Known in the Breaking
The mysteries of Emmaus
Now on that same day two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. 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?” 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, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 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. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 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. 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.” Then he said to them, “Oh, 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.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 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. 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; and he vanished from their sight. 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?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Luke 24:13-35
Our reading from Luke today on the road to Emmaus is a story that is about the mysterious risen Jesus and is itself a mystery. We have a disciple we’ve never met, Cleopas, and an unnamed friend. We have a road to a place that isn’t mentioned again in the Bible, a place archeologists haven’t precisely nailed down where it was, like a road to somewhere yet nowhere. If we were to try to reimagine the scene in our mind’s eye, we might visualize an arid desert road, dust, hills, and shrubs, but we can’t really see it either. And what could Cleopas and his friend see? Not much. They were, after all, clouded in grief. The confusion and disappointment had overwhelmed them. This wasn’t like a shocking sports upset, this was all they thought they knew to be true being upended. The mystery they were in wasn’t just quizzical or interesting, but a weight. Their hope was dead. The morning came but the soul was in the dark. The chance for redemption of Israel which they were so sure of had fallen apart. The Jesus they thought they knew was now mysterious again, a tragic mystery at that.
Jesus is so mysterious to them that Cleopas doesn’t even recognize him when he’s inches away from his face. So they end up trying to tell Jesus about himself. They are so close to him yet so far, followers yet still foreigners to his kingdom, and they even look at him like he’s an idiot or maybe a spy, “What do you mean you don’t know what’s happened in Jerusalem?” Then they receive the first-ever Christian Bible study in history with the best possible teacher they could have had. And they still don’t get it. Maybe their grief is too heavy.
But maybe because they had been listening to Jesus for some time in the years leading up to the cross, and because there was just enough of the Holy Spirit nudging them, and because while they didn’t know why their hearts were burning, they extended hospitality to the stranger. “Come, stay with us, it’s getting late.” And as Luke describes in words we often say before Communion, “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.” (Luke 24:30-31). But then Scripture says a part we often leave out of the Lord’s Supper liturgy: “and he vanished from their sight.” (Luke 24:31)
About ten days ago I had an experience of walking down a road, you’ve probably had one like it before. It was right after our last snowfall, in what might be the last walk through snowy silence of the year. I was a couple miles from the house going towards Shadow Lake on a barely traversible road, and I see this figure from hundreds of yards away, completely still. Dark legs, a thick torso, and two big ol’ ears, a doe standing smack in the middle of the road, frozen and staring at me. I freeze too. Silence. I move one boot at a time. She turns askew, showing off her white tail. Then in three skips, swish swish swish, she flits off into the woods. I follow her tracks down the road, thinking maybe I could catch a glimpse again, but nope. Gone. Nothing more miraculous than a Wednesday in Vermont. But like Cleopas and his friend on their journey, I felt like I was in touch with something comprehensible and mysterious, the sacred beyond my control. A creature that could die, even be hunted, yet was part of a creation that is an ambassador of something utterly timeless.
On our pilgrim roads, Christ is like a deer in the snowy woods: present but elusive, vulnerable yet immortal. Like the disciples, we think we understand Jesus and history, but we really don’t. The second we think we do, if we invite Jesus in with us, he will show us a new part of the mystery, then just as we get a glimpse, he’s gone. We wonder again as the disciples did on the road, who was this Jesus, and what is he up to? And because he is so mysterious, for generations Christians have wondered, should we focus more on who he is or what he does?
This is one of the crucial debates within the last century of Protestantism, that some will frame as a rivalry, a choice we need to make between whether our Christianity is a “religion about Jesus” or the “religion of Jesus.” Some say too much of Christian history has made Christianity “about” Jesus, focusing on worshiping him and who he was as God’s son and our savior. And therefore, some argue, Christianity emphasizes too much about getting the correct beliefs. Instead, the argument goes, Christianity was always meant to be the religion “of” Jesus, focusing on what he did in caring for the less fortunate, loving our neighbors, and so on. I’m sure this resonates with some of us: “Shouldn’t we just get on to doing what he did?”
I think there is some truth to the idea that sometimes our Christianity only focuses too much on one or the other. We might spend so much time learning about Jesus and worshipping him that we forget a way we glorify him is in living lives of service to others, giving generously, sacrificing ourselves for the greater good. But trying to create a rivalry between whether we focus on “who Jesus was” or “what Jesus did” is misguided. We see here on the mysterious road to Emmaus that we can’t separate learning about Jesus and worshiping him and trying to do as he teaches us. I was joking earlier about the “first ever Bible study,” but if we’re going to talk about what Jesus does and follow what he does, here is using Scripture to teach his followers about himself. Throughout his ministry, the gospels tell us how he was interpreting the Law in a way that emphasized a circumcision of the heart (Deut 10:16) to love our neighbors while also teaching how the prophets foretold who he was. In other words, the religion “of” Jesus is at least partially the religion “about” Jesus.
The historian Tom Holland observed that one of the things that made Judaism and then, in turn, Christianity stand out among Roman society was that the Romans separated their sacrificial religions to gods from their elite philosophical discussions. Common people made sacrifices and worshipped their gods to gain their favor, while intellectuals debated the nature of the universe and spiritual life. “What you did” and “how you thought” were separate. But in Judaism and Christianity, ordinary people of all kinds would meet together every week to read Scripture together and discuss theology, while also worshipping God and serving their neighbors. To Jesus, none of these were isolated, but interwoven. Our religious tradition is not just doing, not just thinking, not just worshipping, but a whole way of living with transformed hearts that harmonizes mind, body, and soul.
It reminds me of why I almost don’t like the terms “Bible Study” and “Sunday School.” These aren’t pictures of a full immersion into the Word. Plus, most people don’t get thrilled at the idea of school or study. It sounds like work! Yes, it sometimes takes effort and learning (and I’m not going to try and come up with a better name for Bible study or Sunday school). But pay attention again to all that happens to Cleopas and his friend: they meet Jesus on the road before they knew who he was. Then Jesus, not them, opened up the Scripture they thought they knew. Their hearts were burning. So they invite him in, and they feast together. So if I had one wish today, it would be for anyone who doesn’t read the Bible because it feels like homework to instead believe what can happen when Christ illuminates the Word: it leaves you with a burning heart. It’s not simply “school,” it’s Jesus upending something you thought you knew that leaves your faith a little more renewed and your eyes opened yet again that you may live transformed, doing as he did.
On the road to Emmaus, Jesus is not separating who he is from what he does. Because once we know who he is, that gives us the reason to pay serious attention to what he does. That’s why he begins his ministry in Luke in the synagogue, proclaiming audaciously from Isaiah, “He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed.” (Luke 4:18). He’s the Lord anointed, the Messiah; that’s who he is. So pay attention! And what does the Messiah do? He sets free the captives of every slavery; that’s what God does. Pay attention.
But Cleopas and his friend aren’t fully there yet. They’re figuring out who Jesus is and what he does in real time, the earliest image of the church that still knows less than we think we know. But they’re still church. Because church is a pilgrimage from the place we know to the place we don’t, journeying from the events and the history we think we understand (but that only God really understands) into the unknown. So don’t read the Bible like you’re in a classroom, but like you’re on the road. Read it as a pilgrim trying to find the map while walking the territory and saying, “Jesus, this doesn’t make sense, show me more.”
The religion “of” Jesus is not just breaking bread with neighbors, but learning about Jesus being God. But the religion “about” Jesus is not just that he’s God, but that God breaks bread and prepares a table in the presence of his enemies. The question is not whether we take or leave the opinions of a popular wise man, but if we believe that God himself came to dwell among us. If we do, listen to what he told us about what it means to live in love, to forgive as we have been forgiven, and to give generously of ourselves to anyone who needs it.
For he’s not just God among us, he’s God within you. This is not so that we can live quietly enlightened in our living rooms, but so that all rooms in this beautiful but broken world become living rooms. You cannot know about Jesus in your heart for too long before he starts to shape you, re-forming you in his Spirit, and bringing you back to the life of the world in charity and service, truth and love, witnessing to persecution and enduring suffering, giving of yourself but no longer by yourself, but within him, all of us with each other: communion.
And so he breaks bread with us. It’s not just what he does, but also who he is—Jesus is the bread that is broken for us in the presence of our enemies. We know him in the breaking. He is God opening himself up to offer himself to we who are estranged to him and estranged from each other. It’s who he is and what he does, what he calls us to be and what he calls us to do: beloved children of the most-high God, redeemed sinners sharing in the love of God with other redeemed sinners. We may not fully know him until the moment we do as he did. Is your heart not burning?
For more discussion of this week’s readings:
