NT Wright says the journey on the Emmaus road is the finest
scene Luke ever sketched… On the dramatic level, he says, it has everything…
"Sorrow, suspense , puzzlement, gradual dawning of light, unexpected actions,
astonished recognition, a flurry of excitement and activity". I think when you throw in elements
of mystery and irony and you have a memorable and amazing story. He also says
in "this encounter with the risen Jesus you have a model for what being a
Christian, from that day to this, is all about…"
“the slow sad dismay
at the failure of human hope; the turning to someone who might or might not
help; the discovery that in scripture, all unexpected, there lay keys, which
might unlock the central mysteries and enable us to find the truth; the sudden
recognition of Jesus himself, present with us, warming our hearts with his
truth, showing us himself as bread is broken.”
That may seem a bit of an academic way of starting off, but
my hope this morning is that we like the two on the road to Emmaus will come to
recognise the risen Christ, through scripture and his very real presence with
us. We might walk our own Emmaus road.
Luke starts this narrative with a temporal link to what has
gone before… on the same day… it is later in the day after the women had been
to the tomb and discovered it empty. It is the same day the angels had told them he is not here. It is the same day that Peter had gone and
seen that it was true. It is on the same day and we have an empty tomb and
people are wrestling with what that means.
Luke starts by putting in a geographical setting, saying
that this is on the road from Jerusalem to a town called Emmaus. Two of them, that is followers of Jesus, are leaving
Jerusalem, are walking and as they walk are discussing what has gone on. We are
introduced to one of the two as Cleopas, the other one we are not introduced to
by name. Traditionally it was thought to be another of the male disciples, but
some biblical scholars wonder if it wasn’t Cleopas’ wife. It could explain why
they are not named, it also explains why this is only mentioned in Luke’s
gospel, of all the gospel writers Luke is the one who because of his Greek
background uses women as sources for his writing, he does not have the Jewish
bias against women as witnesses.
We are told someone
else joins them and it is Jesus and they do not recognise him.
How can this be? Well we are told that their faces were down
cast. Here are two people, lost in grief and confusion, unwilling to look up at
another person, Unwilling to make eye contact, perhaps suffering from deep
depression. Also as they answer Jesus question “what are you discussing
together?’ We see that they have no expectation of meeting Jesus raised from
the dead. Their understanding of Jesus is that he was a prophet, mighty in word
and deed. They talk of their hope that
Jesus was the messiah being destroyed when Jesus was nailed to the cross. They
talk of the fact that it was the third day after this had happened. Yes…there
is some expectation because Jesus had talked about being raised to life again
on the third day, but they seem confused by what the women who had gone to the
tomb were saying …that the body was not there. There is reluctance for them to
believe what the women had seen and been told in an angelic vision.
AS modern people we find it hard to comprehend how a dead
person could be raised to life again. We might be surprised to find that those
first disciples were in the same boat as we are. The fact that these two were
leaving Jerusalem maybe a sign that they were leaving the group, walking away,
that the group of followers round Jesus
were at odds as to what to make of what had happened. We may be like them we may believe that Jesus
was a great teacher, a prophet, we may believe that the tomb is empty, I mean
even Matthew’s gospel tells us that the authorities couldn’t deny the tomb was
empty, they had to spin a yarn to explain it… they said his disciples stole the
body. For us and the disciples to
recognise the risen Jesus they had to understand and know who Jesus is. The
Emmaus road acts as that link in Luke’s gospel.
I love the irony in the interchange between Cleopas and
Jesus. Cleopas says ‘you must be the only one in Jerusalem who does not know
what has been going on.’ Yet as the conversation goes on, it seems that Jesus
is the only one who really knows what had been going on. Not only had he
experienced it, it had happened to him. He is the only one who understands what
his life and death means in the plans and purposes of God. While Cleopas is amazed that Jesus didn’t know
what was going on...Jesus is equally amazed that Cleopas and his complain don’t understand and
believe.
Jesus begins to open up the scriptures to the two of them. He
shows them how the messiah had to come and suffer and die. That his death was
not the end of the hope that Jesus would save his people, but rather the means
by which he would save them. I’d love to
have a full transcript of Jesus teaching here, you wonder what scriptures and
texts he would have used. We know a lot of them because as the gospel writers
and Luke himself had written in their accounts how what Jesus said and did was
a fulfilment of scripture. He starts will Moses, maybe because that is where
Cleopas had started, Moses was called a prophet great in deed and word. That
was Cleopas’ understanding of Jesus. And the expectation of the messiah was
they would be a prophet like Moses. But it also means that Jesus starts by
looking back at the Torah the first five books of the Old Testament and shows
how right from the beginning God’s purposes and plans were to redeem his people
through Christ’s suffering and death. We
could imagine him moving on to the passages that speak of the son of David,
Israel’s true king. At our Good Friday service we started by reading out
together the servant song in Isaiah 53, about the righteous man suffering for
the sins of many, from an early time Christians have seen that fulfilled in
Christ.
It is only through the witness of scripture can we realise
who Jesus is. It’s interesting when I reflected on Jesus opening the scriptures
to the two on the road, I couldn’t help but think of the word become flesh that
John uses to explain Jesus in his prologue. I couldn’t help but see how
starting with Moses and creation wouldn’t lead to the possibility of new
creation in Christ’s death and resurrection. Joel Green puts it like this ‘What
has happened with Jesus can only be understood in light of the scriptures,” he
goes on to say, “the scriptures themselves can be understood only in light of
what has happened to Jesus.” Here on the
road to Emmaus Jesus ties the two together.
It is only when we understand who Jesus Christ is, that we
can make sense of the resurrection: That
we see Christ through the scriptural lens. It moves the resurrection from the
realm of the impossible to the reality of the person. It’s only when we
understand Jesus is the son of God, totally human and totally divine, It is
only when we understand in Christ God was not simply wanting to save Israel
from roman occupation, but all of humanity from slavery to sin and death, do we
understand the resurrection. It is only when we see the cross as God’s plan for
our redemption are we ready to see the risen Jesus.
They reach their destination, they still don’t recognise
Jesus, I don’t know about you but maybe they are now have so much to think on
and wonder at that they are focusing on that not on the one who is with
them, but they invite Jesus to come and
stay with them. They sit down for a meal, and Jesus breaks bread with them. And
it tells us their eyes were open and they recognised him. Maybe it was
something in the familiar way Jesus broke the bread that made them recognise
him. There words their eyes were open, speaks of the fact that the spirit had
something to do with it. They now had a framework from scripture to comprehend
and recognise the risen Jesus. There is also the fact that they were now
sharing that most intimate of Middle Eastern rituals, eating together, sharing
a meal. There is a sense of hospitality, and it is in that willingness to
welcome Jesus and to sit down with him and have him sit down with them that
they and we are able to recognise the risen Jesus.
At that stage the two on the Emmaus road were willing to be
open to the reality of Jesus being present with them. Scripture had given them
the frame work to understand that. Jesus had literally opened their eyes
through the scriptures and now they can see who he is. But also because the
risen Jesus Christ can present himself with his people: He was there with them
in a way they knew his presence, he is here with us. When we celebrate
communion together, it is not just a meal of remembrance, a meal to remind us of
Christ’s death on the cross, it is like it was for the two on the road to
Emmaus, a way we can recognise Christ’s presence with us on our journey through
life. It is the way we can recognise the risen Jesus with us: That we can
recognise how as we’ve been led by the spirit of Christ he has opened up the
scriptures to us and shown himself to us through them. It causes us to want to go back excited to
join other believers like the two at Emmaus did and tell what we know to be
true Christ is alive. He is with us.
Modern people find Jesus disappearance hard to comprehend. Maybe
the two at the table did as well… While Luke grounds his narrative very much in
time and space, we see that the risen Jesus somehow is different and transcends
those things that hold us prisoner. The resurrection is not just a reanimation
of a dead body, Jesus isn’t some super zombie. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul talks
about the resurrection body no longer being subject to death and decay, about
it being an incorruptible immortal body. This is the body of the risen Jesus, he
is not a ghost; he breaks bread and walks with them. But is no longer limited
as we are. AS we move on in Luke we see he suddenly appears again with the
disciples, yet as in John’s gospel he Is able to be touched and felt. The
gospel finishes with and Luke starts his story of what Jesus Christ does
through the church with the narrative of Jesus ascent into heaven. So while he
is bodily not with us, the risen Jesus is still able to presence himself with
his people, to share table fellowship with us: No longer constrained by time or
place, but present by his spirit with us.
We can know his presence; we can know his forgiveness and
new life through his death and resurrection.
This morning I want to finish by asking a question… Where
are you on the Emmaus Road? My prayer is where ever you are you may meet and recognise the risen Jesus.
Maybe you are about to walk away... May you meet the risen Jesus.
May be you don't know about what has been going in in Jerusalem over that Easter weekend... May you know the risen Jesus drawing you to know himself.
Maybe you are wrestling to comprehend what all means... may you know the presence of the risen Jesus opening the scriptures to you open your eyes to the truth of who he is and what he has dome for us.
Maybe you have got to the point where you are wanting to welcome in the risen Jesus... I know he will stay with you if he is asked and you will know his presence in intimate fellowship.
Maybe you have recognised and come to know the risen Jesus and I invite you again this Easter to join with his followers in knowing recognising his presence with us and witnessing in our words and deeds that 'He is risen.'
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