Sunday, May 8, 2011

I Was Blind But Now I See

What kept the disciples from recognizing Jesus? What finally enabled them to see him? After they recognized him, what did they do? This familiar but challenging Gospel story always raises some difficult questions. And then, as I pray today’s collect, and ask God to “open the eyes of our faith,” I have to ask the same questions about us. What keeps us from recognizing Jesus “in all his redeeming work?” What enables or helps us to see him? And finally, after we’ve recognized him, what do we do, we who like the two on the road to Emmaus claim to be his followers, what do we then do?

So, what kept the disciples’ “eyes from recognizing” Jesus? Hadn’t they been close enough to him, that they would instantly know him? As those two dejected disciples plodded along to Emmaus, they surely wondered what had happened to all their hopes that the Messiah had come at last. Perhaps they had followed him sure that he was the righteous king destined to free Israel from the Romans. Hadn’t they been there waving their palm branches when he came into Jerusalem? Before he was executed, he had said something about rising again. And the women – if you can believe anything that women say – had said that they saw him alive this morning, but, really resurrection? Surely these disciples found the whole idea beyond belief. Their hopes dashed, what could they do but try to get on with their lives and put the whole experience of following Jesus behind them?

Sound at all familiar? Are we anything like those disciples? Perhaps we too are disappointed with our lives, our families, our friends. Things just haven’t worked out the way we expected. Maybe we have physical disabilities that make it impossible to sense Jesus’ presence. Or perhaps we let the busyness of our lives or our concern for material goods crowd him out. Do the events that bring us grief – poverty, injury, illness, divorce, death – help us to shut him out? Perhaps we too find the whole idea of resurrection, that Jesus could still be alive, beyond belief. Death, yes, we know it well. Good Friday we can easily accept. But Easter and resurrection, no way! Actually, perhaps some of us even find the whole Bible hard to believe. Aren’t the Gospels just stories – two thousand year old stories at that? Where’s Jesus when we really need him to help us understand all the stories?

So what helped the two disciples to actually recognize Jesus in their midst? As they walked along, perhaps the explanation of the Scriptures that this mysterious stranger offered them gave them a hint that there was something different about him. They heard his reminder that God had created the world, that God had delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, that God had made a covenant with them through Moses, that God had sent the prophets, and that God’s Messiah was to be a suffering servant and not a triumphant military leader. What’s more important, they engaged in real conversation with him. They spoke with him, asked him questions. They heard what he had to say, they didn’t just read about it some dusty tome.

Can we relate to those disciples’ experience? Many of us have a deeper sense of Christ’s presence when we prayerfully study and read Scripture. It’s important to study together the history and form of all our Scripture texts, to understand the narratives of which they are a part, and the communities for which they were written. And it also happens that when we read Scripture slowly and meditatively, in the quiet spaces of our lives, sometimes a story will catch us unawares. Sometimes a psalm will exactly express what we are feeling at a particular moment. Sometimes a word or phrase in a reading will “shimmer” or speak to us. Sometimes a sermon will “cut” us “to the quick,” as Peter’s sermon did, and we see our lives in a whole new light. In all those times, we can trust that Jesus is truly present to us.

And yet, even after the Bible study, the disciples still had not recognized Jesus. So they generously offered him a meal and a place to stay. As he joined them around the table, they saw him do exactly what he had done when he fed the five thousand, and what he had done in that last meal with them: “he took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.” And then, finally they recognized Jesus! As they received his broken Body in the bread, they knew that Jesus had truly risen, that he was truly present to them, and that he would continue to be present to them, not as a mere memory, but as a living, breathing reality, whenever they broke bread and drank wine in that same way.

And so it is for us, by God’s grace. Whenever we come together for the Eucharistic meal, whenever we receive the sacrament of his Body and Blood, we realize that Jesus is as truly present to us now as he was to those two questioning disciples. Like them, we too are on journeys, we too may wonder where our lives are going, and where God is. And in the midst of our journeys, Jesus meets us too. One writer has used the image of a rendez-vous for the sacramental meal of bread and wine. The French word literally means “present yourselves.” In 21st century English its meaning is more nearly “meet together at a particular time and place.” At every blessed rendez-vous, we too can experience Jesus’ presence. As we present ourselves to him, we too can feel yet again the joy of being at table with him, we too can thank him for keeping his promise to be with us forever.

After they recognized Jesus, what did the two disciples do? They didn’t stay in Emmaus! Even though it was late and getting dark – they weren’t on Daylight Savings time back then – they ran back to Jerusalem. They ran seven miles, to tell the other disciples about what had happened. Having finally understood the plan of salvation, having gotten a blessed glimpse of Jesus’ “redeeming work,” and having realized without a doubt that Jesus was truly alive, they ran to share that good news. Hearing that Peter had also seen Jesus alive again, they joyfully shared with the others that they had seen him and recognized him “in the breaking of the bread.”

And when we have seen him “in the breaking of the bread,” what do we do? If we gain a deeper understanding of Jesus’ work through Scripture, do we keep that understanding to ourselves? If we truly experience his presence with us in the Eucharist, do we forget all about that experience, that rendez-vous with him, as soon as we go out the door? My friends, there’s one more lesson for us to learn from the disciples’ experience on the road to Emmaus. And that is that the Christian life is a shared life, a life lived in community with others. Yes, there have been hermits and solitaries, yes, some of us spend periods of time apart in prayer and in silent retreats, but at its heart Christian life is meant to be lived in community. And so we test our experience of reading the Bible with others. More importantly, we gather with others to meet Jesus in the Eucharist, letting our experience of his presence with us bind us not only to him but also to each other. And then we run to tell others, with both word and deed, of the joy of our sight, as we seek to draw others into his gracious community of love.

Ultimately, seeing Jesus and experiencing the reality of his presence, whether in solitude or community, are gifts of God. We cannot compel God’s gifts, but we can be more open to them, we can find ways to be more receptive to Jesus’ presence with us. We can come together with others and use our intellects to break open the powerful stories in Scripture of God’s redeeming work in Jesus. We can let our own lives be illuminated by those stories. Then we can sit at table and break bread with Jesus and each other. We can recognize with our hearts the truth of what we saw with our intellects. And we then can ponder the stories from our own lives, when our eyes were opened. Was it when someone welcomed us? Was when we opened our own hearts, doors, lives to strangers who brought unexpected blessings? Was it when we looked out on the world with eyes of faith and saw reflections of God’s love in all around us?

Lord, that we may know you in the breaking,
in the break of day, in the breaking of hearts,
and in the breaking of bread,
help us to know that you are risen indeed,
and that you are with us in the holy communion.
May your church ever proclaim your presence,
and know that you travel with us on the road we go.
Teach us, Lord, to abide in you,
that we may know that you abide in us….
Lord, abide with us,
and we will abide in you.1

1. David Adam, Clouds and Glory, Morehouse (Harrisburg, PA: 2001), 63.

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