Acts 2.14a, 36-41 The Lord added to their number those who were being saved
1 Peter 1.17-23 You have been born anew through the
living and enduring word of God.
Luke 24.13-35 They recognised him in the breaking of
bread
For you have
delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears and my feet from falling.
I will walk
before the Lord in the land of the living. Alleluia. (Psalm 116)
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The resurrection of Jesus Christ brings
life where there is death, light where there is darkness and hope where there is
despair.
But never confuse this with frothy,
naïve, optimism.
Jesus says in the gospels, ‘I came that
you may have life and have it abundantly’ (John 10.10) and St Paul says that we
should ‘take hold of the life that really is life’. (1 Timothy 6.19).
In other words, there’s more to life
than going through the motions.
For the Christian though the starting
point for finding life is to die; to die to self, to sin, to all the power
games and manipulations that we get caught up in, to all the illusions we set
up for ourselves or others draw us into.
That’s the implication of being
baptised. Seeking life. Receiving life. Living life.
That is at the heart of the spiritual
life.
The greatest exemplars of this, the
saints, have rarely been the rich, the highly esteemed, the totally ‘sorted’.
Rather, to be a saint is to be on the
path, on the way, moving from death, darkness and despair to life, light and
hope in Christ.
The saint walks in ‘the way, the truth
and the life’: always with Christ; always in the name of Christ; always through
Christ.
Today’s gospel reading maps out this
journey, this way to life and insight and encounter with the living God.
It all takes place on the Day of
Resurrection itself.
Our two disciples were trudging along
the road going over and over with each other what had been happening in the
past few days.
As they told their, as yet unidentified,
companion, they were discussing, “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”.
It's a story of bewilderment and
disappointment. And they were stuck in it. Even what the women had told them –
that they had heard that Jesus was alive - hadn’t stirred these disciples from
their self-consumed misery.
How often does life throw bewilderment
and disappointment at us? At home or at work; when we look around us in the
wider world and even around Croydon, perhaps especially around Croydon at the
moment – bewilderment and disappointment.
Like the two disciples, bewilderment and
disappointment may come in to us in our faith, our life of prayer or at church.
Spiritual torpor, or acedie as the
great spiritual writers from earliest times call it, is spiritual listlessness,
bewilderment, disappointment.
‘We had hoped…’ we say with the two
bewildered, disappointed disciples.
But that’s where something arresting and
decisive happens.
What did we say at the beginning? What
is the message of Eastertide?
It is that the resurrection of Jesus
Christ brings life where there is death, light where there is darkness and hope
where there is despair.
And the Crucified and Risen Lord himself,
in person, brings recognition and clarity to our bewilderment and
disappointment.
The Crucified and Risen Lord does that
for these two disciples, first by opening up the scriptures; showing that they
should not be surprised that he, the Messiah, had to suffer these things and
then enter into his glory.
By pointing to Moses and the Prophets he
shows that God chooses to work in the mirk and mire of human existence, meeting
us where we are, before taking us along the path to life, life in all its
abundance, life that really is life.
And what a Bible Study session those two
disciples got with the Word of God himself, the Word Made Flesh.
No wonder they themselves said, ‘‘Were
not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while
he was opening the scriptures to us?’
Wow!
When did you last open your Bible and
seriously read it knowing that your heart would burn with meeting the Crucified
and Risen Lord in it?
When did you last hear a reading from
the scriptures and sense you had met the Crucified and Risen Lord?
When did you last hammer my door down
asking for more Bible study?
I wonder how many Christians sense, in
the words of the Letter to the Hebrews, that ‘the word of God is living and
active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from
spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of
the heart.’ (Hebrews 4.12)
Then the story moves on. It wasn’t just
the scriptures that set their hearts racing as things fell into place and bewilderment
turned to clarity.
They showed beautiful hospitality and
invited him into their home. It was a deeper invitation into their hearts and
lives, an invitation you can make today.
Then as we heard, ‘he took bread,
blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and
they recognized Jesus’.
Do you see the pattern? The scriptures
are opened and insight shared; bread is broken and Jesus Christ is made present
in his Church.
This is what we do Sunday by Sunday,
actually day by day, in this parish, this is the Eucharist: the word moves us to
the sacrament, which itself moves us from bewilderment and disappointment to
clarity and hope in the Crucified and Risen Lord.
This is what our Easter proclamation of
life, hope and light is rooted in, deep roots.
Then, as we read, ‘he vanished from
their sight’.
You’d forgive them for being bewildered
and disappointed: he’d gone. Again.
This time they don’t brood between
themselves, they don’t mope. They have met him in the sacrament; they will
always meet him and feed on him in the breaking of bread where he is present.
They immediately got up – having already
said how late it was - and returned to Jerusalem – where they had first met
their bewilderment and disappointment - and they found other disciples who were
saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ Then they
told what had happened on the road, and how Christ had been made known to them
in the breaking of the bread.’
There is the Emmaus Road journey. This
is where the Christian Way takes us. This is where the Eucharist takes us: In
the words of our psalm, ‘For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes
from tears and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of
the living.’
Are you ready to tell of what has
happened to you, on the way, and to tell of Jesus Christ, the Crucified and
Risen Lord?
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