Sermon April 7, 2024
REVELATION IN HOSPITALITY
Philip Burchill
Our Gospel text this morning is the mysterious and intriguing account of Christ’s resurrected appearance to His followers on the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-35). Rather than exposit a principle and topical theme from the text we are going to take an exegetical approach step into the world of the Scripture by investigating this story carefully verse by verse in context and connection to other verses that will throw a deeper light and will enlarge our understanding of this story. In my last sermon it was mentioned the for the early Church the book of nature and scripture were approached in compatible interpretive method of a double meaning both literal historical and analogical and symbolic. In nature ‘everything is connected to everything’ and we will discover the same applies for Scripture, which is not isolated tables of classification and is more organic and interconnected like a tree’s leaves, branches and root system.
Starting with verse 13: ‘And behold the two of them were going to a village Emmaus sixty stadium equal to an eight mile walk.’
We know from the text these are extended followers of Christ not part of the immediate 11 remaining apostles. One is Cleopas the other is likely to be Luke considering the text does not specifically mention the second individual. These two are on their way home to Emmaus about an eight mile journey after the Passover in Jerusalem and the events of Christ’s passion.
In v 15. It is mentioned while they were talking and discussing with one another Jesus approached and began talking with them’.
This is a fulfilment of the words in Matthew 18:20 ‘When two or more are gathered in my name there I am in the midst of them’. Bonhoeffer states the church is Christ existing as community. Another words God appears in the space of relationship with others. God comes along side them meetings where they are and travels alongside them. Christ meeting them on the road is a fitting fulfillment of the first Christians original name ‘followers of the way’.
V. 16 ‘But their eyes were kept from recognizing him’.
The scripture says ‘we walk by faith not by sight’. If Christ revealed himself this would be empirical proof and knowledge and not faith which is ‘the substance of things hoped for conviction of things not seen’. Christ likely conceals his identity to test their faith to reveal what they know what is in their hearts both to Christ and themselves. Since Jesus is God omniscient all knowing and asks them open questions to which he already knows the answers to. St. Gregory comments, ‘ he refrained from manifesting to them from which they recognize outwardly with the eye of God.
V. 17 ‘And he said, what are the words you are exchanging with one another as you are walking? And he came to a stop looking sad downcast’.
These followers of Jesus are in grief that Christ ‘who lived without blame had come to death’ (Bede) and are discouraged for their hopes and dreams for the messiah to bring justice and God’s reign to Israel had been shattered. ‘They were hoping he was the one going to rescue Israel’.
v. 18 And one of them whose name was Cleopas answered are you a stranger who does not know the things that have happened in Jerusalem? And he said to them ‘What things?’ v. 19 ‘They reply, ‘The things about Jesus the Nazarene who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people.
Notice the disciples confess Christ to be a prophet and do not make mention of him as the Messiah. This indicates potentially their fear of prosecution for believing in Christ as messiah is politically subversive threatening the stability to the Roman empire. To the Jews it would be considered blasphemous. Either they concealing what they believe about him or most likely are confused, do not grasp the resurrection in a state of shock, bewilderment mixed with faith and doubt.
A second note of interest is the order of: first deed and word in the sight of God and all the people. The emphasis here is that action is of higher importance than belief. Christ uttered on the sermon on the mount as disciples we are called to be both a hearer and a doer of the word. Jesus brother James would later say ‘Faith without works is dead’ and I will show you my faith by my works. Faith is working with words. There is no separation of theoretical and practical knowledge. The authentic life of faith is philosophy embodied. The order indicates also action goes before sight and the importance for the motive of the action. Before God and all the people it is important to do good works for the sake of God not fear or recognition of man’s applause called to give in secret. We seek to honor and please God first and secondly give concern to our fellow men.
V. 20/21 And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death and crucified Him. “But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this it is the third day since these things happened.”
The Messiah of the disciples expectations did not match up to their current circumstances. They expected the establishment of a worldly kingdom a physical institution that would overthrow the Roman empire and banish Roman oppression. The disciples are feeling the stinging pain of injustice and moral outrage of their teacher Christ innocent and just was put to death without cause and an unfair trial.
The mention of the third day shows they remember Christ’s words about rising but he had not appeared to them directly and are not fully convinced. The true purpose of the Messiah’s mission had not sank into the apostles understanding and like many of us the truth needs repeating over and again before they get it. The apostles are imperfect no different from the rest of ordinary humanity who Christ is working with and through. A witness of Christ’s appearance has happened to the women and Peter which shows they are unsure and need to witness Christ’s resurrection for themselves.
Israel Story:
I found myself in a similar situation psychologically to the disciples filled with doubt about my faith in Christ as the Messiah. In my undergraduate I was working on a degree in Biblical Studies I left for a semester abroad in Israel in Jerusalem in the old city quarter. The college was located above the hinom valley known as gehenna that was referred to a trash dump where human sacrifices were made and is the metaphorical location used by NT writers to describe hell Gehenna. I ironically used to joke I was studying above hell.
After living and studying in Jerusalem for a couple months I started to think after mixing in the market’s being surrounded by a majority of Jews and Muslims with only 2-5% Christian population. How can what I believe be the exclusive path to truth are all these other people devoutly following their tradition with equal zeal maybe more go to hell because they did not believe in Christ. Further this thought process evolved into doubting if Christ really is the Messiah the Son of God? In the midst of a period of time a dark cloud of uncertainty hung over me like an oppressive weight. One evening the students were invited to our German professors’ home for dinner who was teaching Christian communities in the middle east and her husband was a philosophy professor at Hebrew University. Upon arrival I remember being astonished at the number of books in the apartment in fact every room carried stacks of book cases all of them read. During dinner the class started discussing the conversation ended up revealing Miles an oxford trained philosopher no longer believed in Christ as the Son of God only a moral teacher and now identified himself as agnostic. Some devout evangelical Christians tried disputing him quoting C.S. Lewis famous line ‘Christ is either lunatic, liar or Lord’ and had not left ‘a good moral teacher’ option open. To all this philosopher’s learning their apologetics carried no sway it fell on deaf ears and as I watched my doubt seeped in deeper.
On my way back to the university that evening I thought, well I can end up a philosopher the most learned land into agnosticism question everything or devote a life to good works. It would be probably advisable to follow the ladder course. Oppressed with the weight of doubt I headed back to the college and stopped at succot halel a 24/7 house of prayer across the hinom valley from Jerusalem University college where I was studying. I got into the tranquil empty room with worship music subtly playing in the background and I made a prayer in my mind. Feeling confused and heavy in my mind I said, God please confirm to me if Jesus is truly the messiah. Immediately after I uttered this prayer a song came on the speaker with the lyrics, ‘Jesus give me one reason to doubt You are Messiah!’ And immediately from that moment forth the dark clouds of doubt were dispersed by a piercing clarity of faith that Jesus Christ is the Messiah was stamped in my soul. I needed that personal specific undoubtedly clear sign in it’s exact timing to get ahold of me. And for you it will be something unique and personal in a way you specifically understand and believe. Like the disciples in our story, many of us need our own personal direct experience of the risen Christ. As it will become even clearer next week’s text of doubting Thomas. In these next verses we see second hand testimony is not enough to convince these followers of the resurrection who are on their way to Emmaus.
V. 22-24 continues… ‘But also, some women among us amazed us when they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find the body they came saying they had seen a vision of angels. Who said that he is a live. Some of the women went with us to the tomb and found it exactly as the women said, but Him they did not see”.
Scholars often note the reference to women testifying of the resurrection is revolutionary for its dramatic elevation of the status of women in a patriarchal society where women were not given a legitimate voice in a court of law. If they were trying to establish credibility of testimony this is not how one would traditionally or effectively go about it. In Christ’ministry and witness of the resurrection women are elevated and here given the first privilege for the first witness of the resurrection and become ‘the apostles to the apostles’.
Even after hearing testimony from the women and Peter still needed to go and verify for themselves. The women’s words and Peter’s finding of the empty tomb were not enough to persuade them, they require a vision or some encounter like the others. The empty tomb and testimony of others points to the direction to the resurrection but this still does not for them prove conclusively as for Peter and the women so far.
V. 25-26 Christ responds, ‘O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.’
In clear and direct terms the Lord points out the disciples lack of faith and ignorance. Saying ‘fools and slow of heart to believe’. Christ goes onto clarify their misunderstanding of the messiah’s role by pointing out in the scriptures is not a political deliverer in the warrior king as they expected rather to the suffering servant who comes to inaugurate a Kingdom not of this world for the spiritual and physical redemption of all mankind. One of the clearest scriptures of prophecy in the prophet Isaih that outlines the Messiah’s true ministry was uttered seven centuries before Christ in the 53rd chapter, reading:
‘He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised and we did not esteem him.
Surely our griefs He himself bore, And our sorrows He carried Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for out well being fell upon him and by His scourging we are healed.
He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet he did not open his mouth like a lamb that is led to slaughter and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers so He did not open his mouth.
9 His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet he was with a rich man in His death, because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.
…12 Because he poured himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors Yet he himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressions.
Passages such as this and others in the OT expound the mysteries of the scriptures and point to the true mission of the Messiah was to suffer on behalf of the people to restore our relationship to God. Christ elevates these followers insular understanding of a political deliverance for the Jews and expands their understanding to behold the larger cosmic picture of Christ’s saving work for All mankind. Christ’s interpretation of the scriptures begins to unlock the doors to hope and make meaning out of the rubble of their current circumstances. What the enemy intended for evil God works about for His greater predestined purpose. The disciples faintly are beginning to see. An early commentator writes, ‘Therefore their execution was impious but God’s purpose most wise, Who converted their iniquity into a blessing on mankind. As it were giving a viper flesh for working of a health antidote’.
v. 28 And they approached the village where they were going and he gave the impression that He was going farther.
God comes along the disciples journey he does not invade or impose against their free will. Echoing our meditation earlier by William Barclay, ‘God gave us the greatest and the most perilous gift in the world, the gift of free will; we can use it to invite Christ to enter our lives or to allow him to pass on.’ Similarly in Revelation Christ says, ‘Behold , I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.’ By traveling further Christ is fulfilling his own words when he said if asked to go with someone one mile go the extra mile. Christ is still a stranger at this point it is courteous of the disciples to offer hospitality.
v. 29 But they urged Him saying, ‘Stay with us for its getting toward evening and the day is now nearly over. So he went in to stay with them.
St. Gregory comments, ‘they could not be a stranger to charity with whom charity was walking, they invite Him as a stranger as if to partake of their hospitality’.
This episode of hospitality also echoes the writer of the Hebrews when he said, ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unaware.’
Dolores and Peggy know this very well offering hospitality to the homeless men and women who come to i-help. By taking these men and women off the street providing a meal and shelter they are welcoming Christ and entertaining Angels. Scripture commends we all partake of this noble act there is no higher calling or greater use of our time.
V. 30-31 When he reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it and breaking it began giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him and He vanished from their sight.
This encounter evokes what Aristotle defined in classical drama as the anagnorisis – the recognition scene. It is the moment when the characters undergoes a change from ignorance to knowledge. The result brings about ‘affection or enmity , it determines the direction of good or ill fortune of the fates of the people involved. Recognition may be based on visible signs, memory or reasoning but the best kind is that which arises from action alone’. Here the climactic pivotal moment of recognition in drama comes into existence.
We see here, hospitality precedes revelation. Loving action precipitates understanding and recognition of God. The expositing of the scripture prepared the ground and opening the door of hospitality enabled God’s divine presence to emerge in their conscious awareness. Christ states how will they know you are my disciples? By proclamation of the sinners prayer, a Christian bumper sticker on your car or your political identification? No by your love for one another. Christ breaking the bread and blessing it is proof of Christ’s physical bodily resurrection and the later vanishing is due to capabilities of the resurrected body. Christ is the first fruits of the resurrection example of the type of bodily resurrection we will join with him as believers in the age to come. Christ is also demonstrating here how he is to be recognized in the future in the sacrament of communion, take this in remembrance of me the breaking of the bread. The disciples recognition is a recollection of who he is at the table of fellowship. Interestingly the disciples did not recognize Christ merely by his expounding of the scriptures but by this experience of hospitality the breaking of bread of tangible fellowship. The deed confirms the Word and Christ’s identity begins to click in their hearts and minds. ‘For not the hearers of the word re just before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.’
V. 32 They said to one another, ‘were our hearts not burning within us while he was speaking to us on the road, while he was expounding the scriptures to us?’
The disciples finally recognize Christ’s identity and was confirmed by their flame burning in the hearts. Their enthusiasm which translates literally in Greek ‘en theos’ is ‘in God’. For the word of Christ is not a dead letter to dissect with a sterile analysis of an impersonal and detached observer. These are living words directly intimately involved relevant then and there as they are here and now. The letters to the Hebrews tells us ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever’ (13:8) and ‘The word of God is living and active sharper than a double edged, and piercing as far as soul and spirit of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart’ (4: 12).
St Gregory comments on the disciples experience of Christ ‘reading of the word when they heard it their spirits were kindled, the chill of dullness departs, the mind becomes awakened with heavenly desire.. It as if every word of Christ dripped heavenly precepts and it was as if adding logs to the fire of the disciples piety.’
V. 33 And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them.
Initially the disciples headed onto Emmaus in a spirit of discouragement and disorientation and now they are reoriented back to Jerusalem in the fire of enthusiasm, zeal and hope to join the Christian fellowship. After breaking bread with the resurrected Christ a divine pulse surges through these followers veins whose hearts are on fire. The dark could of doubt have subsided and the light of faith and hope is on their horizon. As a result of this restoration of faith they reroute back to their divine course to spread the Gospel touched by the proof of Christ’s words ‘Behold I am with you always to the end of the age’. Such a story of unconditional love and support and being put on track to their purpose is captured similarly in this episode illustration I want to share with you which is an analogy of God’s guidance to get back on track to our divine mission and join the fellowship even when we are tempted to stray and isolate after times of doubt and discouragement.
“On New Years Day 1929, Georgia Tech played the University of California in the Rose Bowl. In that game a player recovered a fumble but became confused and ran the wrong way. A team mate tackled him just before he scored a touch down against his own team. At half time all the players went in to the dressing room wondering what the coach would say. This young man sat by himself put a towel over his head and cried like a baby. When the team ran back on the field to go to the second half the coach stunned the team when he announced that the same players who started the first half would start the second. All the players left the dressing room except this young player who wouldn’t budge. The coach saw his cheeks were wet with a strong man’s tears and he said coach I can’t do it. I’ve ruined you. I’ve ruined and disgraced the university of California. I’ve ruined myself. I couldn’t face that crowd in the stadium again. The coach replied, ‘Roy, get up and Go Back!’ The game is only half over. ‘
Like the young man encouraged by his coach to return to the game, the disciples are encouraged after their encounter with the risen Christ to return back to their positions to join the fellowship of believers in Jerusalem and spread the good news proclaiming, ‘It is a fact that the Lord has risen and he has appeared to Simon’. So they recounted all that had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of bread.’ Amen.