April 23, 2023

There are about eight appearances of the resurrected Jesus in the Bible, and my own favourite is the one we heard today – the Road to Emmaus. Found only in Luke’s gospel, this is the story of Cleopas and probably his wife Mary (Jn 19:25), having been close disciples of Jesus, now walking home on what we call Easter day -- to their home in Emmaus, feeling quite depleted and hopeless. Jesus comes along and walks beside them “but their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (v 16). Older commentaries sometimes twist themselves into a knot -- trying to figure out why these folks and other close disciples usually do not recognize the resurrected Jesus, at least not right away. But as we mentioned last week Jesus appears in different forms (Mark 16:12) to different people at different times – again we can perhaps think of the ‘shape-shifting’ that our indigenous friends might use to describe this.

As we get older and more reflective of our own journey of faith, chances are that we can notice, especially in retrospect, the times when Jesus/God walked beside us, especially during challenging parts of our life journey. Often enough we do not recognize this at the time, but rather only see it in retrospect. Perhaps we experienced a divine or angelic presence through a nurse or teacher or store clerk, or fellow bus rider – endless possibilities. Has that happened to you – that you think back to certain times and situations and think – wow, God or God’s grace was there helping me, and I did not realize it at the time? Let’s take a minute to think about that, and then I’ll ask for a show of hands ……. Perhaps you’d like to share those stories with each other over coffee & tea; and you’re also welcome to email them to me – I’d love to read them.

William Barclay had a nice little commentary on this passage, that we discussed in Thursday’s Bible Study on Zoom. A small but endearing part of that commentary was Barclay’s reference to how Jesus broke the bread ‘in their cottage home’ and that’s when they recognized his hands. Barclay’s guess that it was likely a small and humble ‘cottage home’ makes sense, given that Jesus’ followers were mostly among the poor and humble. And it’s sweet to think that they recognized his hands – a further affirmation of the incarnation of God in Jesus coming to earth, and doing earthly things like breaking bread, even after his resurrection from the dead. Barclay further emphasizes his view that this was not likely meant to be the ‘sacrament’ of the Eucharist, but rather it was “an ordinary meal in an ordinary house, when an ordinary loaf was being divided” https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dsb/luke-24.html.

Emmaus is about 7 miles or 11 kilometers from Jerusalem – so perhaps a 2.5 hour walk away; and we hear that Cleopas and Mary walk that distance twice, since they turn back to tell their fellow disciples what happened, after Jesus is recognized and then vanishes at the breaking of the bread in their humble home in Emmaus. You had to be a good walker in those days, but at least you didn’t have to worry about parking spots at churches! Another thing I love about this gospel story is that fact that Jesus wanted to hear their view of what had happened in Jerusalem in recent days. My guess is that the same thing might happen after we die – when we reach God’s presence in whatever form that may take – that we too might be asked something like this: “So what did you do with the life that I gave you?” Perhaps that’s too focused on ‘doing’ instead of ‘being’ who knows. But when I look around at the world, I realize how immensely privileged we are -- if we’re Canadian and able-bodied and of reasonable intelligence, etc. There are probably no more fortunate human beings on earth than that, than us. Not to dismiss the challenges that many Canadians face in terms of health issues, cost of housing, problematic work or family relationships, and so on. But still, our lives are so much more secure than those of the vast majority of the world’s population.

If, by chance, I’m right and God somehow asks us, or wants to hear – what did we do with the life that we received … I suspect that’s for the same reason Jesus asked the Emmaus couple what had gone on. Obviously, Jesus knew what had happened – to him! But he wanted to hear their version of things. How had they understood what had happened? And when he hears them report that their hopes had been crushed … then Jesus explains the scriptures which pointed to the Messiah having to suffer as he did. As many of us say – I’m not afraid of death, but I am afraid of pain. We don’t want to suffer, and we don’t want those we love, care for, or admire to suffer either. Sadly, so many humans suffer terribly without any choice – like those living in war zones, or in areas of great poverty, oppression, and injustice. It’s especially sad to think of all the children in these situations. Even in our own families, among adult siblings, there may be differing views about the same experience; so it’s no surprise that Jesus’ followers may have had different perspectives on the meaning of his suffering and death.

Much as we might resist the idea, over time we too come to see that experiences of suffering are often our best teachers – guiding us to greater growth in maturity and wisdom. Suffering can act as that purification of our souls that Peter speaks of in our epistle today, so that we can be “born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed” (v 22-3). In a way, the church as a whole, our experience of church in our lifetimes, is a source of suffering, when we think of how abundantly our pews used to be filled, and how much emptier they are now. Things have come a long way since the early church described today in our first reading from Acts, when three thousand were baptized or added to the Christian community in one day (v 41). In the days and years to come, may we learn to see more clearly the work of the Creator in creating new ways to be church, responding to the needs of our times, rather than sadly walking a road of emptiness, thinking too much about what was, and what WE had hoped would happen, Amen.