Luke 24:13-35
Well, it’s been a week when a certain meme
bearing a resemblance to Jesus has been the talk of social media. But instead of dwelling on that, I want to ask
the question I think our Gospel reading might point us toward: If we were seeking Jesus, just where would we
look, anyway? To explore that, let’s take
a little journey and see what we find.
The journey starts in the Holy Land. Almost three years ago, I was blessed to take
a Holy Land pilgrimage. Of course, that
journey included visits to the most significant locations in our faith family’s
history. In fact, the itinerary took a loosely
chronological approach to Jesus’ life, with the trip’s next-to-last day including
the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial.
Then, on the last day, to celebrate
resurrection, we went to Emmaus, the location for our Gospel reading today. We intrepid travelers piled onto the bus, again,
for day 10 of lurching through antiquity. By this point, we knew the drill: Sit in traffic for a while; listen to Ranya,
the guide, tell the story of where we were headed; wind along tiny roads
through the hills or the desert or the cliffs, marveling that the driver never
did hit anything. Once we got to this
day’s destination, seven miles or so out of Jerusalem, we crept up an even
smaller road, climbing an impossible hill; and we piled out of the bus to see …
well, a church. Another church. It should have been obvious, of course, but most
of the places we went didn’t have any structures from Jesus’ time still
standing. And, even if you’re visiting
something in nature, something other than the site of a holy building … who
knows historically which cave in Bethlehem housed the Holy Family, or which
hillside by the Sea of Galilee hosted the feeding of the 5,000? Pilgrimage is an approximate thing.
Anyway, near the place where at least some
historians think Emmaus was, we piled out of the bus to see a church dating from
centuries after Jesus would have walked the road there. Now, the church was cool; it was a
Crusader structure built just before the Christian conquerors were kicked back
out of the Holy Land – so close to the end of the Crusader empire that the
Christians never even got to finish their paintings in this church. Well, as we’d done a couple of dozen times by
this point in the pilgrimage, we walked into the church, heard five minutes of
history, did the Clark Griswold head nod as we looked around, and walked back
out again. The bloom was off the rose,
as far as church-visiting was concerned. And, at that one, near the site of Emmaus, I
didn’t feel any particularly inspiring presence of Jesus.
 |
| Gathering for worship overlooking the hills where Emmaus may have been. |
Now let’s bring our journey a little
closer to home. Last Wednesday, I was at
Mission Chateau for the monthly service we do there, and we were using the
readings appointed for today, including this Gospel. I told basically the same story about Emmaus I
just shared, giving thanks for what the theologians call the mystery of incarnation
– the way Christ shows up among us, still making us new through his gift of
resurrected life when we’d least expect it. For at least some in the group gathered there,
this Emmaus story rang true; one worshiper told me later she was grateful for the
reminder that God does, indeed, come alongside us – especially given the grief she’d
been carrying. It was lovely.
But, even though the Body and Blood had been
consumed, God wasn’t done showing up that day. After nearly everyone had left, another one of
the residents asked if I’d come sit with her. She was someone I’d seen before at these
services but not someone I really know. I
sat down, and we exchanged pleasantries for a minute before she said, “I want
to tell you something.” She locked eyes
with me, to make sure I was really listening, and she said: “I see things sometimes – visions. Now, when you were standing there at the
table, saying the Eucharistic prayer, I saw Ann [my wife, Ann] and Jesus,
standing there on either side of you.” Then,
she reached out, patted my chest, and said, “I want your heart to know the
peace they were here to bring you.”
Now, here’s what that woman didn’t know,
something I’m not sure I’ve shared here, either. Honestly, I am not blessed with visions of Ann.
I don’t glimpse her coming around the
corner or sitting next to me on the couch. And, honestly, I’m not blessed with visions of
Jesus out of Hollywood central casting, either. But … there have been a number of times, as
I’ve stood behind St. Andrew’s altar saying the Eucharistic prayer, when I’ve
known that they’re with me – both of them, Ann and Jesus, standing on either
side of me. It’s not a visual thing, but
it’s real presence. And those moments of
presence make me smile like pretty much nothing else does. Anyway, that’s what this woman saw Wednesday
morning – Ann on one side of me and Jesus on the other, as I stood behind a table
in the Mission Chateau library, offering the Eucharistic prayer. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that she told
me what she’d seen.
You know, there are so many Jesuses out
there we might seek. There’s the Jesus
of history, pursued by pilgrims across the ages, in person and in study and in
prayer. There’s the Jesus of our life
together in the here and now – the faithful company of disciples wherever we
find ourselves, the Body of Christ in a particular place, whoever they may be and
wherever they may stand. There’s the
Jesus who sidles up alongside us when we’re not looking, the one who catches
our eye and asks some question we’ve probably been avoiding, a question that’s
been burning within us. And then there’s
the Jesus of sacrament, the bread and wine that becomes Body and Blood, a real
presence in your hands and on your lips, so much more present than the mere physicality
of wheat and grapes.
It’s this last Jesus we’re most accustomed
to – and, honestly, we find him so often this way that Communion can become just
something we do. But it’s all about what
eyes we use when we look to that Bread and that Cup. You don’t have to have my new friend’s gift
for visions to encounter the living Christ at this altar. We come forward, and God never fails to show
up – taken, blessed, broken, and given for you, an outward and visible sign of
love for us that becomes a sure and certain gift of love to us. You just have to come with the eyes of faith wide
open. You just have to stretch out your
hands into heavenly space, breaking that plane marked by the altar rail, the
thin place between yourself and what’s next, the thin place between eternal
life, chapter 1, and eternal life, chapter 2 – you just have to stretch out
your hands into that heavenly space to find divine Love so really present you
can taste and see it.
And then … you go back to your seat. You go back to your grocery list, or your
project at work, or your kid’s questions, your last glimpse of your beloved. Just as the two disciples experienced at
Emmaus: On this side of eternal life,
Jesus will inevitably fade or fly away. And
just like the two of them, we want that moment of real presence to last. But, no. Jesus doesn’t work that way, at least not yet,
not here, not now.
And why? Because we have to move from the sublime holiness
of real presence back to the ordinary holiness of whatever life brings next. After our divine encounter, we’ve got work to
do, we pilgrims on this path together. It’s an insight that goes back to St.
Augustine in the 400s: He lifted up that
consecrated Bread and Wine, and he said, “Behold what you are; become what you
receive.” Behold what you are; become
what you receive. Just like the bread,
just like Jesus himself, we are taken, blessed, broken, and given for
God’s work in this world. We bear Jesus
into all our moments, from the mundane to the miraculous, the Body of Christ
given for the world here and now. Turns
out, we become the One we’ve been waiting for.
Don’t believe me? Well … maybe now, maybe later – in fact, maybe
during Communion – stop a minute. Look
to the left, look to the right, and behold the face of God.
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