Recognizing Jesus

 April 11 2021

Luke 24:13-35

         It is hard to believe that the coronavirus has been impacting our lives for over a year now. Regardless of how we feel about all that must be done to keep from ending being sick with the coronavirus, washing our hands after being out and about, staying at least six feet from the people we meet and of course, wearing a mask, all these things which seemed so hard to get use to are now just a part of life. Now it seems weird to go somewhere with out a mask instead of having to wear one one we first started. And while wearing a mask has become second nature, there is this little problem with wearing a mask which is that it is really hard to recognize people when you and they have one on. Our nose and our smile and maybe perhaps our chins all play a part in helping others figure out who we are. The other week as Jennifer andI were coming out of the grocery store I saw a long time family friend so I said ,”Hi”, which was followed by a blank stare. I quickly figured out that he had no clue who I was because of the mask so I said who I was which quickly resolved the problem. Now I am sure that I or other people I know have probably known each other but did not stop to say hello simply because our brains just did not recognize each other because half of our face was covered up. I mean it used to be bad enough that when I saw someone that looked familiar but I could not for the life of me recall their name but now very few people are even familiar to me at all. This may be the only upside to wearing a mask that now, I no longer have to awkwardly try and figure out just who it was that I just ran into so as not to embarrass myself.

         So, this facial recognition, something that computers have figured out how to do fairly well even if we still struggle at it is kind of a big deal in life.  What is true for us today was just as true in the days of Jesus and his disciples as we hear in our scripture for today. We are told that these two rejected disciples had eyes that were kept from recognizing Jesus when he came long side of them as they walked the long road home. As usual, Luke has given us important clues to help us understand the story. The first of these clues is that there were two of them. Now why would this little detail be so important? Well, earlier in the ministry of Jesus, as recorded in the tenth chapter of Luke, we are told that Jesus, appointed seventy two others and sent them on ahead of him, in pairs, two by two, into every place he was about to go. These were the laborers for the harvest Jesus explains.  The number seventy two is often thought to represent the nations other than Judah. The number seventy two also corresponds closely to the elders chosen by Moses to assist him when the burden of caring for the people of Israel became to great. God instructed Moses to bring them to the tent of meeting and then God would take a portion of the Spirit which anointed Moses and pour it out upon those elders so they might be empowered for service. This is important to hold on to because the seventy two that Jesus sent out had two primary works they were to do. One was the healing of the sick and the second was to announce that the kingdom of God had come near.The implication was that the Spirit that anointed Jesus was now going to be anointing the empowering them to be agents of healing. Now, I believe, that is important that we understand that these two disciples had this previous experience in order that we might know that they had been the announcers to all they had met that the kingdom of God had arrived. So, imagine how humiliated they must have felt when the king of this kingdom ended up being executed by the Roman authorities, not even attempting to fight them, or call for his followers to join him in an insurrection and overthrow of the occupying forces but instead peacefully allowing the Romans to do their very worse to him. How horrified they must have been to be in the crowd, to watch and hear as their king was nailed to the dreaded cross beam then hoisted up to leave him hang there gasping for air until he breathed his last. How odd it must have been his words spoken in among his panting, words of forgiveness and at the last, an announcement that it was finished. This they must have surely agreed with, for to them it was finished, all of their hopes, their dreams and the longings of their nation once again wiped away by the cruel hand of Rome.

         All of this is what weighed down their hearts as they left Jerusalem and turned toward home, to go back to Emmaus and hope that no one connected them to their criminal king and decide that their just might be a cross for them as well. Luke records that as they walked and talked together, these two suddenly realized that someone else had come along side of them rather unexpectedly. No, social distancing here I’m afraid. Now, our scripture says something very curious, in that the eyes of these men were kept from recognizing Jesus much like our eyes keep us from recognizing people who have a mask on. There was something about them that prevented them from understanding just who this was sauntering beside them, which was none other than their risen king, Jesus. Jesus asked them what it was they were talking about so intently as the walked along to which they replied, “Are you the only visitor, literally, an outsider, who does not know the things that have happened in these days?” And to even frustrate them more, Jesus replies, “What things?” Its almost comical how Jesus plays these mind games with them but I think he wants them to honestly open up about how they perceived his death and resurrection. What they told him was very interesting because they told him that they were talking about him, Jesus of Nazareth but then they go on to describe him as a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all people. This is the same way that Moses was described which meant that they understood Jesus to be in some way a new Moses that God had raised up for them.Then they went on to describe how it was their own chief priests and rulers who had delivered this Jesus up to be condemned to death and it was they who had crucified him. So far so good but then we come to the “but” in their story, but they went on, they had hoped he would be the one who would redeem, better translated as liberate or deliver Israel. Yet they continued , there was more because just that morning when the women had gone to the tomb to care for the body of Jesus they found the tomb empty and then had a vision of angels who told them that Jesus was alive. These two Emmaus bound travelers told Jesus that they had gone to the tomb but they had not seen Jesus and so they were just left wondering what all of this was about. Here again is this problem of being able to see, to have eyes that could be able to see the risen Jesus. Now, listen closely to what Jesus says next because I believe that he is directly addressing just what it is that is keeping them from being able to see. Jesus tells them “O, foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that God’s anointed one should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” We can only wonder just what the reaction was for these two disciples when this complete stranger responds to their grief stricken story by calling them you stupid people who have zero understanding. Ouch! Yet for as rude as he seemed this outsider appeared to know what was in the books of the Prophets and he knew that the reason that this Jesus on which they had placed their hope had to suffer was to fulfill the prophecies about him. What Jesus did was to start with Moses and then working his way through the prophets interpreted the scriptures which explained all that had to happen. What Jesus was showing his traveling companions was something he had earlier taught about as found at the end of the fifth chapter of the gospel of John where we hear Jesus tell a group of Pharisees, “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these Scriptures that bear witness to me yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” You see what the Scriptures are all about is Jesus. Period. What the people of Jesus’ day thought the Scriptures were all about how to have a God like life through their own efforts, you might say the ultimate self-help book. But nothing could be further from the truth because the Scriptures purpose is to do nothing more than to speak to the truth of Jesus, the one who is the very giver of life. The reason that these two disciples were blind to just who it is that walked beside them is that they were of the belief that they were able to save themselves with God’s help. This prevented them from seeing Jesus who can only be seen by those who know they are unable to save themselves and are totally counting on God to be there to deliver them. The first will seek to use their own effort fighting and destroying whatever is necessary to create their own version of heaven on earth. The second will trust in the promise of God that those willing to love as he does will certainly live like he does. It is they who, by doing the will of God, loving as God loves, these are the ones who bring heaven upon the earth. There is an old saying that you cannot find what you are not looking for and never was that more true than when searching the scriptures. If one believes that all God is good for is to bring success to ones life then they will probably find scriptures that support this idea but they most assuredly will miss out finding Jesus. If on the other hand, one has come to the end of themselves, their efforts, their dreams, their goals and is looking for some kind of hope to shine upon their hopeless life then they most assuredly will find Jesus staring at them from the pages of Scripture. They have to come to the place where it is Jesus or nothing else because to accept Jesus is to accept his version of life, a life that loves like God loves which means a refusal to retaliate, to seek revenge and to go further and to pray and care for those who persecute you and those who may even seek your life. This is why Jesus, God’s anointed one, had to suffer because he faithfully bore the name of God, the very characteristic of God a life full of steadfast love and faithfulness.  If God loved with steadfast love but was not faithful to extend this love to all he could not be a God who loved the whole world choosing to love a mere chosen few. If God were faithful without us knowing that he was faithful because of steadfast love we would be tempted to seek ways of getting God to be faithful to us alone. But as God is both we know that God is a God of steadfast love and faithfulness, faithful to extend steadfast love to all because of who God is not because of who we are. This is a love willing to suffer at the hands of those who oppose him. This is why throughout the Old Testament, especially in the book of Isaiah we read about the suffering of God’s servant. We hear it in the fiftieth chapter of Isaiah where the servant of God states, “The Lord has opened my ear and I was not rebellious. I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.But the Lord helps me ; therefore I am not disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near.” After you read these words does this sound like anyone you might know? Does any of this ring a bell? This same servant Isaiah continues to write about in the fifty second chapter where we read, “He was despised and rejected by men , a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, as one from whom men hide their faces; he was despised and we esteemed him not.Surely he has borne our griefs and our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions and he was crushed for iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his stripes we are healed.” I wonder what those disciples thought when this stranger whose identity was hid from their eyes, just what was going through their minds as scriptures such as these from Isaiah were presented to them on that road to Emmaus. I mean how could anyone not connect with what happened with Jesus on that day he died with these profound images from the pages of Isaiah. And yet Luke records that even as scripture upon scripture were opened to them by this stranger these two disciples still had no clue as to who he was.

         Well, at last the journey had reached its end and as these two disciples went into their home, they saw how the stranger who had enlightened their hearts and minds about how the servant of God must suffer, they saw how he kept on going down the road. Well, as they saw the sun setting low in the sky they yelled at him to come and join them for the evening. The stranger stopped and turned back, entering into the home of these two disciples. Luke records that the stranger abided with them, sounding much like the accounts of John’s gospel, where in the fourteenth chapter we read verses like this, “if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love them  and we will come to them and abide with them.” This is exactly what Jesus was doing, he had given these disciples his word, the truth about him from the scriptures and now he was going to abide with them and not only him but his Heavenly Father would also be there with them. So, as he sat at the table with these two disciples, it was this stranger who takes hold of the loaf of bread upon the table. Imagine that someone had invited you over for dinner and then you began serving the food to everyone at the table. Now you can understand the awkwardness of the moment. But Jesus broke all the rules because it had come time for him to heal their blindness. As Jesus took the bread, and then he blessed the bread and then he broke the bread and as he gave the bread something within the hearts of those disciples was no longer broken. There in those four movements their was recognition of the strangest sort. Since it was in these movements that their ability to recognize Jesus was at last restored it seems that we must meditate just why this is so. I believe that these four movements are the very way of Christ, how he relates to us, how we are to understand ourselves. You see, it is Jesus who has taken us, out of the world. In the seventh chapter of John we hear the prayer of Jesus. Jesus states the disciples were the Father’s and it was his Father who had given them to Jesus out of the world.  So the disciples were taken and then like the bread they were blessed or consecrated for a holy purpose. In the same way those the Father had given to Jesus were consecrated, set aside for holy use because they trusted in the faithfulness of the word of God. Then, as we remember, once the bread was taken and blessed it was broken. Those who whom Jesus has taken out of the world and blessed or consecrated for a holy purpose must also be broken. They must come to the end of their own efforts,  to be broken of their own selfish ambition to become like Christ, servants of God, loving others by serving others. Only as the ones Jesus has taken out of the world have been broken of their selfishness can they can experience oneness not only with each other but with God. Then the bread that was taken, and blessed, and then broken in the hands of Jesus, this bread was then given. This idea of bread that is given is reminiscent of what Jesus said about himself saying that the bread that he gives for the life of the world is his flesh. This is what it means to be given, to allow Jesus to take our life and use it to bring life to the world. You see, when we understand ourselves as people who have been taken out of the world into the hands of Jesus and that it is he who takes us and blesses us, sets us aside for a holy purpose through the faithfulness of his word, and when we allow him to break us, to create in us a heart of servanthood  and we then yield our very lives to him for service or to sacrifice what happens is that our very lives can be used by God to bring more life to the world. In this way, as those disciples witnessed, Jesus is seen. This is life which shines forth with the wisdom of God for as we learn in the twelfth chapter of Daniel, it is the wise that shall be raised up on the last day as Jesus has been raised up on the first day of the new creation.

         As the church we are the body of Christ, we are the one loaf, the bread of life. May we never forget that it is only as we remember that it is Christ who has taken us out of the world into his hands, only as he has blessed us, setting us apart for God’s holy purpose and only as Christ breaks us of our selfish desires and then as he gives us for the life of the world, this is when the resurrected Christ is seen in our midst for all the world to see. This is what the scriptures witness to and may it be what our lives witness to as well. To God be the glory! Amen!