April 18, 1999
As we pick up the story of Easter Day, we note that the garden tomb was not the only place of meeting with the risen Lord. On the road to Emmaeus, two disciples on their way back to their former way of life are intercepted by the resurrected Lord. We find ourselves a couple of miles south of Jerusalem. Back in the city things have been tidied up pretty well; the bodies are taken down and disposed of; Pilate is relieved that things went pretty well; Caiphus is even more relieved that a riot did not break out and the Roman army was not called to crush the Jewish people.
But for the followers of Jesus, an atmosphere of total desolation settles upon them. They are afraid that they will be next. They are ashamed that they have abandoned their Lord and teacher at the very moment of his necessity. They are grief stricken that they have denied ever having known him. They are shattered and broken. On this winding hilly road with Cleopas and his unnamed companion, there is a mood of disappointment and great confusion.
We find these two men walking away from the community, a community that has become much too shameful for them. The events of the weekend had not turned out quite as they had hoped — not by a long stretch. As they go and as they debrief one another, they are intercepted by a stranger and we discover that, even as they leave the community, they are in God's hands.
As the stranger talks to them, he weaves for them the experience of their life, this past weekend, and the past three years. He weaves that into the long tradition of salvation history starting with Moses and the prophets. He tells them this is why things have happened. You can look back and see how the road has gone, and you could have predicted it, had you seen it. As they traveled together, the discussion with each other had not helped them. When Jesus joins them they do not recognize him and his explanation of Scripture doesn't help either. Even that growing discomfort in the very heart of their soul, as he speaks and unfolds for them the Scriptures, does not help them to understand.
These two men have been taught well. The greatest feature of Palestine is hospitality. As they arrive at their own home in the town of Emmaeus and the stranger appears to be going on past the town, they say, "No, wait. It is late in the day. It is more than an hour's journey to the next town. We have appreciated your company on the road. Won't you come and have dinner with us and stay the night? Finish your journey tomorrow when it is safe and you are well rested."
As people often do when a guest is in their home, especially a guest who has talked to them about the ways of the Lord, they ask him to offer thanks for the meal. And so Jesus, in a gesture at the table, takes the bread, offers it in thanksgiving to God, breaks it and distributes it. At that gesture, so typical of Jesus of Nazareth, their eyes are opened and they see finally that this is, indeed, Jesus that is sitting at the table with them. When they do, of course, he is gone immediately. He disappears from their sight. But now everything makes sense. All the things that he had said to them on the journey, all the things that he said to them in the last three years, even the events of the weekend make sense and they look at each other and say, "That is what that was about. We felt out hearts warm as he talked, burning within us. That was the risen Christ. The women were not crazy. The body was not stolen. Jesus is alive! Let us go back to Jerusalem and tell the others."
It is now dusk — soon to be night. The winding road is hilly and fraught with danger, especially for two men running as fast as they can to get back to the city - but nevertheless, they go. They run into the city before the gates are closed for the night, and they find their way back into the same house and up the stairs to that same upper room and pound on the door. When they come in now, the eleven and those gathered with them say to Cleopas, "It is true, the women were right, and Lord is risen indeed and has appeared to Simon!" And they say, "He appeared to us, too. He made himself known to us in the breaking of bread!"
Cleopas and his companion on the road are contemporaries of ours. They are two men who form an image that we live. As they go from Jerusalem out to Emmaeus, they go as men whose dreams are crushed. When I was a boy, we talked of the Christian nation and the Christian world. We talked of Christendom as though it were universal. Today we speak of a post-Christian era. The dream of a Christian nation and a Christian world seems to have ended. In the face of that, we confront a great temptation — the same temptation of Cleopas and his companion. We face the temptation to turn our backs on what was, and to leave the city — the public arena; to leave the place where the community gathers and go to the town — the private arena, the place where relation is between us and our God. It is very tempting to do that.
It is tempting to say the world is too complex, it is too upsetting, it is too diametrically opposed to everything I believe in. I am going to walk away. I am going to go out to where I was before and I am going to think it over. Just as with Cleopas and his companion, so with us. When we fall into that temptation, the stranger intercepts us and walks with us and tells us in ways that make our hearts burn within us, "you cannot walk out of the city." However ambiguous and complex its affairs may be, however upsetting it may be, you cannot leave it, that is not the Christian way.
The good news is that Jesus continues to take the bread, to offer it, to break it and to distribute it. In that simple action, he gives us grace in at least two ways. First of all, it is grace because it is broken and it is shared. The broken and shared bread reminds us that we do not serve alone. Never are we alone. We serve in community as we share our brokenness, as we share the broken bread. As we do that, we find that unity comes as we join arms with each other to be the body of Christ.
The offered bread is also grace in that it gives us hope when certain ways of thinking about Jesus have ended. Those original disciples were sure on Palm Sunday that Jesus was going to be a military leader and throw off the Roman army! But they discovered on Easter Day that he was much more than that and what he throws off is not just a temporal danger but an eternal enemy. The ways of worship may have ended, but that's okay because there is a greater promise. The ways in which we in our youth heard the claims Christ presented to us and as we have presented them to the society around us may not work any more. It may be over.
But that is only the way of the message. The message itself — the dreams, the hopes and the destiny that Christ presents to us — is eternally in his possession and will continue to be offered to us in ways that we can receive it. That has not ended. That will continue. And when the two travelers had their eyes opened at the table that night and they recognized what they had heard and received, then without delay they returned to Jerusalem. Again they serve as a reminder of our own condition. When they return to the community of the faithful, they discover that the faithful are already gathered — the eleven and the others are already together. They too have met the risen Lord — some of them, Peter, Mary of Magdalene, a couple of others — sharing that good news everyone received.
And so when they come into that room, everyone is excited because Simon has seen him, too. Simon has seen the risen Lord and they bring the great good news to them, Cleophas and his companion, that they, too, have walked and listened and talked and been fed by the risen Lord.
The story tells us that if we stop searching for nostalgic simplicity and return one more time to the seemingly harsh complexity of our own presence, we discover we are not alone. We are, in fact, returning to the company of the faithful already assembled. The Christian community, as broken and fragile and shameful as it was on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, is still here. The Christian community is still here to support us in our resolve as each of us takes a little piece of our experience of the resurrection and weaves it together into a tapestry of holiness. We are not harmed by each other's failures, but we are enriched by each other's gifts.
That is the good news of what happened when Cleopas and his companion met with Peter who denied his Lord and who ran away from him in his moment of need, that everyone is enriched by the presence of Christ. We have read the story and we know how it goes. Eventually, as we meet together to share what we know and have experienced in Christ, we look up and discover that in the midst of our room, Jesus Christ is standing and is risen indeed. AMEN
The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
18 April 1999