1 Peter 1.17-23; Luke 24.13-35
Think back to the first meal recounted anywhere in the Bible: Genesis, the third chapter. There, the serpent tempts Eve with fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She takes a bite, offers a bite to Adam, and the rest, as they say, is history. It is a history of misery that reaches through time to us.
Genesis describes a buffet’s worth of suffering that follow that meal: inequality between men and women; work that is a grind; frustration when it feels like the entire universe is set against you. Sin and death are the bitter aftertaste of the meal, too. In Romans, St Paul says, “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, so death spread to all because all have sinned.” We have plenty of troubles now, but we didn’t invent sin. To quote singer/songwriter (and, as it turns out, theologian) Billy Joel, “We didn’t start the fire.” This is what the church means when it talks about ‘Original Sin.’ A broken world, and our broken lives within it, are passed down from generation to generation; “always burning since the world’s been turning.”
At the end of that fateful meal, Genesis says of Adam and Eve, “The eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked.” That is true for us with them. We are all “laid bare before God,” says Hebrews, “to whom we must give an account.” It is the first meal of the old creation.
Today’s gospel, in contrast, tells about the first meal of the new creation. Easter is the beginning of God’s new creation. “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have died.”
Jesus’ resurrection is not just a return to life for one person but the beginning of a new world for us all. We are now three weeks into the seven weeks of the Easter season, but our gospel readings have yet to move us past the events of Easter Day. Today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke takes place on the night of the resurrection. Two of Jesus’ followers, Cleopas and an unnamed companion, have heard reports that Jesus was raised from the dead, have heard about the empty tomb, but they have not yet seen the Risen Christ for themselves. As they walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus talking about their sadness, their discouragement, their attempts to make sense of everything that has changed in the last days, a stranger comes alongside them.
This stranger is, as we know, the Risen Christ. They don’t know. Not yet. Not until supper. “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized the Risen Lord.” Notice how Luke’s gospel carefully chooses words to describe what took place. In Genesis, after the first meal of the old creation we read of Adam and Eve: “the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked.” In Luke, after the first meal of the new creation, we read of Cleopas and his companion: “their eyes were opened, and they recognized the Risen Lord.” The eye-opening meal of the old creation ushers in sin, alienation, and death. The eye-opening meal of the new creation brings hope, restoration, and life. In the breaking of bread, the Risen Christ is revealed, made known, alive.
At this meal of the new creation, the Gospel of Luke describes how Jesus took bread, blessed, and broke it, and gave it to Cleopas and his unnamed companion. In doing that, Luke echoes other meals of Jesus up to this point the gospel. Luke is a literary artist here, too, as he connects the meal at Emmaus to other meals by repeating a series of verbs: take, bless, break, and give.
Earlier in Luke when Jesus fed a crowd of five thousand, the gospel says Jesus, “took the loaves, blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples.” Take, bless, break, give. At the Passover meal shared among Jesus’ disciples the night before he died, he “took a loaf of bread, and when he blessed it, he broke it and gave it to the disciples.” The book of Acts, Luke’s sequel to his gospel, says the first Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers.”
And in all those meals, Luke moves the narrative forward to one more meal, to this Holy Eucharist and the breaking of bread. Prayers of consecration over the bread repeat the same verbs for us. “Our Lord Jesus Christ took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, ‘This is my body, given for you.’” Take, bless, break, give. In the breaking of the bread, the Risen Christ is revealed, made known, alive among us. And this meal of God’s new creation—the meal that opens the eyes of Cleopas and his unnamed companion to the presence of the Risen Christ, the meal that opens our eyes to the presence of the Risen Christ—is given for us even when the old creation continues to do its worst.
Now we don’t know much about Cleopas and his unnamed companion. We do know is that they aren’t included among the twelve disciples, though they are followers of Jesus. Maybe that means they are common, ordinary believers like us. Because we do share a common bond with them, and they with us. We can, for example, understand their confusion and sadness when they say, “We had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel.” We had hoped. Their words are a universal refrain whenever reality falls short of expectation. We had hoped. Who among us hasn’t taken up that refrain? ‘I can’t believe what happened. Is it really that bad? What could possibly happen next? I had hoped things would turn out differently.’ I had hoped. We share a common bond with Cleopas and his companion.
I wonder, then, if that is why Luke only tells us the name of Cleopas, so that the other unnamed follower can serve as stand in for each of us, for each of you to place your name and life in this story when God is hidden from you, for you to find your place in this story when prayer seems to have gone unanswered, when faith has left a bitter taste in your mouth, when reality falls short of expectation. ‘I had hoped.’ Today’s gospel, then, is not a story about people with strong faith, it is about people with real faith, of faith that asks questions and lays out every disappointment and sadness before God. ‘I had hoped.’
Yet Cleopas and his companion are not alone in their sadness or their questions. Neither are we. The story of the Road to Emmaus shows how Jesus searches us out, comes to us even when we don’t recognize him, even when there’s nothing to suggest that God is with us. We can look for the presence of God in all that happens—not only times and places of beauty, stillness, and peace but in our disappointment, doubt, sadness; recognize, too, the presence of Christ in the lives of others who have lost hope because of their circumstances.
On the road to Emmaus and in the road of our lives, Jesus meets us. He is with us always to offer us hope, comfort, and peace. Twenty-five years ago writing about this gospel passage, Bishop Tom Wright said, in words that are still timely, that when we are “tempted to imagine that cynicism and despair will triumph, that the tyrants and the rich, the oppressors and bullies, will win in the end, the resurrection of Jesus says, ‘Not so.’” The Risen Christ comes to us, walks with us, opens our eyes to his presence; he speaks to us through his word and gives himself to us in bread and wine.
We celebrate the Holy Eucharist every Sunday because each Sunday celebrates the day that Jesus rose from the dead. We call Sunday ‘the Lord’s Day’ to say that Jesus’ death wasn’t a failure as Cleopas and his companion first thought. Jesus’ death becomes his victory on Easter morning. The old world has given way to the new and, one day, will do so ultimately.
With the fullness of divine love made flesh in him, Jesus took the worst the world could do, broke through powers of death and Original Sin, and came through it with new life—not just for him but for you. Through his life, death, and resurrection, he has exchanged your sin for his forgiveness; your brokenness for his healing; your death for his life; your doubts discouragement, and sadness, with the assurance that nothing will separate you from his love.
Even as the old creation does its worst, today the Risen Christ is revealed, made known, and alive. And in the breaking of the bread, the meal of God’s new creation, he gives him to you. +
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