Communion Service
"Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him; and he vanished from their sight." (Luke 24:31)

Luke 24:13-35

Faith in the risen Christ

It is quite amazing. Over a span of 2000 years and around the world, in all different cultures, people have believed and still believe in Jesus Christ. In the Sahara desert as well as in the vast expanse of Siberia; in the Andes of Peru as well as in the jungles of Borneo; in torture chambers, in refugee camps and in high places of government; in sweat shops and in office buildings women and men don't only know that Jesus lived, but they have actually bound their conscience, their identity, their future to Him. They found and they find in Christ answers that they did not find in themselves and in the world around them.

It is more than admiring and remembering a great person of the past. It is more than being inspired by the example of lives like that of Mahatma Ghandi or Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Martin Luther King. People who believe in Jesus Christ find a purpose for their living and a hope in their dying; they find food for their journey and strength in days of difficulties. And yet: our reason wants to understand our experience; not to determine and not to limit, but to explain our experience. How is it possible that 2000 years after Jesus of Nazareth lived on earth people still believe in him?

Awareness of historical distance

The question of how this deep and wide ditch of history and culture could be bridged was asked very early.

We listened today to what is probably the most famous Easter story in the Bible.

Here the early Christians want to explain how Jesus Christ becomes real and remains real in the life of the believer and in the community of faith after he had been torn out of their midst and been executed.

When Jesus was with them, he had liberated them from fear. He had taught them that love is stronger than hate. He had conveyed to them courage to live. He had mediated to them that God was not far but near. He had shown them that God comes to unexpected places, and in his passion he fleshed out that God does not withdraw when life becomes tough.

The disciples are talking

We meet two disciples who are on their way from Jerusalem, the place of Jesus' execution, to a near by town, Emmaus.

They are talking with each other. And this time they are not talking about the weather, but they are talking about life. Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? And where people think or talk about life and its meaning, there God is never far away.

God deals with us in our doubts and in our questions. Indeed, do not our very questions presuppose that there is an answer? Would we have the longing for meaning if such meaning did not exist? Are not our human hearts restless until they find rest in God (Augustine)? Our questions and our doubts are signs of better things to come. But the disciples were “looking sad" (v. 17). With Jesus, their future was stolen from them so they thought. They were on their own, and they did not like it. Can the memory of Jesus be kept alive? Can the new vision that he fleshed out with them be sustained? They knew, just as we know, how many visions have died and how many memories have lapsed, when the motivator left the scene.

The mysterious presence

The story confirms that God is mysteriously present in our questions and struggles for the meaning of life. We hear that Jesus joined them and walked with them (v. 15), but they did not recognise who he was (v. 16).

The question now stands in the room: how will they recognise him? And as we become aware of the question, we realise that it is also our question: How will we recognise the presence of God in our lives, in our families, in our church, in our world?

With our mind we confess that God is creator and sustainer and reconciler of the world. We know that God loves the world. But how do we recognise God in the world? And recognition is important! It is true, of course, that God is also there if we don't recognise him. But how can God sustain our life if we don't know that he is for us; if we have not really heard his YES to us in our hearts? How do we know Jesus Christ today?

False Answers

Not all ways lead to Rome we say. Not all ways lead to Jesus either. Are we not amazed! The two disciples on the road, and we as silent fellow travellers, seem to know all about Jesus but they don't recognise him in the stranger who is walking by their side.

They had lived with him; they remember his mighty deeds and his powerful words; they talk about how he was captured and then interrogated and tortured and crucified. They talk about the hopes for liberation that they had focussed upon him. Yes, they even knew about the visit of the women to the tomb and how they found the tomb empty and that an angel had spoken to them.

They seemed to know all about Jesus, but him they did not recognise. Historical knowledge was obviously not enough. Reason, and knowledge of the Bible and historical facts are important. But more is required to know Jesus. And this “more" is what we celebrate at Easter!

But reason, even religious reason, rebels! Reason does not want to accept the apostle's confession:

"... if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, .... If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." (1 Cor 15:14-17)

Why is it that even in the church that has celebrated Easter as the very foundational event of faith we have looked around for other foundations. There are hundreds of scholars who are trying to dig up a real historical Jesus and think that the product of their speculations is more reliable than the risen Christ! There are millions of Christians who take refuge to an infallible Bible or an infallible church because they find a life of faith too risky. As if reason can provide more reliable answers than faith! Reason can do much, but it can not speak the story of Jesus into our hearts and into our conscience. At Easter we celebrate that what neither reason nor fact can do, God does for us. His word can change our lives. But how does God do it? There are many ways in which God comes to us. Our Easter story today speaks of one important way.

Fellowship

The disciples invite the stranger to stay for the night. And as they were getting ready for the evening meal, suddenly the stranger takes on the role of host: "When he was at the table with them," we read, "he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them." Don't we know those words? Don't we say and hear these words at every Lord's Supper service? The next sentence in the story confirms our notion: "Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him; and he vanished from their sight."

At the friendship meal, at this intimate encounter between people who are on a similar journey, they recognise Jesus as Christ. And here we are not thinking of the elements of bread and wine. No we are thinking of the intentional community of faith.

Can community, can relationships between people stand for the promise of "new life", for a life that smiles at the estranging forces of death? Think for a moment: what is death? Why are we afraid of it? Why does it invade our life and causes us deep seated anxieties? Is it not because death cuts off relationships? "The wages of sin is death," the Bible says. And sin is the subtle, but determined, intentional and absolute focus on the self; unbending self-will; self-interest. God and neighbour become secondary. The end result of an absolute self focus would be cosmic aloneness death.

Easter therefore proclaims that God will not allow this to happen to his creation, to his people. His relationship to us can not be destroyed by the forces of death. And the awareness of God's relationship to us comes also not only, but also! through other people. That is why the church as a community of faith is so important. We can become life-lines to each other; instruments of grace.

That is what the early Christians want to say to us with this story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Don't underestimate the fellowship of the friends of Jesus, Jesus himself as the risen Christ in the power of the Spirit is present where two or three or two hundred are gathered in his name.

Open fellowship

In his name! An Easter community recognises Jesus in their midst by being an open community:

• open to God in thanksgiving, worship and praise;
• open to each other in friendship, love and trust;
• open to the world around us and to the society in which we live;
• open to the environment that provides us air to breathe, water to drink and food to eat.

Conclusion

Easter celebrates the victory of Christ over the forces of death. The forces of death want to isolate us. They want to suggest to us that can create our own destiny; that we should focus all attention on ourselves. Celebrating life, on the other hand, means the opposite openness; looking away from ourselves.

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus knew much about Jesus; but their attention was still upon themselves, and they were sad. But when they invited the stranger and when they opened themselves in the context of a meal, "then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him;" and now he could "vanish from their sight" because he would remain present in their midst in the power of the Spirit.

Luke 24:13-35

24:13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 24:14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 

24:15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 24:16 but their eyes were kept from recognising him.

24:17 And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" They stood still, looking sad. 24:18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" 24:19 He asked them, "What things?" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 24:20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 24:21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 24:22 More­over, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 24:23 and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24:24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him."

24:25 Then he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 24:26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" 24:27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

24:28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 24:29 But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them. 24:30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 24:31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him; and he vanished from their sight.

24:32 They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" 24:33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 24:34 They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" 24:35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.