St Luke’s, Havelock North – Easter 3, 2008 – Sermon

Reading: Luke 24: 13-35

The Road to Emmaus – a story so famous cafes the world over have been named after it. In the midst of what one of our local biblical scholars calls the stranglehold John’s gospel has on the post-Easter period, Luke gets a brief look-in with one of the most treasured and well known resurrection accounts in the Bible.

Two disciples are on their way to Emmaus. These aren’t senior-management disciples, but of a lower echelon. They’ve heard the stories about the empty tomb and so forth but they’re clearly sceptical and the fact they’re not sticking around in Jerusalem suggests they’ve given up the cause. “we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” they tell the mysterious stranger they meet on the road, but the use of the past tense tells us they’ve given up those hopes.

During the rest of the story we get the common elements found in post-resurrection accounts – the stranger seems familiar but they don’t recognize Jesus until later, there’s an ‘a-ha’ moment when the veil drops and inevitably there’s something clearly physical that happens to underscore the reality of his resurrection, in this case the breaking of the bread.

And therein we get a glimpse of the whole point of these accounts. John and Luke don’t tell these post-Easter stories just because they can, they tell them for a very specific purpose – to underscore and make it clear that Jesus has indeed been physically raised from the dead. He’s not a ghost or a spirit or an apparition of any kind, this risen Christ is a walking, talking, eating, drinking, physical being. It’s a point that would very quickly become a source of huge debates in the early Christian community. Paul spends a significant amount of ink and energy arguing this point and often getting very technical in the process, but the bottom line is always the same, without the resurrection there is no Church, there can be no Christianity if Jesus wasn’t physically raised from the dead.

Not that the debates ended with Paul of course. The resurrection remains a hot topic even today. I recall a conversation when I was at theological college with a senior lecturer at the time who told how his elderly father – a churchgoing man of many decades – had been flabbergasted when someone suggested the Christian faith depended on a physical resurrection. Never in his 80+ years had he even considered the possibility of taking the resurrection literally, and nor would he now. And he was in relatively good company. Throughout most churches you’ll find those who don’t believe in a physical resurrection but still consider themselves faithful Christians regardless. I have to admit that personally the resurrection is something upon which my attitudes and beliefs have shifted over the years. So as much as Paul might want to make it black and white, two millennia of Christianity has proven it’s not that simple, except it is, of course, for the gospel writers.

There’s no question for Luke and John. They go to great lengths to make clear the physicality of Jesus’ appearances, from the doubts of Thomas settled by touching the risen Christ’s wounds, to the shared breakfast on the shores of a lake, to the sharing of bread in Emmaus, the gospel accounts make it clear that any emotional of spiritual understanding of the resurrection must be undergirded by a physical experience of the risen Christ, and they had good reason for that.

One of the things I think we sometimes forget is that the 1^st century Palestinian world of the New Testament was actually quite a different world to the one we live in today. There are literally dozens of examples of that, but just one relates to our focus today. For us in 21^st century Havelock North any discussion about Gods being raised from the dead is probably fairly much restricted to conversations about Christianity, not so in 1^st century Palestine though. This isn’t the time or place for a comparative religions lecture, but suffice to say that stories about Gods dying and being resurrected were almost a dime a dozen at that time. Various Egyptian and other legends featured deities who rose from the dead, often after three days, and even the Roman emperor worship cult held some similarities with what would become Christian doctrine. So to claim that Jesus had died and was risen just added him to a significant list of other such claims, but to back that up with real experiences recounted by eye witness testimony, that was different, that’s one point. Another is that the gospel writers knew that to hear about and even accept something is one thing, but to see and touch and experience it for yourself, now that’s something else entirely. From day one, the gospel writers make clear, this thing that would come to be called Christianity has been based not just on stories or legends, but on experiences – experiences that both Luke and John especially describe in great detail in their stories of physical encounters with the risen Christ.

So let’s forget about 1^st century Palestine for a moment and ask this question, how do we experience the risen Christ today? Yes, we have the scriptures and our stories and our hymns and our prayers, but where are our Emmaus roads? How do we touch Christ’s wounds and feel his breath? There are two ways in particular of course which our gospel reading this morning alludes to. One is through the Eucharist. Just as Cleopas and his companion recognized Christ in the breaking of the bread, so we are invited to experience him for ourselves each time we share the Communion together. Of course it’s easy to get sidelined by different opinions about how or whether Christ is present in the bread and wine, but the point remains that, if we let it, the Eucharist can be a powerful encounter with Christ.

Secondly our reading reminds us that we can experience Christ through those whom we meet on the road. Again, this isn’t the time to point out the many differences between 1^st century Hebrew expectations concerning hospitality and our own, but for two thousand years the idea that we welcome Christ when we welcome the stranger has been a common one. It begins with Jesus himself, of course, in the reminder that ‘what you do for them you do for me’ but it carries on strongly into the epistles and beyond, and became enshrined in the Rule of St Benedict, the foundation for so many religious for over fifteen hundred years, in the oft-quoted sentence in the 53^rd chapter of the Rule directing that “all guests be received as Christ.”

It’s a sign I’d like inscribed over our front doors and stuck to every mirror in every bedroom of every parishioner. What differences would it make to the way we greet and treat people if we took that injunction seriously? What if we were to honestly believe that every person who walked through those doors were the embodiment of Christ? What if we genuinely thought that the newcomer left ignored in the lounge while we talk to our mates over morning tea was actually Jesus?

But again, we can only experience the risen Christ in the stranger if we allow it. Despite barging into locked rooms and showing up unannounced during hikes and fishing expeditions, I somehow suspect that just like the pre-crucifixion Jesus, the risen Christ wouldn’t hang around too long where he wasn’t wanted. He wouldn’t force himself onto those who chose to ignore him. He simply arrives and stays, but only if invited.

How do we experience the risen Christ? I believe this is a vital question for us all. It’s not just an academic idea or a spiritually uplifting suggestion, it’s actually at the heart of what it means to be a Christian, because that’s one thing that hasn’t changed between 1^st century Palestine and 21^st century Havelock North – no matter when or where, Christianity has never been and never will be an intellectual pursuit or an exercise in spiritual self-improvement. Christianity has always been and will always be about a personal experience of the risen Christ, an encounter with the Jesus who comes and stands among us, it isn’t an understanding or a feeling or even a belief, it is a relationship, albeit a relationship with a purpose, but that’s another sermon entirely.

So may we too see the living Christ. May we experience his presence and hear his voice. May we look on those we meet and know, Christ is risen. Thanks be to God.