"Seeing Jesus"
5/4/14 (Easter 3A)
Acts 2:14, 36-41; Luke 24:13-35
Seeing Jesus
As we move into this third week of Easter, I’m realizing something that I’d never thought of before - and I’m still amazed as I continue to think about it even now: this one, spectacular day of resurrection - this earth-shattering, mind-blowing, reality-transforming event - is the only event in the entire lectionary that gets so many Sundays devoted to its exploration. We have the season of Advent during Christmas, and it takes several weeks to come to Christ’s birth, yet the Christmas event itself is one evening - and perhaps one Sunday morning, when Christmas Day happens on a Sunday. The various miracles Jesus performed, the parables he told, the things he said and did - we spend one Sunday at a time talking about those. His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, his last meal with his disciples, his betrayal and trial before Pilate, even his crucifixion… they only stay in the spotlight for one day a piece during Holy Week. Jesus’ Ascension into heaven doesn’t even get a Sunday - it gets relegated to a weekday and so rarely even gets celebrated. But this one day of the Resurrection… one 24 hour span of events in which a tomb is found empty and a savior reappears to his disciples… it gets three whole weeks of coverage - and even that’s not the whole of the attention that the resurrection gets in the Gospels themselves. Three weeks spent… just exploring the one day of the Resurrection.
Meanwhile, the disciples only had just this one day. And we sit and wonder at the fact that they didn’t understand what was going on as we hear their stories. On Easter Sunday itself, we came upon the empty tomb with Mary and the Disciples and looked on as they stared in disbelief before encountering the risen Christ. We heard last week about Thomas and how he needed to see and experience the resurrection event for himself before he could accept and understand it.
So now, by this point, we should pretty much know what to expect as we come upon one more resurrection encounter in the Gospels. We enter into the scene with these two disciples who are walking along the road to Emmaus. Their shoulders are hunched, their brows furrowed, they look like they’ve lost their best friend - and it’s because they have. Three days after the events of Good Friday and they’re still talking about the grisly events that happened on that fateful hill. They’re like all the rest of the disciples at this point - they're lost, they’re frightened, and they don’t know what to do anymore. They’re still trying to process it all - the fact that this was the man they thought was suposed to be the Messiah, but who died and left them alone and confused. The fact that nothing he had promised seemed to have happened, that he was supposed to be this magnificent king and was now just… gone. Not even plain dead, but gone.
And so when Jesus shows up and starts walking alongside them - they don’t see him. The text actually says that “their eyes were kept from recognizing him” - and for the longest time, I’ve wondered about that phrase. Because, to be honest, I’ve always read that phrase and thought that, for some reason, Jesus was hiding himself from them. I’ve thought he was wearing a disguise, that he’d masked his features somehow so that he wouldn’t be recognized… but as I’ve thought about this passage, I’m starting to wonder to myself: was it Jesus who kept the disciples from recognizing them, or was it the disciples who were keeping themselves from seeing who it was with whom they walked? It’s clear already - even from the fact that we ourselves spend so much time in reflection upon the events of Easter - that the Resurrection wasn’t and isn’t necessarily something easily swallowed and understood.
So perhaps it’s the disciples’ grief, their confusion, the shock that they’re walking around in that actually blinds them to who Christ is. And as Jesus asks them “What’s going on?” they’re surprised, like he’s been living his life under a rock these last few days, but they tell him their story, that they had followed a man they knew to be a great prophet and had hoped would be the Messiah… but ended up being killed by the Jewish authorities instead. They tell him that now, three days after their world has fallen apart, the women of their group have reported that Jesus’ body is gone and that some women from the group had reported that they had seen angels who had told them that Jesus was alive, but that when they had gone to see it for themselves, they’d found nothing. And it’s as they stand there, still and sad, telling him their story that Jesus sees how lost, how hopeless, and how still utterly clueless his own disciples have been.
But despite their blindness, in fact - in spite of it, Jesus continues to teach and to lead his people, even after his resurrection. At first, he shakes his head in his own disbelief - after everything he’s said and done, after all the things he’s taught them, they still don’t get it. “How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe!” And then he takes it from the top, all over again. He starts with Moses and explains everything that had to happen to these two disciples, working to ensure that they understand. And somehow, from this man that they think is a complete and total stranger, the two men finally start to get it.
What’s interesting is that the texts don’t right out and say that Cleopas and his traveling companion have understood everything that Jesus has told them - but they still show it, because the disciples are changed before they even know it. As they’ve heard the Gospel from Christ, they've let it sink in. And they start embodying it - without even entirely realizing it. They get to Emmaus and Jesus acts like he’s going to keep going on - I imagine he looks over his shoulder, maybe shooting a little hopeful glance at the disciples, but gives them a wave and keeps taking a few slow steps along the road, going on to wherever the road leads next.
The disciples could just as easily have returned that wave - they could have shrugged their shoulders, thought “that was a weird experience,” stayed wrapped up in their grief and their disbelief, and gone into their house to eat in stunned silence, never realizing what their encounter on the road had meant. They could easily have let Jesus pass on by - in fact, they wouldn’t have been doing anything wrong in their actions if they had. But instead, they let that Gospel work inside of them. They’d felt their hearts “burning inside of them” as Jesus had opened up the Scriptures to them. Their questions of “What should we do now?” were even momentarily forgotten in the experience of walking along with this man - and in the space that this journey created, in a single moment of incredible breakthrough where the Word intersected with the World… they finally got it. And it started with an invitation - a simple invitation to come inside, to stay on with them for a while, to pass the evening with them and to share a meal together.
In an incredibly simple act of hospitality toward a complete stranger, these two men re-encountered their risen Lord. By living like Christ, they finally recognize him sitting right in front of them as he breaks the bread, invoking that same familiar act that marked his last meal with them. And in that divine moment, the disciples are fully, undeniably transformed. Their eyes are finally opened and they rush all the way back to Jerusalem, carrying the same good news of the resurrection on their mouths as the women before them.
This is the amazing and transforming power of Jesus, even in just the hearing of the Gospels. It’s so powerful that it carries from beyond this table at Emmaus and into the gathered group in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. And from that group, it carries on throughout the centuries - even to our own hearing this morning. Because here we are - we’re gathered together, listening to these words and thinking about what they might mean, and we each of us probably have our own things that have kept us from recognizing Christ in our midst, at least at some point or another - we’ve kept our eyes shut through our own ignorance, through our own pain, our own anger or confusion, our own stubbornness and sin. And yet… and yet… in spite of all of that, Jesus still comes into our midst and transforms us. And in our own encounters with that Risen Christ, we are led forward - we are led to reach out to the unreached, to do the unexpected for those whom the world would least expect. We’re encountered with a whole new reality, in which Jesus introduces us to something completely different from everything we’d ever expected, and our hearts are set on fire. And out of that fire, we too are left with no other response but to run out in joy and wonder, proclaiming that same transforming love to the world. That’s the power of Easter - this amazing event that we can spend three whole weeks dedicated to unpacking, and yet still not spend enough time to appreciate, because we ultimately spend every Sunday in a time of celebrating that Easter moment… and we keep reaching out to invite more people to contemplate it with us, because no matter how many times we hear it, it still fills us with hope - He is Risen and the world is a wholly new place because of it. To God be the Glory. Amen.
Acts 2:14, 36-41; Luke 24:13-35
Seeing Jesus
As we move into this third week of Easter, I’m realizing something that I’d never thought of before - and I’m still amazed as I continue to think about it even now: this one, spectacular day of resurrection - this earth-shattering, mind-blowing, reality-transforming event - is the only event in the entire lectionary that gets so many Sundays devoted to its exploration. We have the season of Advent during Christmas, and it takes several weeks to come to Christ’s birth, yet the Christmas event itself is one evening - and perhaps one Sunday morning, when Christmas Day happens on a Sunday. The various miracles Jesus performed, the parables he told, the things he said and did - we spend one Sunday at a time talking about those. His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, his last meal with his disciples, his betrayal and trial before Pilate, even his crucifixion… they only stay in the spotlight for one day a piece during Holy Week. Jesus’ Ascension into heaven doesn’t even get a Sunday - it gets relegated to a weekday and so rarely even gets celebrated. But this one day of the Resurrection… one 24 hour span of events in which a tomb is found empty and a savior reappears to his disciples… it gets three whole weeks of coverage - and even that’s not the whole of the attention that the resurrection gets in the Gospels themselves. Three weeks spent… just exploring the one day of the Resurrection.
Meanwhile, the disciples only had just this one day. And we sit and wonder at the fact that they didn’t understand what was going on as we hear their stories. On Easter Sunday itself, we came upon the empty tomb with Mary and the Disciples and looked on as they stared in disbelief before encountering the risen Christ. We heard last week about Thomas and how he needed to see and experience the resurrection event for himself before he could accept and understand it.
So now, by this point, we should pretty much know what to expect as we come upon one more resurrection encounter in the Gospels. We enter into the scene with these two disciples who are walking along the road to Emmaus. Their shoulders are hunched, their brows furrowed, they look like they’ve lost their best friend - and it’s because they have. Three days after the events of Good Friday and they’re still talking about the grisly events that happened on that fateful hill. They’re like all the rest of the disciples at this point - they're lost, they’re frightened, and they don’t know what to do anymore. They’re still trying to process it all - the fact that this was the man they thought was suposed to be the Messiah, but who died and left them alone and confused. The fact that nothing he had promised seemed to have happened, that he was supposed to be this magnificent king and was now just… gone. Not even plain dead, but gone.
And so when Jesus shows up and starts walking alongside them - they don’t see him. The text actually says that “their eyes were kept from recognizing him” - and for the longest time, I’ve wondered about that phrase. Because, to be honest, I’ve always read that phrase and thought that, for some reason, Jesus was hiding himself from them. I’ve thought he was wearing a disguise, that he’d masked his features somehow so that he wouldn’t be recognized… but as I’ve thought about this passage, I’m starting to wonder to myself: was it Jesus who kept the disciples from recognizing them, or was it the disciples who were keeping themselves from seeing who it was with whom they walked? It’s clear already - even from the fact that we ourselves spend so much time in reflection upon the events of Easter - that the Resurrection wasn’t and isn’t necessarily something easily swallowed and understood.
So perhaps it’s the disciples’ grief, their confusion, the shock that they’re walking around in that actually blinds them to who Christ is. And as Jesus asks them “What’s going on?” they’re surprised, like he’s been living his life under a rock these last few days, but they tell him their story, that they had followed a man they knew to be a great prophet and had hoped would be the Messiah… but ended up being killed by the Jewish authorities instead. They tell him that now, three days after their world has fallen apart, the women of their group have reported that Jesus’ body is gone and that some women from the group had reported that they had seen angels who had told them that Jesus was alive, but that when they had gone to see it for themselves, they’d found nothing. And it’s as they stand there, still and sad, telling him their story that Jesus sees how lost, how hopeless, and how still utterly clueless his own disciples have been.
But despite their blindness, in fact - in spite of it, Jesus continues to teach and to lead his people, even after his resurrection. At first, he shakes his head in his own disbelief - after everything he’s said and done, after all the things he’s taught them, they still don’t get it. “How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe!” And then he takes it from the top, all over again. He starts with Moses and explains everything that had to happen to these two disciples, working to ensure that they understand. And somehow, from this man that they think is a complete and total stranger, the two men finally start to get it.
What’s interesting is that the texts don’t right out and say that Cleopas and his traveling companion have understood everything that Jesus has told them - but they still show it, because the disciples are changed before they even know it. As they’ve heard the Gospel from Christ, they've let it sink in. And they start embodying it - without even entirely realizing it. They get to Emmaus and Jesus acts like he’s going to keep going on - I imagine he looks over his shoulder, maybe shooting a little hopeful glance at the disciples, but gives them a wave and keeps taking a few slow steps along the road, going on to wherever the road leads next.
The disciples could just as easily have returned that wave - they could have shrugged their shoulders, thought “that was a weird experience,” stayed wrapped up in their grief and their disbelief, and gone into their house to eat in stunned silence, never realizing what their encounter on the road had meant. They could easily have let Jesus pass on by - in fact, they wouldn’t have been doing anything wrong in their actions if they had. But instead, they let that Gospel work inside of them. They’d felt their hearts “burning inside of them” as Jesus had opened up the Scriptures to them. Their questions of “What should we do now?” were even momentarily forgotten in the experience of walking along with this man - and in the space that this journey created, in a single moment of incredible breakthrough where the Word intersected with the World… they finally got it. And it started with an invitation - a simple invitation to come inside, to stay on with them for a while, to pass the evening with them and to share a meal together.
In an incredibly simple act of hospitality toward a complete stranger, these two men re-encountered their risen Lord. By living like Christ, they finally recognize him sitting right in front of them as he breaks the bread, invoking that same familiar act that marked his last meal with them. And in that divine moment, the disciples are fully, undeniably transformed. Their eyes are finally opened and they rush all the way back to Jerusalem, carrying the same good news of the resurrection on their mouths as the women before them.
This is the amazing and transforming power of Jesus, even in just the hearing of the Gospels. It’s so powerful that it carries from beyond this table at Emmaus and into the gathered group in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. And from that group, it carries on throughout the centuries - even to our own hearing this morning. Because here we are - we’re gathered together, listening to these words and thinking about what they might mean, and we each of us probably have our own things that have kept us from recognizing Christ in our midst, at least at some point or another - we’ve kept our eyes shut through our own ignorance, through our own pain, our own anger or confusion, our own stubbornness and sin. And yet… and yet… in spite of all of that, Jesus still comes into our midst and transforms us. And in our own encounters with that Risen Christ, we are led forward - we are led to reach out to the unreached, to do the unexpected for those whom the world would least expect. We’re encountered with a whole new reality, in which Jesus introduces us to something completely different from everything we’d ever expected, and our hearts are set on fire. And out of that fire, we too are left with no other response but to run out in joy and wonder, proclaiming that same transforming love to the world. That’s the power of Easter - this amazing event that we can spend three whole weeks dedicated to unpacking, and yet still not spend enough time to appreciate, because we ultimately spend every Sunday in a time of celebrating that Easter moment… and we keep reaching out to invite more people to contemplate it with us, because no matter how many times we hear it, it still fills us with hope - He is Risen and the world is a wholly new place because of it. To God be the Glory. Amen.
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