Sermon for the 1 st Sunday after Easter, April 19, 2009
“ He took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? ”
THERE is a lovely account from the Gospel according to St. Luke we read on Easter Monday, were we to come again to celebrate Christ's Resurrection with another service. On that first Easter Sunday, two disciples walked from Jerusalem to Emmaus, about seven miles on foot. They were excitedly talking about the events of the day as they knew them. From somewhere, a stranger joined them and heard their talk. He asked them why they were so upset. Cleopas asked if He were new around there, that He hadn't heard all the events. Their companion asked which events, and was told, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; and when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.”
At this point, their companion said, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he showed them all the scriptures that concerning God's Messiah. Seven miles took them perhaps two and a half hours, and that discussion had to be marvelous. Imagine the first Bible study that concerned who Jesus is and what the prophets had written about Him. I've heard several figures quoted of how many prophecies in the Old Testament were made about Him, how many He fulfilled in those 33 years. The things concerning the end times, the final judgment and eternal reign are of course yet to come, but Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies. It's impossible for that to be circumstantial. The stranger enlightened them on which ones had been fulfilled and how Christ had walked into their lives right out of the words of the ancient prophets. He spoke as one who knew these ancients. Moses wrote of Adam and Eve, in the day of their fall, when God told Satan, “ I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” Gen 3:15 Jesus was that seed. Of how God told Abraham, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Gen 12:3 Jesus, Abraham's descendant, was the blessing. Of how Jacob said of his son Judah, the scepter of rulership would remain in that tribe. Jesus was of the tribe. Isaiah had written of a new tree coming from the stump of David's failed line of kings. Micah wrote that He would be born in Bethlehem. Daniel gave the very year of His birth. He was to be born of a virgin and called God with Us, Immanuel. A messenger would prepare His way. He was to be a Prophet like Moses. This king would save the people and would properly be called The Lord our Righteousness. He was also to be a “priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.” Psalms 110:4 He would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. And there He would be sold for thirty silver coins, coins later thrown into the Temple to purchase the potters' field. Down to the details, it was all there.
Even the specifics of His Passion were written on every page of the prophets. Lashes, beatings, spitting, piercing His hands and feet, gambling for His clothes while He silently took it. But, the stranger urged the confused disciples, this had to happen. It was why He came. It was to atone for our transgressions that He accepted this torture. Iniquities, chastening, stripes: it was by these that we were to be restored. “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth… For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked—But with the rich at His death… Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief.” Isaiah 53:7-10 “O ught not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” He asked them. There was a reason He had to die. Then the man revealed the way the old books showed Christ would rise to life again . “ For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.” Psalm 16:10 “God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, For He shall receive me.” Psalm 49:15 “I know that my Redeemer lives.”
The men were astonished. No one had put the verses together in these ways before, but these were truer and better than any other explanation they had heard about Messiah since their earliest instruction. It all added up, yet they had never heard it told this way before. Piece by piece of previously unexplained events fell into place: the sacrifice of Isaac, Jacob's ladder, the kindness of Joseph toward his brothers, the Exodus and the Promised Land, the very meaning of Passover, why God kept His remnant of Israel through their many departures from the faith. It all became at once clear. Everything was coming to this—all things were made to come to and to face the events of this weekend.
Cleopas and his friend were alternately speechless and then furiously asking questions of the stranger. At last they came to Emmaus, and he began to leave them at the door of their lodging. “Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent,” they said. So He entered and they sat down to eat. As the stranger took up bread, He blessed it, broke it, and as He held it out to them, they suddenly recognized the man with the wonderful Bible class. It was Jesus Himself. And just as they saw it, He vanished into thin air. “And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.” Luke 24:32-35
A Bible study to break your heart: that was what Jesus gave them. All the endless Rabbi's analyses of God's special regard toward Abraham's children had missed the point. The Jewish hope of Messiah had always congratulated themselves for being chosen, but chosen for what? God had real business with them: His Self-revelation came to them, so they might reveal Him to the world. His clear commands they had received and ultimately disregarded, or rewritten to suit themselves. His place of worship they had turned into a marketplace. His kings had built temples for other gods. They had killed His prophets who were sent to correct their errors, and even after exile they had turned to defile themselves with idols. In short, they were just like you and me. The iniquity of us all God must address and deal with: but how?
Forget it? Wave it off? Impossible: He is pure, He is holy, He is goodness and love and almighty, the Judge of our souls. Should God shirk His job, abandon His truth and be unjust? No. Then He could only damn us to hell and burn up the world and perhaps start all over. This was a plausible path, and He would be right to pursue it, but then the whole creation would have had no point and God would have lost His bid for a race that would choose Him and love Him and seeking Him, at last find Him. Another way must be found, and that Way is His Son. The Incarnation of Jesus Christ is God's moment. No one would have expected this. Not even the infernal enemy of our souls could have anticipated it. But as real as you please, the God of Israel's Temple walked right into that Temple and owned it. The priests of the Temple saw only a man and engineered His arrest, trial and death. God had anticipated their every move. In this magnificent chess-like strategy, God used His own vulnerability to draw the evil in men's hearts to attack Him, and in defeating Him, He gave them that one narrow chance. Enter in that thin, strange gate and live forever. It's the offer He makes to every person. It's how He meant it to be. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? Only when we see it from this side of His Resurrection do we find the pattern, the picture that He was painting, the way He was creating. It is still not evident to all people, and that's a shame. But He means it for all to find, yet only those humble in heart and contrite over their meanness, their vile deeds, their lowest points, their failures will prefer it to their former lives.
People will only face the real truth of themselves when there is an answer, a redemptive cure for our sickness. We are sick, a culture that breeds corruption. Don't look so disparagingly at Christ's countrymen: they were better people that I am, better than most of us. They were of cleaner minds and bodies, more disciplined in worship, more faithful in marriage, better parents, harder working, and more willing to declare their religious allegiance. It's more appropriate today that Christ had to die for the sins of people: we need His Atonement more than they ever did. We need the forgiveness that only He brings. We need it very badly.
To the frightened apostles, the two disciples came back. They were surprised to see them again, knowing of their trip to Emmaus. But their story surprised them more, and their own hearts began to burn within them, hearing how Jesus fulfilled the scriptures. “T hey told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.” The Christian priesthood, given to them all that same night, with Christ's breath and the Holy Ghost gift of remission of sins, joined the mystery of that bread. Through that bread we unworthy subjects of this new Way take the Lord of Life into our bodies and incorporate Him into our souls. He reveals Himself when that bread is given to us and we eat. Let our hearts burn within us. Let our eyes be opened to see our Savior. Let our lives become the very fruit for which He came and gave so much. Let us find and follow that one slim chance He offers to the people of our time, His unimaginable gift of salvation.
PFH+