Acts
2.14a,36-41; Psalm 116.1-3,10-17; 1 Peter 1.17-23; Luke 24.13-35
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
They are wonderful words aren’t they?
They are words I happen to believe, literally. I am convinced that something actually happened on that 1st Easter Sunday. I don’t think we are being presented with a metaphor (although resurrection does work as an eloquent metaphor for much of the time).
Call me old-fashioned but I think his Resurrection is a historical fact.
But now, in the aftermath of our Easter celebration we are left with the task of making sense of the Resurrection; of somehow ingesting, or consuming that message until works its way into our very bones, and our own lives carry the energy and the fragrance of the Resurrection of our Lord.
An analogy from eating is helpful I think. Consuming is followed by digesting which is followed by metabolising, so that the nutrients in our food can get in to our system, and provide us with the nourishment we need to keep us alive and energised.
So we have tasted and chewed the message of Easter, and now we are into the deeper work of digesting and metabolising it, so that it can provide us with the nourishment we need to keep us alive in Christ and energised in his service.
Our daily bread, the kind we have with marmalade for breakfast, keeps us alive organically. The Daily Bread of God’s presence keeps us alive spiritually.
It’s a popular saying to claim that the followers of the 3 Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are all ‘people of The Book’. It’s a fine sentiment and one that aims to heal conflict and unite us, but like all popular clichés it doesn’t bear much scrutiny when you get into the details.
Yes, we all claim Abraham as our ancestor in faith, we share similar stories but we must also insist on some very real differences: Jews and Muslims do not share our conviction that Jesus is the incarnation of God and that he rose from the dead.
Neither do they share anything that resembles our central and primary act of worship. They don’t do Holy Communion.
So we Christians are not primarily ‘people of The Book’, we are ‘people of the Eucharist’, at which we consume, and digest, and metabolise both Word and Sacrament.
Actually we can go even further for those able to hear it: we consume, and digest, and metabolise God in both Word and Sacrament.
Our Gospel today, the very striking story of the encounter of 2 disciples with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, makes the point for us beautifully.
The two disciples, who still seem to be in shock from what they have just witnessed, leave Jerusalem and walk to Emmaus. It’s about a 3 hour walk and I can understand why they would want to get away from the place where they have just witnessed such a traumatic event.
Along the way they are joined by someone they don’t recognise and they tell him about everything that’s happened in the last few days. They recount the horrific story, and the mysterious claim of their women that somehow this crucified man has risen from the dead.
This is how the stranger, who is Jesus, responds: How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
So beginning with Moses and the Prophets Jesus opens their eyes to an astounding truth; all of Scripture talks about him and points to him. Not just Moses and the Prophets but many of the Psalms too.
He is the treasure hidden in the field which is the Bible. He is the pearl of great price in the oyster. He is the golden thread running through the whole story.
Somehow every book in the library we call the Bible is all his story, from the beginning to the end, and the suffering they have just witnessed, and the resurrection they have just heard about from their women, is written into God’s plan ‘from the foundation of the world’.
St. Peter in our 2nd reading puts it like this: He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.
Let’s get back to our Gospel story now, and to something worth noticing. The eyes of our 2 disciples have been opened so that they can see that the whole of Scripture is really one story – the story of Jesus the Messiah and his Crucifixion and Resurrection. But there’s something missing isn’t there? They haven’t yet realised that the mysterious stranger who has opened the Scriptures for them is the same Jesus the Scriptures are talking about.
And here it’s worth making a point. Knowing about someone is not the same as knowing them in the fullest sense of that word. The text says that beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
What happens next is that Jesus communicates himself to those disciples. He doesn’t communicate things about himself to them, he communicates himself to them directly and they become communicants, as we will later in this service. He opens their eyes to his presence among them and this is the moment at which that happens. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him…
This is the moment where theory (talking about him) becomes reality (experiencing him) and that happens here in the context of Holy Communion.
There’s a sense in which our Christian tradition has always known that words are not enough. There are deeper forms of intimacy, deeper forms of knowing available to us than by the use of words.
There are deeper ways of communicating than talking and we all know that don’t we? A hug speaks volumes and a smile can say so much. And then there’s that lovely experience of sharing a meal with someone you love and this is exactly what we’ve been given in the Eucharist.
But this is not an ordinary meal. It’s a meal that looks back into the past and forward into the future.
It’s a meal that looks back to the horrific events in Jerusalem 2000 years ago and makes them present for us in the here and now. It’s a meal that communicates the astonishing truth that this murder was actually a sacrifice intended by God for our salvation.
It’s also a meal that looks forward to our final destiny. Heaven is always portrayed as a banquet in the Bible and in this banquet that we call Holy Communion a taste of heaven is being communicated to us.
And finally the Christian tradition has always insisted that the bread that we eat and this wine that we drink are in some mysterious way the body and the blood of Christ. He says it himself in John 6:53-54: So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
Volumes have been written on those words and blood has been spilt over how we understand what he meant, and I don’t propose to turn this into a theology lesson on transubstantiation or the Doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
I am with C.S Lewis on this when he said, Here is big medicine and strong magic…the command, after all, was Take, eat: not Take, understand (Letters to Malcolm).
So I will say this: He said it. I believe it. That settles it.
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