The Emmaus Road

10th April 2005, Parish Communion

Luke 24:13-35

All of the resurrection stories are lovely but “the Emmaus Road” has everything:  sadness and disappointment, pathos and dramatic irony (we know all the time who the stranger is), then recognition, joy and new vitality.   (“They straight way returned to Jerusalem to share the good news with their friends.”)   And I like to think that the other disciple with Cleopas was his wife, Mary, who had been with the other women round the cross.   What could be more natural than that Cleopas should be going home with his wife after the sad events, and they courteously invited the stranger into their home?   The stranger!   The Risen Lord!

 

We can think of resurrection as of three kinds.   One, what happened to Jesus as he passed through death to his new risen life – “The first fruits of them that sleep”;  first to the glorious destiny that awaits us, too, we believe.   This is our faith.

 

Then, the resurrection of baptism when followers become members of Christ’s body, share his risen life.   We speak of going down into the waters of baptism to share in Christ’s death and then, with him, rising again to new life.

 

Thirdly, there is resurrection of the kind that may happen at intervals in our lives.   The sort that is recovery from loss, but more than recovery.   A new perspective, a new grasp, a new energy, a wider vision is granted.

 

The common factor in all three is NEW LIFE, and the condition is change.   Things are not as they were before.

 

First, let us think of the Risen Christ.   The manner of his rising is clothed in mystery.   No one, not even those first disciples who experienced his risen presence, knew how God had raised him.   The gospels are silent on the manner of it.   The accounts are reticent and there is some confusion if we try to make them all agree, but it comes through most plainly from the various gospel accounts how sure the witnesses were that they had again been in the presence of their Lord.   But he was changed.   The Risen Christ is not the same as Jesus of Nazareth.

 

In each account, he was not immediately recognised and each disciple found him in a different way.   Mary Magdalene, in her grief, thought he was the gardener until he spoke her name.   So, too, the disciples on the Emmaus road, though they spoke at length with the stranger, knew him finally at the meal, in the breaking of bread.   And Thomas, Doubting Thomas, knew Christ in his wounds;  the wounded Christ now glorious and released from limitation.   Able to come to them and promising to be with them, and us, to the end of age.

 

What of baptism?   We do not immediately think of it as resurrection nor do we expect to see any obvious change when an adult or a baby is baptised.   But we believe that they receive the Holy Spirit and become members of Christ’s body, the Church.   This is a very great change in status and must be worked out in the rest of our lives.   We are “Christ’s faithful soldiers and servants”.   At baptism, we become Christ’s and, as St Augustine taught, the rest is becoming what we are.   “Become what you are,” he said in a famous baptism sermon.

 

So what of resurrection after our small deaths? – failure, disappointment, losses of loves, friends, faculties?   How can these bring new life when they cause such pain, sorrow and frustration?   Well, as many of you will testify, by the grace of God they can and do, as we are led into acceptance, embracing without rancour our small deaths.

 

Living in God’s created world brings pain as well as joy, as we all well know;  loss as well as gain.   It is in receiving and drinking the cup of life without bitterness that we rise again, grow in stature and reach out to new life.

 

So resurrection?   Mysterious, yes, but also how things are, or can be, for us with God.   Yet resurrection is not commonplace or ordinary, for new life is not inevitable.   Suffering, death and futility are real in our world and can, and do, overwhelm people.

 

We even see in our society the desperate situation of people courting death by habits of drug-taking and binge drinking.   It seems so sad that life is not beautiful or promising enough, especially for the young, without these destructive, mood-changing substances and degrading habits.

 

The gospel truths that Christians know and must share – it is called MISSION! – is that life in Christ is new life, real life, a gift of grace and offered to all.

 

We are the baptised, the Eucharistic Community here in Chesterton;  RESURRECTION PEOPLE no less!

 

What shall we say?   What shall we do to spread the Easter message?   It is incumbent upon us to find ways of reaching out to those who need to hear.

 

Most weeks, we pray at the end of this service:

 

“May we who share Christ’s body live his risen life,

We who drink his cup bring life to others,”

 

RISEN LIFE – NOW.

 

We go on:

 

“We whom the Spirit lights bring light to the world ......

So we and all your children shall be free

and the whole earth live to praise your name.”

 

Glorious Easter vision – so be it.   Amen.