Reading Luke Together #45 – Recognizing Jesus
The Gospels relate several episodes from those forty days between Jesus’ resurrection, and his final departure into heaven. John (chapters 20 and 21) tells lovely stories about Mary Magdalene, “doubting” Thomas, and Peter (whom Jesus asked three times, “Do you love me?”). But the most eloquent story is Luke’s masterful telling of what happened on the road to Emmaus, a small village out in the country near Jerusalem.
The crucifixion of Christ and the first reports of his resurrection did not provoke hymns or an explosion of faith. Trudging down the road, these disciples are dejected, their hopes dashed, the story so unimagineable that they do not even recognize Jesus when he is right in front of them! “We had hoped he would be the one…” You can fill in the blank from your own life, or from the life of the world. God doesn’t scold, but welcomes moods of disappointment.
Why didn’t they recognize him at first? Were their eyes clouded with grief? Heads hanging, so not really looking? Perhaps Jesus had been transformed into what their own future would look like, although they couldn’t see it as yet.
Notice: they finally recognized Jesus only after three things happened: 1. They delved into the Scriptures together. Too often we want to know God without troubling ourselves with the Bible, but (as Luther put it) the Bible is “the swaddling clothes in which Christ is laid.” The Scriptures are God’s divinely-ordained, merciful, gracious means by which we can know and experience God – and especially when we probe the Scriptures with other seekers.
2. Jesus was known to them in the breaking of the bread. Holy Communion is the highest moment of the Christian life, for Christ is mysteriously present each time we gather at the table and break this bread, symbolic of his act of salvation, together, for we are one with him, one together because of him. And, maybe surprisingly…
3. Don’t forget that their simple effort at hospitality was the prelude to their awareness of Christ! He was going on, but they “constrained” him to stay with them, to share a meal. Christ might feel distant to us simply because we never meet up with the poor, we only show hospitality to our pals. But when we do as they did, we discover Christ, alive and blessing us.
To their surprise, this pair of formerly distraught disciples, now filled with joy, lived into one of my favorite hymns, which we often sing at Holy Communion.
Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face;
here would I touch and handle things unseen;
here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace,
and all my weariness upon thee lean.
Here would I feed upon the bread of God;
here drink with thee the royal wine of heaven;
here would I lay aside each earthly load…
The Emmaus story moves me, and depicts a downright magical, mystical moment in the waning days of Jesus on earth. Yet the story has all the elements of being open-ended. Clearly you and I, across the centuries and on the other side of the planet, are “constrained” to stay, to ponder the Scriptures with them, and to recognize and be blessed by Jesus face to face.
So read the story, slowly. Imagine yourself on the road, and at table. Google the hymn above and listen. Sing along. Ponder the painting at the head of this email, one of Caravaggio’s best, capturing the moment of realization. You can feel Jesus serene calm, and the surprised energy in the disciples’ bodies. See if your heart too is warmed a little.