Loading...I’m not a fast walker. I can say that I walk for exercise, but really, I like to walk at a pace where I can talk and witness what is happening around me. I love to walk in the woods and pause to look at things that are interesting, out of place, or simply beautiful.
I like the slower pace, most of the time, because I feel more connected to the earth and to the person I am with. That grounding with nature and deepening of a relationship as we share God’s glory in the world around us.
So, when I think about the story we just heard—the Road to Emmaus—and I consider the pace of the couple walking and the deep discussion they are having, I don’t imagine that they are racing back to their home. The content of their conversation, in my opinion, would reflect their mood, their uncertainty, their astonishment at the news of Jesus’s resurrection, the impact of all that has happened over the past three days. When I consider how all those things would make me feel, speed walking just doesn’t feel right.
When I think about this seven-mile journey to a place no historian can find on a map, I think it had to take a few hours. Time enough for them to express their emotions, for them to tell the stranger who joins them about what happened over the past few days, and time enough for the stranger to put it all into prophetic perspective.
We only get a brief overview of these seven miles to learn that these two disciples, who are not part the remaining eleven Apostles, that they are the first after the women, to have an encounter with the risen Jesus. It seems to have happened before Jesus appeared to the disciples in the upper room.
Which is curious. Why them? Who are they? Why is this story important?
I can only venture guesses to these questions. And maybe that’s okay. I think that many people continue to ponder why this story is important and how it impacts our stories of faith.
The Road to Emmaus takes us on a journey of discovery. Now these two people, who could be a married couple—we just don’t know—have followed Jesus. We don’t know if they were long-time followers or if they had recently met him. They were knowledgeable enough to have an emotional response to his crucifixion and resurrection, so I think they had spent some time with him, enough to see he was something special worth listening to and emulating. And according to the story, they were in the upper room with the others, only venturing back home when they heard Jesus had been raised.
If they are a married couple, I imagine their conversation was robust, honest, and both quiet and animated. They were probably whispering, quietly recalling events and their emotions, feeling safe with one another in a way that is different than between acquaintances.
The story doesn’t make us think the stranger who joined them simply appeared, like magic. It is written in a way that makes it sound like Jesus caught up to them, slowing down to be friendly, sticking with them because the conversation was interesting.
The walk had to be long enough for them to express their version of his death and the resurrection story that they had heard before leaving Jerusalem. It had to be long enough for Jesus to crack open the prophecies to help them recognize that the events of the past few days were not random but anticipated.
I would expect that as he revealed these connections there had to be questions and deeper conversations not unlike any of the times we might dig into scripture, trying to understand or to put these stories into perspective for our own lives.
Yet they did not recognize him. Isn’t that interesting. Here was this man who they had known, walking and talking with them, but they did not recognize him. And he did not reveal his identity to them, either.
I wonder if there are instances where we might not recognize Jesus and Jesus does not reveal himself to us. At least not immediately and sometimes not without some time of reflection.
Is that what this Road to Emmaus is all about? Is it to remind us that we, too may encounter Jesus in the stranger, and are unable to recognize him there? That we might be so wrapped up in our own responses to the world around us that we cannot see Jesus in the person right next to us.
It takes their arrival at home, their invitation to this stranger to stay with them, their sitting at the table together to eat a meal for them, to be in a place of sanctuary, of calm, of familiarity, before they learn who this man is.
They walked through the wilderness, the less-than-safe road as the day became evening to get here. In places where they could be at risk, where they needed to be guarded and aware of their surroundings. And now, they were home, feeling more secure, where they could focus on hospitality and welcome, and see the person they had walked with.
And they still did not see him for who he was. It was not until Jesus took the bread, gave thanks and broke it that they realized who he was. And POOF! he was gone.
In their amazement and astonishment, they asked each other how they could not see him for who he was until that moment of the breaking of the bread.
As I have thought about this moment in this Gospel this week, I have been singing the antiphon of S171 from the Hymnal:
Be known to us, Lord Jesus, in the breaking of the bread.
I don’t know that I have ever thought that much about the connection between this service music and this gospel reading, but this week, it got me wondering what you all think about when I break the bread during the Holy Eucharist.
I must admit, I don’t look at you while I am doing the Eucharistic Prayer. I have no idea if you are watching or reading along, so I have no idea what you are thinking or feeling at any point in this thanksgiving story. When it comes to the moment of the breaking of the bread, I focus on the bread, and we take a moment of reverent silence.
Perhaps there are times we think of Jesus being broken on the cross, and it brings us a sense of sorrow and grief. Other times we may consider his broken body as a gift for our redemption. Maybe we imagine the last supper.
This week, I wonder if we might welcome the idea that in the moment the bread is broken, Christ is revealed to us, made known to us, again. We might find in this breaking of the bread new ways to see Jesus in the world around us.
We might need the revelation found in the breaking of the bread not for solace only, but for strength to make it from one week to the next. To be present as Jesus Followers, striving to see the face of Christ in others.
We might need to watch as the bread is broken often because being in relationship with the world can be difficult and it can be easy to forget to see the beloved-ness in those who frustrate, humiliate, or harm us.
To consider that in the breaking of the bread we are asking Jesus to be known to us so that we have the wherewithal to live into our baptismal covenant is recognizing that we need Jesus, we need God, we need the Holy Spirit to help us along the way. That if we see the breaking of the bread as God’s revelation of God’s goodness, we will fervently pray through our responses to the covenant’s questions, “I will, with God’s help.”
This little story from Luke can be considered a blueprint for us to remind us that we need to be aware of Jesus in all we do and in all we meet. Having faith knowing that because we are in relationship with Jesus—particularly the resurrected Jesus, means that we find him in the everyday, in every place.
When we believe Jesus answers our prayer to be known to us in the breaking of the bread, we are willing to walk in the kind of love that sees others as beloved children of God.
When we take this long walk with Jesus, we are reminded, according to Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary Professor Margaret Aymer, “that our relationship with the resurrected Christ is a relationship of long walks, risky conversations, reframed traumas, and quiet dinners—an intimate relationship between Christ and the church, of words shared and bread broken.”[1]
To ask Christ to be revealed to us in the breaking of the bread is a big deal. It makes us vulnerable to the world in ways that may challenge us or make us feel uncomfortable. But what a gift it is to be a part of this journey, this proverbial Road to Emmaus, to have Jesus revealed to us in the strangers and friends we meet along the way.
Amen.
[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-of-easter/commentary-on-luke-2413-35-11 written by: Margaret Aymer, VP for Academic Affairs and Academic Dean, and Professor of New Testament Studies, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, Texas, USA
Leave a Comment