Third Sunday of Easter

Is there anyone here who has walked from here to Pottsville? The walk to Emmaus from Jerusalem would be about like walking from here to Pottsville. Not a short walk. Probably around seven miles. Cleopas and the other disciple were thinking through a situation as they walked. They were thinking, reflecting, and discussing the recent events in Jerusalem around Jesus' arrest, trial, and execution. It was a disturbing conversation. As they recounted the events of the previous week, they thought they understood it all, but they didn't. It was a surreal moment for them both that I imagine was something like the days that followed the assassination of President Kennedy or Martin Luther King. Even though I was a child, I remember the surreal quality of the days that followed because it was more than the death of an important person. At the time it seemed like it might be the death of a dream, the death of the important ideals that each of these men put forth and articulated for the rest of us.

The dream, the vision that the two disciples thought had died was the idea that Jesus was a Messiah sent by God to liberate the Israelites from their oppressors and re-establish them as a nation. As they walk along absorbed in disappointment and grief for the loss of their friend Jesus and the death of their movement, along comes Jesus himself. Scripture doesn't tell us from where Jesus came, whether he caught up from behind or met them at a crossroad, just that he joins them in their walk. Apparently, he'd overheard their conversation because he asks them about it. At this point and for some reason, they don't recognize Jesus. When Jesus asks them about their conversation, they’re utterly flabbergasted. They can't imagine that this stranger had missed all the excitement of the horrible events of the last few days, so they tell him about Jesus the mighty prophet and how their chief priests and leaders had turned him over to be crucified. They tell him
about the women finding the tomb empty and had talked to angels who told them that Jesus was alive.

Now they must have presented all this to Jesus as news and events that caused them confusion and disillusionment, because Jesus responds by saying that they are foolish and slow of heart to believe. In other words, the very events that they considered bad news and the end of the dream; they didn't understand that these events were all necessary and actually equaled good news. Jesus had tried to prepare his followers for everything he had to do and endure to fulfill his mission of earth, but they were too caught up in an overly materialistic dream of the messiah's return. All they could imagine was the Messiah riding in on a white horse and defeating the Roman oppressors and establishing Israel as a powerful nation instead of Jesus the Christ defeating death itself and ushering in the Kingdom of God.

So Jesus takes them back and reviews the history of God's relationship with the children of Israel and apparently he makes an impression because when they arrive at their destination they insist that Jesus stay the night. They offer hospitality to this stranger who has somehow made sense of the disarray of the last several days in their lives.

When it comes time for supper, scripture says that Jesus takes bread, blesses the bread, breaks it, and then gives it to them. Jesus did the same four acts that he did when he fed the four thousand, took the food, blessed it, broke it, and shared it. It was also the four acts that he did at the last supper, and it is the four acts we carry out every time we gather for communion. We take bread, bless it in the prayer of consecration, break it at the fraction, and then you all come forward and we share it. Are we starting to see a pattern here? When Jesus does it that day the same thing happens that happens each time we do it; Jesus becomes present. He did that day and the disciples' eyes are opened and they realize that this stranger who made their hearts warm is actually their friend Jesus, the Christ.

I love this story because I love stories with a surprise. But I also love it because in more than one way it describes how we experience the real presence of God in Jesus Christ. The disciples experienced God when Jesus described the history of God's relationship with Israel, just as we experience God when we experience that story by hearing Holy Scripture. We also experience God when we encounter the risen Christ in the face of a stranger, or a loved one. And we can count on experiencing the real presence of Jesus the Christ when once again we will be able to gather at the altar where together we take bread, bless it, break it, and share it with one another. May God open our eyes to God's work in the world around us. May God open our eyes to see the risen Christ in the face of those we know and love but also those we don’t, and may God open our hearts to accept God's love and grace given freely. AMEN

The Rev. Dr. Dennis Campbell