Rev. Todd Hoeffs     The 3rd Sunday Of Easter      Sermon: St. Luke 24:13-35

Title: "Recognizing Whom We See"

April 10, 2005

May God fill you all with great hope and joy in your believing. Amen. "And it came to pass while they were conversing and discussing, Jesus Himself, after drawing near, was journeying with them, but their eyes were held back so as not to recognize Him.and it came to pass that while He was reclining at table with them, having taken the bread, He blessed; and having broken, He was giving [it] to them, and their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He Himself became invisible to them." This is the Word of the Lord.

In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Eusebius, early Church historian and prolific keeper of early Church records, gave evidence to the family background to our disciples on the road to Emmaus. Cleopas, husband to a certain Mary who went to the Lord's tomb to anoint His body, was also the brother of St. Joseph. Making Cleopas Jesus' uncle. The unnamed disciple traveling with Cleopas was his son, Simeon, who later became the 2nd Bishop of the Church in Jerusalem. He succeeded Jesus' brother, St. James, who was the 1st disciple of Jesus to be martyred. Cleopas would have been a prominent figure in the Church at the time when St. Luke's Gospel began circulating. We may wonder why they didn't recognize this stranger who had mysteriously joined them if they'd been family!? But something more important than a family tie is evident here: Jesus is recognized in the Breaking of the Bread in order to give to His disciples certainty of faith!

On the Emmaus journey, the 2 disciples conversed and discussed all these things until "Jesus drew near and journeyed with them." This journey is catechetical. Jesus wished to teach them with a concealed identity and as the climax, bring them to faith in the Breaking of the Bread. Until then, their eyes were held back from seeing Him as their Lord. This closing of eyes that see comes from God's hand. This occurred all the time to the Pharisees.

They said they saw and knew, but really, they lived in spiritual blindness. This phrasing of open and closed eyes in St. Luke's Gospel originally comes from Genesis 3; where the eyes of Adam and Eve are opened to the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden after biting into the forbidden fruit. They recognize their nakedness and are ashamed. The opened eyes of Adam and Eve are the 1st expression of the FALLEN CREATION who recognizes that the image of God has been dirtied and obliterated by sin. While generations live with eyes open to their sin and shame, their eyes are closed to the glory of God. He remains shielded by a rainbow, a cloud, stone tablets with the 10 Words of Law, and then through human male priests and prophets, mediating between God and man until the Christ is born.

But when the eyes of the Emmaus disciples are opened in the Breaking of the Bread, this is the 1st expression of the NEW CREATION who recognizes that the image of God NOW IS RESTORED through the NEW ADAM, the crucified, dead, and risen Jesus Christ. But before their eyes were opened, Jesus opened up the Scriptures to them. For their responses to Jesus' questions give away their uninformed faith. "The things concerning this Jesus of Nazareth, who was a man, a prophet mighty in deed and word in the presence of God and all the people." They believed they had been enlightened already. They know Jesus came from Nazareth, and yet have not understood His sermon in Nazareth where He announced that His ministry on earth would involve release and forgiveness from sins by His life and death. They believed Jesus to be a prophet, and yet have not understood that everything the prophets foretold dealt with the Messiah as a suffering servant. A prophet is legitimate BECAUSE He works in the presence of God and His people - but not according to disciples' way of thinking. "Our chief priests and rulers delivered Him over to judgement of death and crucified Him. BUT WE WERE HOPING THAT HE IS THE ONE ABOUT TO REDEEM ISRAEL." Jesus' crucifixion and death destroyed their hopes. In their view, Jesus lost the battle.

The Emmaus disciples' idea of redemption likely encompassed political and social dimensions:

freedom from Roman tyranny through a deliverer with military par-excellence! Still, we can see ourselves in view of the 2 men traveling that day. We want God to calm our troubled lives. Still our storms. Heal our pains. Destroy our evil, self-indulgent culture. Fill our lives with earthly security. Close our eyes to the things we don't like to see. Close our eyes to our own sinfulness. We are no better than those 2 walking that dusty way. We have the entire Bible before our eyes and yet we can't see how God works for the good of those who love Him. We'd rather not recognize ourselves, rather not see our world as it is and that we can't really do anything in our human power to stop it. And we'd rather not recognize God for Who He is in His Son Jesus Christ. For if we do, it means patience in suffering. So Jesus opens up the Scriptures to them and to us. "And beginning with Moses and from all the prophets, He explained to them on all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

Through the CROSS, Jesus DID redeem Israel. Recall Zechariah in the 1st chapter of St. Luke's Gospel: "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people." For throughout the Scriptures, in the lives of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others, the men of God were rejected and resisted, some to the point of death. "And you, O Israel, who stones the prophets! How I longed to bring you in as a mother hen guards her young chicks under her wings." AND "[For it was] necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into His glory." We, like the Emmaus disciples, are foolish and slow of heart to believe. Or, at the very least, to live as we believe. For all of this teaching on the road and the catechism classes you undergo and the numerous Sunday sermons you hear are to prepare you to believe so that you may receive Christ in the Breaking of the Bread.

Jesus builds the faith of the Emmaus disciples on the foundation of the prophets. Jesus is the last and greatest prophet. Everything in the Scriptures points to Jesus and relates to His Death and Resurrection. These are signs of fulfillment. He has entered into His glory by bleeding, dying, resting and rising to new life. He has made His divine exodus complete in the cross and grave. "We preach Christ crucified!"

And yet He remains the stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man, embraces in His very person the tensions and strife that we, as His Bride the Church, experience in this life. For Jesus has walked that road alone, as both a stranger and as the Redeemer of the world, drawing all people to Himself.

We may even be a little bit jealous of the Emmaus disciples. They got to walk and talk with Jesus, finally recognizing Him in the breaking of Bread. Like the story of a little orphan boy in Mexico who sneaked into a Roman Catholic Church on Christmas Eve. Come Christmas morning, the priest found the boy curled up next to a replica of the baby Jesus laying in the manger in their life-size Nativity scene. When asked, the boy said: "I was cold, so I just wanted to get a little closer to Jesus and be warm." What we wouldn't do to get a little closer to Jesus. And we can. By faith. In His Word and Holy Sacraments. Maybe that's not what we want to hear. But that's when faith gives what the human mind cannot comprehend. That hearing and reading God's Word and receiving Christ in the Bread and Wine is better that walking with Him BECAUSE these gifts literally fill us up with Him to feed our faith and comfort our weak resignations.

And so the climax of this teaching journey and the unraveling of the truth of Scripture is that JESUS WILL BE RECOGNIZED BY FAITH IN THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD. Jesus has prepared His listeners. Now He wishes to feed them at their request. "Abide with us, for it is evening, and the day is almost over." As the crucified and resurrected Lord it is even MORE IMPORTANT for Jesus to abide with them, setting the pattern for the Church's worship of Word and Sacrament until the end of time.

The journey to Emmaus reveals Jesus' redemption won on the CROSS for ALL PEOPLE because He gives His holy meal outside Jerusalem! His meal is the New Testament in His blood. Setting into motion the life of the Church. Emmaus is roughly 7 miles outside of Jerusalem, showing that the Church must be for all people in all times and in all places. That's why in Acts 1 Jesus said to His followers before ascending into Heaven: "you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth."

The Word and the Breaking of the Bread are the means to Mission. The way the Church will grow. The way men, women and children will recognize Christ. IN THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD! IN THE LORD'S SUPPER! For Jesus took the break, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them at Emmaus - and their EYES WERE OPENED AND THEY RECOGNIZED HIM! The table at the Emmaus home is the Table of the Lord, because, as they recognize Him, He is PRESENT WITH THEM IN THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD. Just as Adam and Eve's eating of the forbidden fruit was the 1st recorded meal of the old era of the creation which fell into sin; so this meal at Emmaus is the 1st meal in the new era launched by Christ's resurrection. This meal at Emmaus reverses the curse of Adam and Eve's sinful eating. In the distributed Bread of the Lord, eyes are now opened to see Jesus as the Seed of the woman promised from of old. And this is the heart of the message they will spread as they return to Jerusalem, to the 11 in the upper room, proclaiming this in full to all who hear them!

Jesus chooses to reveal Himself in the Breaking of the Bread so that we, as the Church, remain humble: willing to listen and learn - willing to receive from the Lord what we need for life. The Lord's Supper is part and parcel of who we are as Christians. It is how Jesus chooses to reveal Himself in the fleshly presence of His crucified and risen BODY AND BLOOD. He is there in the flesh - in the wafer and wine. There we are transformed. We are made new. We are given certainty of faith. He remains ever present with the Church which confesses the One True Faith. Jesus is physically present with us in His flesh and blood, though unseen. We have eyes of faith open to receive from Him and believe. That's why Jesus disappeared as the Emmaus disciples recognized Him. Until the End of the Age, Jesus, the glorious King sitting at the right hand of the Father, will remain BODILY present in His Church wherever it may be found.

The Emmaus journey and the meal with the Lord is the pattern for the Church. It's even seen in the liturgy of the Church, where, following the Confession and Holy Absolution, the Service of the Word carries us through the Scriptures until the singing of the Offertory; then, the Service of the Sacrament climaxes with the consecration and distribution of the Lord's Supper!

He is physically present, as real as He was then, feeding us with His Body, making us part of His Body, abiding with us until the evening comes and we draw our last breath. The Lord's Supper will be the feast of the Church until that day when Jesus again eats with His disciples at the "marriage feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom, which has no end." In the Breaking of the Bread, we, by faith, recognize Jesus and all He is and are tantalized while we wait for His visible and glorious return. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.