“He was known of them in the breaking of the bread”
After the intensity of the Passion comes the rich wonder of the Resurrection. What is set before us are the scenes of the Resurrection. None is more dramatic than the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Jesus runs out after us.
It is his running after us, as it were, that teaches us so much about the truth of the Resurrection. In the story of the Road to Emmaus, Jesus runs out after us to be with us in Word and Sacrament. In a way, Luke provides us with a picture of the life and witness of the Church. What is altogether of moment in that picture is the presence of Christ – the living, running, risen Christ.
The Resurrection is not a static event. It sets everything in motion. The Church is the running miracle of God. After all, what else could possibly account for the Church, except the existence of God and the truth of the Resurrection? Certainly not ourselves.
What are we ourselves, you and me, and by extension every congregation of souls really, except by times rather dull and dreary, weary and pathetic, boring and not nearly so fascinating as we would like to think we are? Or to put it scripturally, are we not often enough, “foolish and slow of heart”? I mean to be provocative, not insulting, but I do hasten to add, “in ourselves”. I once overheard a conversation in which the subject was the church – not this church in particular, but church in general. The claim was that church is always boring. In a way, I’m afraid, it often is. Why? Well, to be honest we really only need to look at ourselves. Do you really think that you are all that exciting? It is really we who are rather boring, I am afraid.
There is nothing boring about the risen Christ. The interest comes when we become alive to the intent in our worship. The excitement arises when we become aware of the one who is in our midst. Then our hearts burn within us and our eyes are opened. Everything is seen in a new light.
The Resurrection is just like that. The proclamation of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead breaks is a mind-bending, soul-expanding experience. Think the Resurrection. But how? What does it take to think the Resurrection?
The story of the road to Emmaus shows us and compels us to take seriously the life of the Church. The road to Emmaus is simply the via ecclesiae, the way of the Church.
There is confusion and disarray. There is the dismay of expectations suddenly shattered and dreams destroyed.
Some of the disciples are fleeing Jerusalem after the crucifixion and burial. They are running away from the place of disillusionment, the place of the breaking of the idols of our own imaginations about Jesus. But Jesus runs out after them. He comes into their midst and draws out from them the nature of their confusion and dismay. He makes them tell the story.
But what does it take to learn what Christ would have us know about the radical truth of his Resurrection? The conversation brings out the testimony of their expectations and hopes about Jesus; things that are at once partial and yet true. “We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel.” Yes, but what do we mean by redemption? Something political and worldly? The conversation brings out the testimony of the crucifixion and death of Jesus, the testimony of the empty tomb, the testimony of the women at the tomb, the testimony of the Angels to the women that he was alive, the testimony of the disciples who confirmed the witness of the women “and found it even so as the women had said”. What will it take to convince us then of the truth of the Resurrection? Only it seems the witness of Jesus itself.
This whole scene is itself a testimony to the credibility of the Resurrection. We are actively engaged in the process of understanding. There is a dialogue, an exchange, in which consciences, far from being coerced, are actually drawn into an argument of coherence, simplicity, beauty and truth. “Foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe.” But then, something more.
He “opened out to them the Scriptures.” The past of the pageant of Revelation is seen in a new and clarifying light. It is as if the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle after a long, laborious and slow struggle were suddenly to dance into place, the puzzle completed. Jesus is the interpretation who has come into the midst of our confusions. Later we may recall how our hearts burned within us as connections begin to be forged. What will it take? All this and still something more.
What completes the story is the moment of recognition, the sacramental moment really, when Jesus breaks the bread. Suddenly the whole pageant of revelation and the whole parade of human expectations and emotions is focused upon that night in the Upper Room. Everything is brought into that moment. Jesus’s last supper and its significance and meaning is now seen through his passion and resurrection. But only because he has run out after us.
It is a sacramental moment. In a way, the scene teaches us something about the very nature of the sacraments. The simple things of this world are made the vessels of the high things of God and of our life with God – bread and wine. We are drawn into a whole new world, a whole new way of thinking and being. We are set in motion, our hearts burning with delight, our eyes opened to the light. They returned to Jerusalem. Our hearts of fear are transformed. We are set in motion.
You get the picture. Christ is in our midst, opening out to us the Scriptures, making himself known in the breaking of the bread. Sometimes we are alive to it and sometimes, sad to say, we are not.
He makes himself known to us. He is present with us. He is our life. In him even we ourselves become anything but boring! The risen life of Christ is the life of the church.
“He was known of them in the breaking of the bread”
Fr. David Curry
Easter Monday, 2011