The appearance of the Risen Christ to the disciples on the road to Emmaus is one of the richest passages in all of Scripture. This passage is a source of tender comfort and subtle challenge. I can remember the minister commenting on these verses at my father’s funeral, and because of that memory I cannot read this passage without the words tugging at my heart. I have also used this passage in several funeral services for the loved ones in congregations I have served. This story is a story of hope and surprise. It reminds us that what we judge so often as sunset/the end actually in the hands of the Living God is dawn! A radical new beginning.
But this morning I want to chase another rabbit in this passage because in this precious story treasured by the church there is also a subtle challenge. The story begins with two disciples (husband and wife?) traveling to the village of Emmaus. They were discussing the events of the last few days: the arrest of Jesus, his death on the cross, his burial, and the report of several women who found Jesus’ tomb empty and claimed to have seen angels who told them that Jesus had risen from the dead. While the two disciples were discussing these events, Jesus came into their midst, but they did not recognize him. As they traveled, Jesus explained all that had happened.
When at dusk the three of them drew near to the village, the disciples invited Jesus to eat with them. While at table, Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the disciples. Immediately their eyes were opened, and they recognized their Lord. But at that moment he vanished from their sight.
With this disappearance comes the subtle challenge of our passage. Theologian Robert McAfee Brown in commenting on this incident says, “Once the moment of insight had been achieved around the table, the action is no longer around the table. The action is somewhere else.”
We come each Sunday to worship our God and to meet our Lord in the fellowship of the saints and in the bread and wine of his table. We work very hard to allow for a meaningful, inspiring, challenging worship experience. And when our willingness to meet God is matched by the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst, that moment of insight when we “touch the hem of the garment” occurs, and we “see” in ways that are wonderfully redemptive and joyfully revealing.
But if the pattern of the Emmaus experience is continued in our worship, at that moment of insight, Jesus vanishes from our midst. Why? Because the action is somewhere else. HE is somewhere else, reaching out in love and mission to this world God so loves.
The Emmaus experience reverses the usual pattern of our practice of religion. We normally come to church to find God. Having discovered God in our worship, we prepare ourselves to go out into the world for another week until we need to return and fill our “empty tanks” once again. The Emmaus experience challenges this understanding of worship. In worship we may indeed meet our Lord, but at the moment of insight and encounter, he vanishes to go out into the world where the action is. And he beckons us to follow and to find him not in the comfort and security of holy places but in a world of need and pain.
He is “where the action is,” and worship that does not lead us to that arena, regardless of how inspiring and splendid it may be, has failed both us and the gospel. Amen.
COMMUNION: Even before the Last Supper, the Table was important in Jesus’ ministry. It was truly revolutionary the way Jesus called upon people to eat together: rich and poor, lepers and healthy, pious and sinners, somebodies and nobodies. The Table became a model in Jesus’ ministry for the inclusive Kingdom of God.
But with the Emmaus event, two new components were added to the Table. The bread and wine for the first time since the crucifixion now represented the body and blood of Jesus. Secondly, the bread and wine represented the Risen Christ available for all time. Emmaus happens every time Christians gather around the table to share God’s grace.
COMMISSION: The Emmaus event also reminds us that it is not our privilege to sit on our blessed assurances basking in the presence of Christ. At this table, now we see him, now we don’t. He is no longer here. He is out there calling us to join him in serving the world with love and compassion. So let’s get off our blessed assurances and continue our worship as we find Christ in the highways and byways of people’s lives. Amen.
BENEDICTION: Because the tomb is empty, your life can be full, so go into every place and every day as people brimming with the love of God. Be graceful in spirit, hopeful in word, faithful in deed.
Live for the Risen Christ as Christ surely lives in you. Amen.
We thank you, Redeeming God, for the glorious message that you bring hope out of despair, resurrection out of defeat, and new life out of death. You call dry bones to dance. You give living water so that new life blossoms. You urge flowers to push their way through winter hardened soil.
We bring before you the dead and dried out places in our lives, that through your touch we may discover newness of life. Forgotten dreams, lapsed intentions, hardened resentments, griefs to which we cling like children who cling to a worn but cherished toy or blanket: these we hand over to you, knowing that you will return them, mended, washed, renewed, transformed.
We bring before you the places in our lives and in our world where despair reigns unchallenged. Point us toward actions, however small, which lead to a more hopeful future for ourselves and for our world.
Gracious God, we thank you that you walk beside us as we journey through life. Because you are with us, we accept each new day, with its joys and sorrows, as a gift. Because you are with us, we gain courage to meet the challenge of the day, choosing life over death as we move through time.
As you raised Jesus from the dead, raise us to new life day by day. Amen.
