THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

Gospel Lk 24:13-35

MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS,

The Resurrection Story continues in the Gospel Revelations read last week and this week. We had Jesus breath on His disciples giving them the Gift of the Holy Spirit and meeting with them on a very personal and intimate level. We then had the proclamation of the Apostle Thomas “My Lord My God!” This week these personal interactions are revisited. The two disciples who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus were obviously distressed by what had happened to Jesus and, by their act of walking away from Jerusalem, indicate that they were possibly in flight. They did not even realize who Jesus was. The news of Jesus’ Resurrection had no positive impact on them and did not change the fact they were leaving. During this Easter Season we are asked to reflect on the Resurrection and how it affects our relationship with Jesus Christ. Furthermore, we are challenged to examine how we should let the Resurrection impact our lives, the decisions that we make, and the way we conduct ourselves. It would be good for us to ask ourselves how important the Resurrection Event is to us. Does it take a predominant role in our lives or is it just another holiday and season on the Church Calendar? Do we find ourselves walking away from it like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus or are we walking towards it with true joy; understanding exactly what the Resurrection means to us and the entire world. The Resurrection is not just another holiday; it was and still is an event that shook the entire universe. Jesus Christ is truly risen and through that event we should follow Jesus as Children of the Resurrection and of the Light.

Unfortunately, there are those who profess some sort of belief in Jesus Christ or at least in God but cannot recognize Him in other people, in His creation, or even in their own lives. In other words, their belief in God has no impact on their lives above and beyond a confused understanding which they can barely express when asked and they are very ready to dismiss it when challenged. These are the ones who could even be walking with Jesus and not recognize Him. The challenge for us is to answer the question if we are with those individuals or are with those who know more and are ready to profess that knowledge; the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Helping us in this journey is the Eucharist. The disciples’ eyes were opened “In the Breaking of the Bread.” This is a gift that Jesus gave to us. Through it we are able to unite ourselves to Him physically, mentally, and spirituality. Jesus, through His disciples, instructed us to celebrate His death and resurrection by partaking in this gift as often as possible and whenever we gather in worship together. There is a reason for this and this reason is emphasized in the Gospel Reading today. When we unite ourselves to Christ on this intimate level we are open to receiving spiritual gifts and are open to receiving revelation which will affect the way we see the world and everything in God’s Creation. We are naturally lifted up and put on a higher plain of existence where everything comes into focus. There is no more confusion; only comfort and a closer relationship with anybody and anything we come into contact with. The Eucharist is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is in the Eucharist. Receiving Communion and partaking in the Eucharist offers us a window into perfection and enables us to experience perfection, which is God, in the present moment. It adds to our faith-life and to everything experience we have while living here on this earth. This is how the disciples eyes were opened in The Breaking of the Bread and this is why the experience was the first thing mentioned to Jesus’ other followers when the two returned to Jerusalem. Just as the Breaking of the Bread became central to the disciples at the Last Supper, in the resurrection Narrative, and throughout the Acts of the Apostles, so must it be in our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Every action of Jesus Christ had a purpose. Everything that Jesus said had intent. We as Christians are encouraged to watch and listen; discerning what these things are meant to mean for us. Learning about these things, bringing them to prayer, and letting them affect our daily lives and worship are part of what we need to do to make Jesus Christ central in our daily living. When this is focused on, only good things can result.

Deacon Tom

From the letter of the apostle Paul to the Ephesians

4:1-16

The various graces for the different ministries in the one body of Christ.

I plead with you, then, as a prisoner for the Lord, to live a life worthy of the calling you have received, with perfect humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another lovingly. Make every effort to preserve the unity which has the Spirit as its origin and peace as its binding force. There is but one body and one Spirit, just as there is but one hope given all of you by your call. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all, and works through all, and is in all.

Each of us has received God’s favor in the measure in which Christ bestows it. Thus you find Scripture saying:

“When he ascended on high, he took a host of captives

and gave gifts to men.”

“He ascended” — what does this mean but that he had first descended into the lower regions of the earth? He who descended is the very one who ascended high above the heavens, that he might fill all men with his gifts.

It is he who gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers in roles of service for the faithful to build up the body of Christ, till we become one in faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, and form that perfect man who is Christ come to full stature.

Let us, then, be children no longer, tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine that originates in human trickery and skill in proposing error. Rather, let us profess the truth in love and grow to the full maturity of Christ the head. Through him the whole body grows, and with the proper functioning of the members joined firmly together by each supporting ligament, builds itself up in love.

From the treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus, bishop

Preaching truth

The Church, which has spread everywhere, even to the ends of the earth, received the faith from the apostles and their disciples. By faith, we believe in one God, the almighty Father who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became man for our salvation. And we believe in the Holy Spirit who through the prophets foretold God’s plan: the coming of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, his birth from the Virgin, his passion, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension into heaven, and his final coming from heaven in the glory of his Father, to recapitulate all things and to raise all men from the dead, so that, by the decree of his invisible Father, he may make a just judgment in all things and so that every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth to Jesus Christ our Lord and our God, our Savior and our King, and every tongue confess him.

The Church, spread throughout the whole world, received this preaching and this faith and now preserves it carefully, dwelling as it were in one house. Having one soul and one heart, the Church holds this faith, preaches and teaches it consistently as though by a single voice. For though there are different languages, there is but one tradition.

The faith and the tradition of the churches founded in Germany are no different from those founded among the Spanish and the Celts, in the East, in Egypt, in Libya and elsewhere in the Mediterranean world. Just as God’s creature, the sun, is one and the same the world over, so also does the Church’s preaching shine everywhere to enlighten all men who want to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Now of those who speak with authority in the churches, no preacher however forceful will utter anything different — for no one is above the Master — nor will a less forceful preacher diminish what has been handed down. Since our faith is everywhere the same, no one who can say more augments it, nor can anyone who says less diminish it.