Sermon: Easter Evening, Year A
Reading: Luke 24:13-49
This narrative is very multifaceted and has so much in it. It is a matter of cutting down what you say to an appropriate length. I’ll do my best!
As I read and reflected on it over this last week, something new – or new to me, anyway – has arisen out of this text. It is really a kind of description of the whole Spiritual life journey. Our whole lives are a walk to Emmaus – it is a repeating pattern, happening over and over, on various different levels– as Jesus walks with us and teaches us and ministers to us, both when we know it’s him and when we may have failed to recognise him.
I want to talk about this briefly under three headings.
Broken hearts
Cleopas and his friend are broken hearted – the text gives you some strong indications of this. They are angry, depressed and confused. Disillusioned. Trying to make sense of it all. This is grief. It really seems to them that it is all over. They had firmly believed that Jesus was their Messiah and that he was about to bring in his glorious kingdom. Their hopes about Jesus had been smashed to bits. Now there is nothing left to do except return home, to put their lives back together, somehow. They are dragging themselves along that road, just getting on with it.
I see in them very recognisable human grief. They are like us. This kind of grief leaves people smashed and wounded – how do you go on living? Where do I go from here? What now?
Death or some other sort of loss, whether it is something sudden or the kind of heart ache that has grown over time, creates a deep disappointment with life: deep emptiness and loneliness.
Burning Hearts
Jesus joins these two wounded people. Unrecognised, he plays along with them, and slowly prepares them, and teaches them. He teaches them about the Messiah’s suffering, how it was part of a bigger plan – Christ’s suffering for the world’s redemption and being raised to life. Suddenly their hearts are changed.
It is not all over after all – hope is restored. Now we see! “Were not our hearts burning within us?” Their grief is transformed dramatically to joy.
Sometimes in our journey we have an Emmaus experience or an Emmaus walk over time: a time or experience where – as we deal with problems or challenges in life – our understanding or our faith is deepened and extended. We feel closer to God. We feel enthusiastic about Jesus. Our hearts burn in us because we have received the truth in a way that has reached our hearts, not just our minds. It has made a big difference to us and touched the very core of our being. We find our hope and faith is renewed and strengthened.
We see that our situation of sadness is just part of a bigger picture – God’s plan. Life opens up again. We see beyond the grief and sadness and catch a look maybe at the eternal picture that Jesus opens before us – reaching beyond our present pain.
Pounding hearts
The climax of this story is when these two disciples recognise Jesus in the breaking of the bread – they come to astonished realisation that they have encountered the living Jesus, and that is has been him who is teaching them, and him who now sits with them.
Imagine it – to know that this is the living Lord and he is here with me! This is real. Despite my fears and grief and doubts and pain and anger – he has come to me and has, in fact, though I didn’t realise at the time, been on the road of sadness and pain with me all along.
There is joy and excitement in the hearts of these two, and a passion to travel back to Jerusalem and share the news.
This is Eucharistic – Luke is giving us more than subtle clue here that Jesus is present and to be recognised by us also in the breaking of the bread – Holy Communion. He tells us here, that this exciting and powerful encounter with the living Jesus is to be sought, and found, as he breaks bread with us around this table.
In Holy Communion, we recognise Jesus in the breaking of bread. We should come to Holy Communion expecting and wishing to meet Jesus, and be fed by him and be touched by him. We should come to Holy Communion with pounding hearts! Here he meets us and restores our energy and passion and love.
Conclusion
This Emmaus journey is one we may take many times in life. And in a sense, at a different level, this journey takes our whole lives. We have times of sadness and hopelessness on the road, times of growing in knowledge and deep understanding of God, and times of great joy and closeness, that fill us with energy.
We live through this journey in the seasons of the church year – death and resurrection – leading us into reflection on our own death and resurrection experiences.
And the road leads us finally to that place we really call home, the safe lodging, the place where all is finally recognised and revealed.
And so tonight, as that night at Emmaus, as the darkness falls, as the day is now almost over, we come together to meet our living Jesus in the breaking of the bread – here at his table.