Christ Revealed
Text: Luke 24:13-35
…they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
They walked for seven miles with Jesus. The average walking speed for a human is 3-4 miles per hour, so they spent nearly two hours on the road with Jesus. They were returning home from a long and grief stricken weekend. Some theorize that the two disciples were actually a couple, a man and his wife. If that were the case, we are told in the Gospel of John that Mary, the wife of Clopas, was a witness to the crucifixion. Could this second disciple with Cleopas in Luke be a witness of the crucifixion? We do not know, but if so, that makes the grief of these two walking home even more intense. She was there. She had experienced the death of the one she had hoped would redeem Israel.
But it is also clear that the two disciples on the road to Emmaus were not there when the women went to the tomb that very morning and found it empty. If the second disciple on the road to Emmaus had been at the cross, they had not been at the empty tomb. They only heard about it. I imagine they had spent that full day with the other disciples in Jerusalem, speaking with the women, hearing from Peter, who had gone to see the tomb himself, trying to understand what all was going on. They were tired. They were confused. They were ready to be home.
So maybe we can understand why they couldn’t recognize who was with them as they walked for two hours with Jesus. The resurrected body of Jesus himself was a strange thing. He walked through walls. He disappeared quickly and suddenly from sight. And yet they could put a hand in his side and eat fish with him. It was a real body, but it was different from our bodies. His is a fully resurrected body, like the one all will receive on the last day. It looked and acted differently, but it was fully alive. It had truly broken the bonds of death.
Jesus walked along with them, sharing the scriptures with them. Sometimes I wish Jesus would walk with me and share the scriptures with me. I struggle sometimes to find him in the Old Testament. Where is he revealed in Moses? What do the prophets have to say about him? The Gospel writers share some of this truth, but I’d love to have it fully expanded and realized by my interactions with our Savior.
This revelation is why we read the Old Testament, why we integrate it into our worship. While we respect and honor how Jews read it, we don’t read it in the same way. We read all of our scriptures, even those that pre-date Jesus in light of Jesus. We understand God’s character and nature through Jesus first. Jesus illuminates the rest. In our particular tradition, we don’t read the Bible with a “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” mindset. We don’t worship the written word. We read all scriptures in conversation with the Holy Spirit. We believe that the scriptures can help us understand God because they can help us deepen our conversation with God. All of our readings are filtered through Christ and we believe that all Scriptures will help us experience and know Christ. We believe that we too can have Emmaus road experiences when we crack open our Bibles. Christ can illuminate God’s ways and God’s desires for us within these texts.
But how do we know that it’s Christ with us? How do we know it’s not our own egos or the teachings of someone who has it wrong? That’s a question we should always have as we approach scripture and teachers. We should never blindly accept one person’s interpretation, we should always search for more. There are all sorts of contradictory views on how to worship God and what it means to be in relationship with God. There are also different views that illuminate and expand upon our own. Many of us come to our particular places of worship through friendships with others, which is one of the ways the Church has always grown and the gospel has always been shared. It’s a good way to find a community of faith. But sometimes what our friends believe isn’t what we end up believing and that’s okay too. Our tradition allows for a variety of views on things, it encourages personal reading and growth. Root yourself in the love of Christ, make that central, and then explore. Questioning, debating and uncertainty are all normal.
In our quest to learn more about God, we hold onto the belief that in our quest, Christ walks that road with us. What matters is that we are seeking the bond of love with our Creator and Redeemer. We may not always get it right. I fully imagine that when I meet God I’ll learn of beliefs I held that were wrong. But as long as we search out the knowledge and the love of Christ, Christ is walking that Emmaus road of faith with us. We will learn and grow as we walk that path with God.
Christ is fully revealed to us not in believing the right dogma, although beliefs matter. Christ is revealed in the breaking of the bread. Christ is seen in those active moments where faith and action meet, where love is expressed in the outpouring of compassion. Christ is revealed in the giving of ourselves to others.
That is why communion is at the center of our worship life. In the Eucharist, we find Christ really present with us. Episcopalians can have different theologies about what it means that Christ is really present in the bread and the wine. That’s not what is most important. What is important is that we find Christ here. Every time the bread breaks, we take Christ into ourselves. We experience the power of his resurrected life. Sometimes we feel Christ more powerfully than other times, but always, always, Christ enters us and gives us the power of new life.
Communion happens in all sorts of ways, as we learned powerfully during the time when we could not gather in person. Communion can be purely spiritual. It is the joining of hearts and lives together in purpose and mission. We are fed with the spiritual food and drink of Christ even when we cannot physically partake. But there’s also something powerful about physical communion. I am jealous of those who can easily and readily spiritually commune with God without the physical bread and wine. I need the taste of the bread, the sip of the wine, to center myself, to feel Christ in my heart and in my life. Partaking of the elements in a physical way is something I will always cherish, especially after spending nearly a year without them. Christ nourishes us in a very bodily way by coming into our bodies in the form of food and drink.
But just as surely as Christ is present in the sacramental bread and wine, Christ is present in all sorts of meals and gatherings. A sacrament is a sure and present means of receiving God’s grace, but it’s not the only way. If we pay attention, Christ comes to us in so many ways. Christ is shared wherever love and mercy collide, in those places where we experience ourselves truly alive. We are freed to experience our full humanity, to express our brokenness alongside our blessedness because we know that we are in a space of unconditional love. Where unconditional love embraces us, Christ is revealed.
What happens when Christ is revealed? When we experience the revelation that the resurrected Christ is truly in our midst? We cannot contain the joy. The two disciples, after finally getting home and sitting down for a meal, rushed all the way back to Jerusalem, running seven miles in the dark just to let the others know. They could not contain the good news. Jesus was really with them! He could be seen and felt and known. It was not just a fantasy, it was reality.
Immediately after our Gospel lesson today, Jesus showed up in that same room. Not only was his presence shared with the others by the two disciples, it was experienced by all who were told. They all received the revelation of Christ. When we share how Jesus has been revealed to us, Jesus then appears to others. His presence embraces and encompasses all. It cannot be held back or stopped. The love of Christ can move through a room like fire. This is the message of Pentecost, when the tongues of flame danced on the apostles and soon three thousand had joined the fold. Those who have seen Jesus help others see Jesus. This has happened for thousands of years, ever since Christ first broke the bread with the two disciples in Emmaus.
Some denominations, like the Roman Catholic Church, express this spreading of the presence of Christ through relics. They knew that the Holy Spirit was present in the lives of the saints, that the Spirit led and guided them, and that things that were touched by the presence of the Holy Spirit were holy themselves. Thus they did things like put a finger bone of a saint in an altar or set up a shrine to view an item that belonged to a saint. Those things which touched the saints or were a part of the saints were holy, not because the saint was special, but because the Holy Spirit had touched their lives. They believe that the Holy Spirit, still present within those holy objects, can make us holy too. We could find the revelation of Christ present among us by touching things that we know were touched by the Holy Spirit. Now most Episcopalians don’t use relics, though there are Anglo-Catholic people in our denomination who do. But we do honor the saints. We do so not only because they were people who explored how to live out God’s call in their lives within their own day and age, but because we know that the Holy Spirit touched their lives. We believe that we can experience God through learning about their faith. They can help us see what is most important, a life of communion with God and our neighbors. We don’t worship them, but just like we read all scripture through the lens of Jesus, we explore how they lived their lives through the lens of Jesus. We believe we can learn about his presence and power in our lives by exploring how the Holy Spirit touched their lives. We affirm that the Holy Spirit can envelop us and change any of us. We take faith on, exploring how the Holy Spirit radically altered the lives of others, be they prophets and disciples in the Bible or saints of the later Church. We engage with it all believing that Jesus walks the road with us, even in the midst of doubt, fear and confusion.
So may we experience Christ, not just as a concept, but as God’s living child. May we experience the power of the Holy Spirit embracing and changing our lives. May we find Christ in the breaking of the bread and share that experience with the world. Amen.
