these things? Who even forgives sins?” (Luke 5:24). But every demon Jesus confronts confesses “I know who you are! You are the Holy One of God!” (Luke 4:34). It is only logical, then, that in the Acts of the Apostles that question is settled (from Luke’s point of view) at the beginning. God has made him “Lord and Messiah.”
“Lord” is the title for a landowner. The lord owned not just the land, but the buildings on the property and even the peasants who worked the land. The peasants owned nothing but the clothes on their backs and small items in the houses and barns. These workers could not leave their plot of ground without permission of the lord. To leave the land was prevented both by law and by culture. There was no such thing for centuries as a free man, and those who moved about openly were under constant suspicion. Anyone who traveled had to have papers proving that they had a charter, granted by their lord, to travel for specific reasons. If a man’s lord summoned him to return home, he had to drop whatever business he was conducting and return at once.
We treat God as we would any powerful person. We don’t just open their door and storm in; we don’t follow them around, shouting their first name to get their attention; we show respect in the way we say their name and title. For example, no matter how we may feel about the president of the United States, he is still addressed as “Mr. President.” How much more, then, to avoid attracting God’s attention unless we are really in need of it.
The term Messiah (Hebrew: mashiach)literally means “the anointed one,” and refers to the ancient practice of anointing kings with oil when they took the throne. The mashiach is the one who will be anointed as king in the End of Days. When Peter says “Messiah,” he and his hearers are thinking about the claim that in every generation there is one person who is capable of being the Anointed One. If the world is ready, he will ascend to lead the people to establish a just nation. If he dies without that coming to pass, then he is not the Messiah, and we must continue to wait.
Peter claims that God has made Jesus Lord and Messiah (Christin Greek). But he did not have the chance to finish what God had begun, because he was betrayed by the Sanhedrin and handed over to the Roman governor for execution. What a horrific crime it was, then, to have stripped, tortured and crucified him. No wonder the crowd was “cut to the heart” (NRSV). The hope of the nation of Israel had been felled by the overlords.
Now that the people in the crowd are convicted of their collective sin, Peter invites everyone who wants to come and be “baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven,” and promises that the gift of the Holy Spirit will be given to everyone who is baptized.
This is a substantial promise. It gives us direct access to God, bypassing the temple priests and the wide variety of laws of the Pharisees. No more ritual baths at the temple; instead, one baptism keeps us tied to God through Jesus. No more animal sacrifices; the sacrifice that Jesus made is good for all time. No more fear that we might accidently offend God and thus be lost forever. But one more thing is needed: “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Just as a reformed alcoholic must stay away from her old drinking buddies and the bars they used to frequent, the new Christian needs a new set of friends and a new place to gather with them.
Much of the passage between the first assigned verse and verse 36 pertains to these promises and the glorified position of Jesus of Nazareth, but they are not part of our reading for this Sunday. They are reserved for Pentecost. For today, the lectionary concentrates on Peter’s call for repentance -- a full turning around so that rather than facing the temptations of the path we have chosen, we are looking God full in the face, and are filled with the Spirit.
1 Peter 1:17-23
Just as the reading from Acts is mostly about the identity of Jesus and the call to repentance, the lesson from 1st Peter is about Jesus’ offering his blood as a ransom.
Peter begins by saying that God -- the one Jesus taught us to call “Father” -- judges all people impartially according to our deeds. The modern Christian may immediately object: “I have given my life to Christ. I’ve been promised that I will not be judged at all!” Sadly, this is not exactly true. What is true is that the way we live our lives day by day speaks so loudly that no one can hear our protestations of our faith and love. Those who live by the motto “It’s better to seek forgiveness than permission” are seriously out of step with Peter’s statements about God.
We are called to obedience. In my denomination, part of the ordination ceremony is to promise that I will obey my bishop, go where I am sent, and preach the Good News. However, I ought not to obey my bishop if I am told to do ungodly things. From time to time, our denomination has been torn apart because of disagreements about whether we should be allowed to keep slaves, or help slaves elude their masters. Pastors used to be required to sign “the pledge,” a promise to never drink alcohol, use tobacco, play cards (really an injunction against gambling), to be obedient to the authorities of the world (but to oppose those who are doing evil things), depending on which generation you’re looking at.
We are called to love one another deeply (constantly). Our ability to do so genuinely shows the Holy Spirit is active in us. We are to show compassion to one another, and to allow God to guide us to so behave that others will be drawn to God by our example. This is not something we can pretend to have. We can, however, do as Alcoholics Anonymous says: we can “do a zif” -- do what we know we should until it becomes second nature to us, and we begin to naturally behave in loving ways. (That is, we do “as if” we were loving until behaving in loving ways takes over our life.)
All of this becomes possible because “[we] were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from [our] ancestors.”
Too many people misunderstand what it means to say that we have been ransomed. Let’s use a modern scenario: a kidnapper abducts a little boy and demands a ransom for his safe return. Who pays the ransom? The parents, of course. To whom is the ransom paid? To the kidnapper, of course. If your child is stolen you want him back, and you will probably do whatever you have to do to rescue him. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate.
So why would any of us make the mistake of saying that God demands Jesus’ death to assuage his own anger against the evil that humans do? If we take Peter’s argument seriously, we have to acknowledge that God, working in Jesus, came to earth to pay a ransom to rescue us from the forces of evil. It makes more sense, perhaps, to think of this as a prisoner exchange. The forces of ISIL kidnap people and hold them for ransom. We do not want to give them any money, ever, because they will buy guns, ammunition, tanks, Hummers -- whatever means of violence they can get their hands on. So sometimes we have been known to make a prisoner exchange -- we’ll give you these five prisoners for the safe return of our citizen.
This is what Peter is saying. God came to Earth to live a life like our lives. God took on human flesh so that we can no longer say that God doesn’t understand us. “Through him you have come to trust in God” since God raised him from death. If you were walking down a street in Chicago and a man came running at you full tilt, knocking you over and thus saving you from a suicide bomber, you would naturally be grateful. We have great love for those who have protected us, saved us, or put our feet on a path that improved our lives immeasurably. And if the person who saved you is publicly honored, you would undoubtedly want to be at the ceremony to testify to what he did for you.
How much more, then, would we want to show our gratitude to Jesus, who has promised us that the grave is not the end of us? Who has shown us, by his own resurrection, what lies in store for those who follow the God he represents?
Peter says to his hearers that once we have come to trust in God, we have the job of “purifying our souls by our obedience to the truth.” That devotion to the truth will bear “genuine mutual love,” constant and deep, and will purify our hearts. This is especially important since we are still living “in exile” -- ransomed, but not yet free from the temptations of our former ways.
Luke 24:13-35
This passage makes clear what Luke wants us to know about how to live as followers of Christ. The events of the previous week have undermined the faith the disciples had in Jesus. They were so certain that he was really the Messiah they had been waiting for all their lives. Yet the authorities had connived together to kill him. Their hope had been shattered.
Then there was the business of the women, who had gone to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body. They came running back, crying and babbling about Jesus’ body not being in the tomb and angels telling them that he was alive. A couple of disciples ran to check the grave, and sure enough the body was gone, and they also said that angels were guarding the tomb. They just didn’t know what to make of it!
These two, returning to Emmaus, were so turned inward on the pain of losing their best hope that they didn’t recognize Jesus in the stranger who joined them on the road -- not even when he started preaching to them about what the prophets had foretold about the Messiah. Didn’t they see that Messiah had to suffer before entering into the glory of heaven? He quoted passages from Moses to the prophets, pointing out where Messiah was referred to.
Their hearts were opened as he spoke, and when it looked as though their companion might be planning to travel on alone at night, they insisted that he should stay in their home that night and have supper with them.
Up to this moment, the disciples had no idea who was traveling with them. But when they sat down to the supper table, “he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.” In that gesture, they recognized Jesus. But even as they did, he vanished before their eyes.
This is a profound moment for the disciples, and for us. When the leader of your movement is killed, what do you do to keep going? Of course you remember him, the things he did, the things he said. You keep mementoes of your time together. But Luke picks up the elements of Jesus’ last hours with the disciples, and tells them: “You will know him in the breaking of the bread.”
These two disciples are too excited to stay where they are. They are certain now of what has happened, and what it means for them. Despite the seven-mile walk back to Jerusalem, in the night, they went back. They are greeted by the 11 apostles and their families and friends, who tell them: “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” (Who had, predictably, decided to go fishing, something he understood, and from which Jesus had first called him and his brother and cousins).
These two unnamed disciples “told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” And so it continued. Every gathering of the followers of Jesus centered on the blessing and sharing of bread, a visible sign of the community of Christ’s followers.
And so it continues to this day. We gather together, we remind one another of what Jesus told those first disciples, we join our hearts and minds, and we break bread together. And as the pastor or priest or worship leader breaks the bread for us to share, we are reunited with those early Christians, mourning for their Lord, only to be told: “Do not be afraid. I was dead and am alive. Whenever you break this bread in my name, I am in the midst of you.”
“That’s easy. A Christian is a person who believes that Jesus rose from the dead.”
“What??? Seriously?”
“Well, yes. Without the resurrection, all we have is a guy who died because it was becoming clear to those with the power that he was dangerous. He evidently miscalculated, because he was crucified. But if he actually rose from the dead then all those things he said are true, and we can be strong and challenge the evil in this world without fear.”
“Well, then I guess I don’t know many Christians,” he replied sadly.
“That’s probably true,” I said. “We’ve been shamed by the world to think that this is something ridiculous to believe, that those people of old were prone to believe nonsense. But I think they didn’t believe it any more than we would -- at first. And then Jesus started appearing to various disciples, suddenly standing in the midst of his followers, letting Thomas touch the holes the nails caused in his hands, talking to them on the lakeshore.
“But here’s the thing: once we understand the meaning of the resurrection, we can do anything, accomplish anything, because all our fear has been washed away.”
He was still uncertain about what I was saying, but I deeply believe that people have put their lives on the line for moral causes because they believed that no matter what the world did to them, God would reward them. The early church had more overt persecution, and open hatred has a way of frightening us. Yet they persevered, even in the face of death. The problem in the Western world is that we are not hated for being Christians, we usually are reacted against with mockery. “Nobody with a brain could believe in that stuff!” has a power that is worse because it is subtle. No threat to undo us, just a loss of the respect of others. We become unimportant, unworthy of actual opposition.
Most of the scriptures for the Easter season present us with the disbelief of the first disciples, their struggle to accept the reality of Jesus’ resurrection, and the impact of the Holy Spirit in empowering the early days of the Christian faith.
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Luke was the author of both the gospel named for him and the Acts of the Apostles. For him, the resurrection is the end of the story about Jesus’ life on earth and the beginning of the story of the Church. For Luke, the Church consists of the followers of Jesus the Christ, scattered around the known world, as one body, regardless of gender, cultural and language differences, and previous religion (Jews or Gentiles).
As we well know, every movement needs a leader, someone who knows where the movement is going, what the central workings of the movement are, and who integrates new members into the life of their fellow travelers. While he was on earth, Jesus was that head. His disciples followed along, as every good student follows a brilliant teacher. But what happens when that leader has died, especially if the leader is killed? How will the movement they started fare when leadership must be passed on to a new generation?
Luke’s answer is that God’s Spirit filled Jesus’ disciples so that they had the courage and vision to go on with what Jesus had started. He presents us with Simon Peter, who denied that he had anything to do with Jesus for fear that he too would be crucified. Yet here he is, not two months following the resurrection, standing in Jerusalem, preaching to a multinational group of Jews, telling them about Jesus and how the disciples had come to believe that he was the promised Messiah, only to see him condemned because of false testimony. He speaks so strongly and convincingly (and in language they could understand) that 3,000 of those listening “were cut to the heart,” repented, and were baptized into this new group.
Luke makes an interesting statement about Jesus in verse 36: “God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Compare this to John’s gospel, which talks about Jesus as the pre-existent Word, who was not made, who shared the divine nature from the beginning of the creation. We may think that all such conversation about the nature of the Christ has long been settled, but even a brief conversation with the people in the pews will disabuse us of that thought.
I still shake my head at the memory of talking with a woman whom I hadn’t seen in church in some time. When I asked her son about her, he said, “Oh Pastor, I wish you would call on her. She’s been studying with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and we’re really worried about her.” Since I was fully familiar with the history and teachings of the Witnesses, I was glad to make the appointment. In the midst of our conversation, she said, “Are you telling me that Jesus was a Jew?” She was clearly flabbergasted and a bit turned off at this idea, and I nodded. “He was a Jew, born of the house of David the King. You remember him being born in Bethlehem?” She did, but it had never registered with her that this made him Jewish. She had thought of Jesus solely as God’s Son, removed from our human condition.
It is very suggestive of the conversations of the early church that Luke quotes Peter as saying that God made Jesus both Lord and Messiah. Luke’s entire gospel moves us to ask ourselves “Who is this man?” In the beginning, it was only the women in the story who knew. As Jesus’ ministry takes shape, those observing ask “Who is this man, who speaks like this? Who can do these things? Who even forgives sins?” (Luke 5:24). But every demon Jesus confronts confesses “I know who you are! You are the Holy One of God!” (Luke 4:34). It is only logical, then, that in the Acts of the Apostles that question is settled (from Luke’s point of view) at the beginning. God has made him “Lord and Messiah.”
“Lord” is the title for a landowner. The lord owned not just the land, but the buildings on the property and even the peasants who worked the land. The peasants owned nothing but the clothes on their backs and small items in the houses and barns. These workers could not leave their plot of ground without permission of the lord. To leave the land was prevented both by law and by culture. There was no such thing for centuries as a free man, and those who moved about openly were under constant suspicion. Anyone who traveled had to have papers proving that they had a charter, granted by their lord, to travel for specific reasons. If a man’s lord summoned him to return home, he had to drop whatever business he was conducting and return at once.
We treat God as we would any powerful person. We don’t just open their door and storm in; we don’t follow them around, shouting their first name to get their attention; we show respect in the way we say their name and title. For example, no matter how we may feel about the president of the United States, he is still addressed as “Mr. President.” How much more, then, to avoid attracting God’s attention unless we are really in need of it.
The term Messiah (Hebrew: mashiach)literally means “the anointed one,” and refers to the ancient practice of anointing kings with oil when they took the throne. The mashiach is the one who will be anointed as king in the End of Days. When Peter says “Messiah,” he and his hearers are thinking about the claim that in every generation there is one person who is capable of being the Anointed One. If the world is ready, he will ascend to lead the people to establish a just nation. If he dies without that coming to pass, then he is not the Messiah, and we must continue to wait.
Peter claims that God has made Jesus Lord and Messiah (Christin Greek). But he did not have the chance to finish what God had begun, because he was betrayed by the Sanhedrin and handed over to the Roman governor for execution. What a horrific crime it was, then, to have stripped, tortured and crucified him. No wonder the crowd was “cut to the heart” (NRSV). The hope of the nation of Israel had been felled by the overlords.
Now that the people in the crowd are convicted of their collective sin, Peter invites everyone who wants to come and be “baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven,” and promises that the gift of the Holy Spirit will be given to everyone who is baptized.
This is a substantial promise. It gives us direct access to God, bypassing the temple priests and the wide variety of laws of the Pharisees. No more ritual baths at the temple; instead, one baptism keeps us tied to God through Jesus. No more animal sacrifices; the sacrifice that Jesus made is good for all time. No more fear that we might accidently offend God and thus be lost forever. But one more thing is needed: “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Just as a reformed alcoholic must stay away from her old drinking buddies and the bars they used to frequent, the new Christian needs a new set of friends and a new place to gather with them.
Much of the passage between the first assigned verse and verse 36 pertains to these promises and the glorified position of Jesus of Nazareth, but they are not part of our reading for this Sunday. They are reserved for Pentecost. For today, the lectionary concentrates on Peter’s call for repentance -- a full turning around so that rather than facing the temptations of the path we have chosen, we are looking God full in the face, and are filled with the Spirit.
1 Peter 1:17-23
Just as the reading from Acts is mostly about the identity of Jesus and the call to repentance, the lesson from 1st Peter is about Jesus’ offering his blood as a ransom.
Peter begins by saying that God -- the one Jesus taught us to call “Father” -- judges all people impartially according to our deeds. The modern Christian may immediately object: “I have given my life to Christ. I’ve been promised that I will not be judged at all!” Sadly, this is not exactly true. What is true is that the way we live our lives day by day speaks so loudly that no one can hear our protestations of our faith and love. Those who live by the motto “It’s better to seek forgiveness than permission” are seriously out of step with Peter’s statements about God.
We are called to obedience. In my denomination, part of the ordination ceremony is to promise that I will obey my bishop, go where I am sent, and preach the Good News. However, I ought not to obey my bishop if I am told to do ungodly things. From time to time, our denomination has been torn apart because of disagreements about whether we should be allowed to keep slaves, or help slaves elude their masters. Pastors used to be required to sign “the pledge,” a promise to never drink alcohol, use tobacco, play cards (really an injunction against gambling), to be obedient to the authorities of the world (but to oppose those who are doing evil things), depending on which generation you’re looking at.
We are called to love one another deeply (constantly). Our ability to do so genuinely shows the Holy Spirit is active in us. We are to show compassion to one another, and to allow God to guide us to so behave that others will be drawn to God by our example. This is not something we can pretend to have. We can, however, do as Alcoholics Anonymous says: we can “do a zif” -- do what we know we should until it becomes second nature to us, and we begin to naturally behave in loving ways. (That is, we do “as if” we were loving until behaving in loving ways takes over our life.)
All of this becomes possible because “[we] were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from [our] ancestors.”
Too many people misunderstand what it means to say that we have been ransomed. Let’s use a modern scenario: a kidnapper abducts a little boy and demands a ransom for his safe return. Who pays the ransom? The parents, of course. To whom is the ransom paid? To the kidnapper, of course. If your child is stolen you want him back, and you will probably do whatever you have to do to rescue him. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate.
So why would any of us make the mistake of saying that God demands Jesus’ death to assuage his own anger against the evil that humans do? If we take Peter’s argument seriously, we have to acknowledge that God, working in Jesus, came to earth to pay a ransom to rescue us from the forces of evil. It makes more sense, perhaps, to think of this as a prisoner exchange. The forces of ISIL kidnap people and hold them for ransom. We do not want to give them any money, ever, because they will buy guns, ammunition, tanks, Hummers -- whatever means of violence they can get their hands on. So sometimes we have been known to make a prisoner exchange -- we’ll give you these five prisoners for the safe return of our citizen.
This is what Peter is saying. God came to Earth to live a life like our lives. God took on human flesh so that we can no longer say that God doesn’t understand us. “Through him you have come to trust in God” since God raised him from death. If you were walking down a street in Chicago and a man came running at you full tilt, knocking you over and thus saving you from a suicide bomber, you would naturally be grateful. We have great love for those who have protected us, saved us, or put our feet on a path that improved our lives immeasurably. And if the person who saved you is publicly honored, you would undoubtedly want to be at the ceremony to testify to what he did for you.
How much more, then, would we want to show our gratitude to Jesus, who has promised us that the grave is not the end of us? Who has shown us, by his own resurrection, what lies in store for those who follow the God he represents?
Peter says to his hearers that once we have come to trust in God, we have the job of “purifying our souls by our obedience to the truth.” That devotion to the truth will bear “genuine mutual love,” constant and deep, and will purify our hearts. This is especially important since we are still living “in exile” -- ransomed, but not yet free from the temptations of our former ways.
Luke 24:13-35
This passage makes clear what Luke wants us to know about how to live as followers of Christ. The events of the previous week have undermined the faith the disciples had in Jesus. They were so certain that he was really the Messiah they had been waiting for all their lives. Yet the authorities had connived together to kill him. Their hope had been shattered.
Then there was the business of the women, who had gone to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body. They came running back, crying and babbling about Jesus’ body not being in the tomb and angels telling them that he was alive. A couple of disciples ran to check the grave, and sure enough the body was gone, and they also said that angels were guarding the tomb. They just didn’t know what to make of it!
These two, returning to Emmaus, were so turned inward on the pain of losing their best hope that they didn’t recognize Jesus in the stranger who joined them on the road -- not even when he started preaching to them about what the prophets had foretold about the Messiah. Didn’t they see that Messiah had to suffer before entering into the glory of heaven? He quoted passages from Moses to the prophets, pointing out where Messiah was referred to.
Their hearts were opened as he spoke, and when it looked as though their companion might be planning to travel on alone at night, they insisted that he should stay in their home that night and have supper with them.
Up to this moment, the disciples had no idea who was traveling with them. But when they sat down to the supper table, “he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.” In that gesture, they recognized Jesus. But even as they did, he vanished before their eyes.
This is a profound moment for the disciples, and for us. When the leader of your movement is killed, what do you do to keep going? Of course you remember him, the things he did, the things he said. You keep mementoes of your time together. But Luke picks up the elements of Jesus’ last hours with the disciples, and tells them: “You will know him in the breaking of the bread.”
These two disciples are too excited to stay where they are. They are certain now of what has happened, and what it means for them. Despite the seven-mile walk back to Jerusalem, in the night, they went back. They are greeted by the 11 apostles and their families and friends, who tell them: “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” (Who had, predictably, decided to go fishing, something he understood, and from which Jesus had first called him and his brother and cousins).
These two unnamed disciples “told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” And so it continued. Every gathering of the followers of Jesus centered on the blessing and sharing of bread, a visible sign of the community of Christ’s followers.
And so it continues to this day. We gather together, we remind one another of what Jesus told those first disciples, we join our hearts and minds, and we break bread together. And as the pastor or priest or worship leader breaks the bread for us to share, we are reunited with those early Christians, mourning for their Lord, only to be told: “Do not be afraid. I was dead and am alive. Whenever you break this bread in my name, I am in the midst of you.”
