THE THIRD SUNDAY of EASTER

May 8, 2011

Text: Luke 24:13-35

Pastor Dale G. Bauer

Jesus shows up again. He is bound and determined to let people know that he has been raised bodily from the dead, he is alive. But the gospel of Luke tells us about an appearance that is both strange and touching.

Emmaus is a little town northwest of Jerusalem. It is an old city, but its modern-day location is uncertain. On the road to that city two followers of Jesus were headed home from Jerusalem. They had witnessed the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. Then they had heard some wild rumors that Jesus was alive.

They are clearly in shock, grieving the death of a man whom they had hoped would get their country back on its feet, would be the messiah. A third person joins them on the road they are traveling. They fail to recognize that he was Jesus. Seems strange, but remember they are in shock. Shock is disorienting. They have conversation.

This is where we are going to pick of the story from Luke, Chapter 24, verse 25. (25) Then he said to them, O, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets declared! Jesus is putting his suffering, death, and resurrection into the big picture. We understand that. We experience turning points in our lives and can’t make sense out of them. Why is this happening, to me? As time goes on, we can look back and see the big picture. Or as my father-in-law said to me often, “When
one door closes, another opens.

(26) Was it not necessary that the Messiahshould suffer these things and then enter into his glory? Jesus is reminding them of the suffering servant, although he is not specific. Maybe he was thinking of Isaiah 62:

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, Yet he opened not his mouth;

Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter ...

(27) Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the Scriptures.
Big picture? More like sweeping picture. He takes the two divisions of Hebrew Scripture, the Law and the prophets, and paints the larger picture for them. You can comb the Hebrew Scriptures and find anticipations of the New Covenant in Christ Jesus. It was Martin Luther who suggested that Christ Jesus is the lens by which we look at all Scripture.

(28) As they came near the village to which they were going, he went ahead as if he were going on. Interesting. Has Jesus given them the big picture and is moving on? Or has he tried to give them the big picture and they haven’t gotten it yet so he is giving up? Remember, he’s already called them foolish
dunderheads.

(29) But they urged him strongly, saying, Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over. So he went into stay with them. Public accommodations like a hotel didn’t exist. If you were on the road toward evening the only place you could stay was in someone else’s home. So they invited Jesus to stay with them. Jesus accepted the invitation.

(30) When he was at table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. As part of their hospitality, the two men shared their meal with Jesus. During that meal, Jesus takes bread, blesses it, and shares it. These are the same words of Jesus when he is with his disciples in the upper room on the night in which he is betrayed.

And he took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body. (Luke 22:19)

For Luke, these are the decisive words of the Eucharist, Holy Communion. While Matthew and Mark record Jesus taking the bread first and then the cup, Luke describes the blessing of the cup first and the breaking of the bread last. This is of no consequence except that for Luke the spotlight is on the breaking of bread.

Notice that Jesus uses the first-person singular of the verb “to be” as he breaks bread and shares the cup. It is like putting an equal sign between bread and body, cup and blood. In the act of breaking bread, it is his body and blessing the cup is his blood. It reflects what is called the “real presence.”

Intransitive verb “to be”

Is =

Never Far Away

Some say Holy Communion is a symbol, pointing to the sacrifice of Christ. It is; and it is more. Some say that Holy Communion helps us remember what Jesus did. It is; and it is more. It is the real presence of
Jesus whenever bread is broken and wine is blessed. We take his words literally, bread is body and wine is blood.

(31) Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. It is the breaking of bread and the blessing of a cup that they finally see Jesus as Jesus. And it is by this meal that Jesus is present with us, never far away, among us. He takes off, vanishes, leaving his real presence still with them in the meal.

(32) They said to each other, Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the Scriptures to us? They are beginning to realize that Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit is present in the Scriptures; that is why the Bible is so very important to us. It is
God’s words to us, reflecting God’s activity in Jesus Christ. And it is by the Eucharist that God is present
to us. The two should never be separated, bifurcated. That is why this is a church of Word and Sacrament.

(33) That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. So in the darkness of the night, they head back to Jerusalem,
look up the disciples to tell them some pretty important news.

(34) The disciples were saying, The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon. They want to proclaim what they see and experience in the breaking of the bread. Jesus is Lord. He is risen, indeed (recognize those words? They are part of our Easter greeting.) They also learn that they are not the only ones who have seen the resurrected Lord. Simon Peter, first among the disciples, has also seen him. It also affirms Peter’s standing among the disciples: he is the first disciple to see the resurrected Lord, although the timing and location are not given.

(35) Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. From this moment to this very day, the Church has believed that breaking of bread is more than a memorial or a symbol, but the very revealing of Christ himself. Never being far away, he can be present to you every time you share in the Eucharist, Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, or the Sacrament of the Altar, whatever you want to call it.

Where is Jesus in this troubled, broken, beautiful world of ours and our lives? In the breaking of bread and the blessing of a cup.

Amen.