Third Sunday of Easter, Year A (26 April 2020)
Prof Patricia Broadfoot
Luke 24.13-35, 1 Peter 1.17-23
This sermon is included in the video of extracts from the online service on the same day.
Recently, I was walking in the woods above Wotton under Edge. The woods were deserted. I thought I was quite alone. But suddenly out of nowhere a runner appeared behind me. It certainly made me jump. I wonder if that is what Cleopas and the other disciples experienced when they suddenly become aware of someone behind them on that empty road. Did he make them jump?
Cleopas and his friend are returning home, disappointed and dejected. They are engrossed in their conversation. So much has happened in Jerusalem and they are trying to make sense of it. Cleopas and his friend have clearly been in the room with the other disciples when the women rush in to announce their amazing news – and clearly, like the others in that room, they do not believed ‘the idle tale’ of the women. And so they walk and the stranger joins them on the road though they do not hear him approach.
He seems amazingly ignorant and so they offer him a brief summary of the momentous events of the last few days. It all comes pouring out – the shattered hopes and dreams. They are walking with the risen Christ, but they do not recognise him.
I’ve often wondered why people do not recognise Jesus in these initial encounters after the resurrection. Does he hide his identity from these two even as He expounds the scriptures to them? Does he deliberately hide his identity from Mary Magdalen at the tomb when she takes him to be the gardener? But perhaps it’s the other way round. It’s not Jesus who is hiding his identity. Rather the individuals don’t recognise Jesus because they believe he is dead. They have seen him die. The thing that has happened is emphatically not what they expected. The disciples are so overwhelmed with the disappointment of the crucifixion that they go on believing what they believed before. ‘We had hoped,’ say the two on the road to Emmaus, ‘that he was the one to redeem Israel’. But (they imply) they crucified him so he obviously wasn’t. Everybody knows that a crucified messiah is a contradiction in terms. We are just another failed Messianic movement.
Then Jesus expounds the scriptures to them as they walk along the road. Later, when they come to look back on their journey, they recognise that it was their dawning understanding of the Biblical story and what it meant that warmed their hearts most strangely, a biblical story that is all about God bringing redemption and new life through the Messiah’s death and his subsequent resurrection. The disciples had been slow to understand what had really happened in Jerusalem because they had been looking in the wrong direction.
Like these two disciples, we too find ourselves today, on a journey the like of which we have never been on before. We are passing through dark and difficult days, days when we have become all too painfully aware of our vulnerability as human beings and the fragility of the social order we have so painstakingly created. We are fearful, worried, uncertain what the future will bring. We are accustomed to looking forward to bright new horizons of economic growth; to progress towards a better world. But we have been stopped in our tracks. At best, we are disappointed in the apparent failure of our civilisation to defeat this new enemy. At worst, we are in the grips of despair about the future.
But maybe, like those two unbelieving disciples, we are facing in the wrong direction; looking in the wrong place. As for them, so for us, the scriptures have a clear message. Death is not the end; Jesus’ dying and rising has broken through into a new way of being human.
Eventually the two disciples recognise Jesus in the familiar action of breaking bread. And he immediately vanishes from their sight. They don’t need to see him anymore because they understand, and they believe. Once they realise that Jesus has indeed risen from the dead, they are so full of joy that they can’t wait to share the good news with the other disciples. Despite the dangers of the night, they set off immediately to share their amazement, their wonder and their overflowing joy that Jesus has risen and the world is changed for ever.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has taken hold in countries around the world, one of the most positive outcomes is that we have begun to see a new way of being human shine out in our world; a new way based on love and care for others; a world of selfless service. Whether it is the health workers putting their own lives at risk or individuals like Captain Tom Moore raising huge sums of money by their personal endeavours, we are seeing heart-warming examples of personal sacrifice and service.
In this service we shall be hearing a new version of the Beatitudes for the pandemic which express in quite specific terms something of this new outpouring of love. But first at the end of this short talk, I want to share with you the more traditional words, this time taken from the ‘New Living Translation’. As we listen to them, let us use our imagination to become those disciples who recognised Jesus in the breaking of bread after walking with him on the road to Emmaus. Let the Word of God shine through our fear to give us new hope that in these dark times, the love of Jesus is being shown in countless different ways to those in need. We know that Jesus has defeated death; that His light is stronger than the darkness. That because He has risen, He is with us, on this road and every road ahead just as He was with those disciples on the road to Emmaus. We just have to recognise Him.
The Beatitudes.
3 God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
4 God blesses those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 God blesses those who are humble,
for they will inherit the whole earth.
6 God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice,[b]
for they will be satisfied.
7 God blesses those who are merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 God blesses those whose hearts are pure,
for they will see God.
9 God blesses those who work for peace,
for they will be called the children of God.
10 God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
from Matthew 5.1-12 New Living Translation (NLT)
Amen.
Prof. Patricia Broadfoot