Velazquez’ “Kitchen Maid With Supper at Emmaus”https://www.nationalgallery.ie/sites/default/files/2017-04/w1500-Vel%C3%A1zquez-Kitchen-Maid.jpg
Then the two disciples described what had happened along the road and how Jesus was made known to them as he broke the bread. (Luke 24:35)
We were walking along the road talking about everything that had happened in the last few days. We spoke about how Jesus had come to Jerusalem.
We welcomed him with branches strewn in the road and cloaks spread across the path where he passed. Hosannas were in the air.
Then he went into the temple and taught. Even as he left for the day he had healed people. His words and his deeds were powerful. Everyone could tell that he was a mighty prophet.
But then our chief priests and the elders themselves handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him.
Here we had hoped and had hoped. All our hopes were in him that he would be the one: the savior, the Messiah, the one to redeem Israel.
All these things had happened just three days before.
But then, we recalled what had happened earlier that day. Some of the women had gone to the tomb in the morning and found an empty tomb, and angels who said that Jesus had risen. and when Peter went to check, he found no one there at all.
It was strange and disturbing to hear these things and we had left town. We were on our way away from all this when a stranger came alongside us and became our companion on the way and we told him what was in our minds and on our hearts.
Somehow, he was someone you could trust. So we told him.
He surprised us, though, by rebuking us, saying we were foolish and had not understood.
We were going the wrong way in what we were thinking and what we were feeling.
We thought it was all over, but he said, this is something that had to happen.
I wish we had taken notes. He told us from the beginning of the scriptures all that the prophets had to say about the Messiah.
The miles passed more quickly and we found ourselves at the village as evening was drawing in.
We did not want the conversation to end. We wanted to hear more. He seemed to be ready to walk on alone, but we pressed an invitation on him to stay with us. It was after all drawing on to night and it was not a time for travelers to walk alone.
So he came in with us to the Inn and at the table he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to us.
And that is when we recognized him.
It had only been three days after all since we had last broken bread with him.
And here he was breaking the bread again and sharing it. Alive, as always alive. More than always. He shared the bread with us, and then as our eyes were opened he – disappeared.
On the way as he had told us what was happening, our hearts were warmed. Our minds were opened so that we understood
that
what had happened and
what was happening
was not the end,
was not cause for despair,
but that in it,
even in the worst of it,
was hope
and that now a new hope was beginning:
for he has risen.
So we could not help but turn around and run back up the hill to Jerusalem to tell our friends.
***
They were there, they told the story. But did they understand it? Weren’t they headed the wrong way, thinking that all was over, when in fact all was only beginning?
When they are most despondent or at least baffled, the holy one appears…but he is transformed and unfamiliar.
He meets them where they are. He joins them on their journey.
They admit to this stranger, this unexpected companion on the way, that they are discouraged and uncertain how to proceed… except, apparently, to head away from the center of action.
He invites them to reveal their thoughts, wonderings – to tell their own story of what had happened these last days.
He encourages them to share their perceptions, hopes, questions, disappointments.
They take him for a foreign visitor, and a particularly clueless one, as even those seem to have been aware… but he is not offended.
Jesus never takes his interlocutors for granted. He gives them the dignity of supplying their own answers, as he did when he asked the blind beggar Bartimaeus “what do you want me to do for you?”
(Of course this enhances the storytelling quality of the narrative, drawing us further in, as the dialogue continues.)
The other disciple is unnamed - could it be us?
There was a common understanding of Jesus as a prophet.
Everybody, it seems, knows what to expect and what it meant – except this stranger.
Then: It looks like it’s all over….. but he is risen.
How could this possibly be?
As if they were blind and needed their eyes, and their hearts, to be opened, just as the blind and the lame and the deaf needed healing, beyond the physical, to the spiritual, so these need the ‘opening’ of their minds, the healing of hearts.
From the beginning until now, he taught them, Christ was coming.
(heightened tension) He explained what the Christ is, on the road, but they wanted to know, who is he? “Where can I find this living water?”
In the great Middle Eastern tradition, they show hospitality … and find themselves entertaining more than an angel, unawares.
They fully recognized him in the breaking and sharing of the bread, rather than only in the exposition of Scripture. Now he is real.
This is the one who only three days before had last broken bread with his disciples. Now he is transfigured in the resurrection.
It was in the ‘opening’ to them of the scriptures that they first became inspired, and left behind their ‘folly’ and disconsolate past.
But: this is their moment of illumination. They recall, only now, after his glory is revealed, all that he had taught them – on the road to Emmaus that day, and on all those roads they had travelled before his death.
He has turned them around – from despair to hope.
They encountered him on the road; he opened their minds through his teaching. In the action of communion, he opened their hearts.
In the bread, in the wine, of Eucharist, when we are in the presence of each other in communion, we may truly perceive his presence, in the Spirit, in our midst.
Open our eyes, that we may see… beyond our own preconceptions and preferences. Perhaps the Christ we need to see comes to us similarly veiled.
Do our eyes need to be opened? Our hearts? Our understanding? Do we need to be healed, as the blind were healed, but in our souls?
Who or what has prevented us from recognizing Jesus? Our fear? Anxiety? Preconceptions of the Messiah? Preoccupations?
I wonder: Do we truly know him in the breaking of the bread? In the communion we share? Do we see the stamp of Christ in each other?
When do we fully see Jesus for who he is? When do we see each other in fullness? And then, as we go out into the world to spread the word and serve the world in its breathless need, do we see its goodness, the love of Christ reflected in his care?
Lord Jesus, be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love. Amen. (from A Collect for the Presence of Christ)
https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Easter/AEaster3_RCL.html
http://edgeofenclosure.org/easter3a.html
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Kitchen Scene with Supper at Emmaus, Rijck, 1605
http://edgeofenclosure.org/emmausrijck.html
Velazquez’ “Kitchen Maid With Supper at Emmaus”
https://www.nationalgallery.ie/sites/default/files/2017-04/w1500-Vel%C3%A1zquez-Kitchen-Maid.jpg
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