Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA
Luke 24
What we do here at this table is an extraordinary thing. Granted the elements that we begin with are quite ordinary – common bread, grape juice or wine, ordinary plates & cups, a cloth and a wooden table. Ordinary things – “signs” Augustine would have called them. In ancient Greek and Latin, a sign is something which reveals a truth beyond itself. Augustine went on to say that signs “when they are connected to divine things become Sacraments.” A sacrament then is some ordinary thing which has a divine meaning beyond itself. Extraordinary!
But what meaning?
What we do here is supposed to be a celebration filled with outrageous joy. In our communion litany we call it a “joyous feast”. Is that how you approach the table?
For some time, I have been conducting an informal survey of sorts. On Communion Sundays, I have been asking people what it is that they think of when they come to the Table to share Communion. The responses that I had gotten most often is that they recall the last Supper. When I ask how that makes them feel, most often I heard the words: sadness, inadequacy, and sorrow.
Now, most assuredly, the Last Supper is at the core of what we do here. The very words of institution, “Take, eat. This is my Body…Do this in remembrance of me” come directly from our recorded text of Jesus’ last Passover Supper that he shared with his disciples before his arrest and crucifixion. But is it somberness that we are supposed to share here?
Take a look at the Cross above us that hangs over our Cancel area. What do you see there?
It is an empty Cross. As a sign it represents resurrection and salvation.
It is empty. Our Cross is empty as is the Tomb. Now, that is not to say that we are not aware of the weight and the cost of our sins that the Christ bore on our behalf. Rather, it means that we focus more on the Triumphant victory of Christ resurrection over the death of our sins. We focus on the Christ once crucified, but now risen. We focus on the joyous gift of Salvation that God has given us.
Well, the same thing is true of this table. We focus not so much on the events of Jesus’ last Passover but on the day of his resurrection. We focus on his rising and victory over death and sin from which he has set us free. That is what we celebrate at this table. The meal we share more closely follows on the meal Jesus shared with the disciples he met on the road to Emmaus on the evening after his rising.
Luke says to us, “On that same day [which we understand that to be the day of his rising], two of Jesus’ disciples were on their walk returning to their homes on the road to Emmaus.”
Consider for a moment, their mood. They would have been despondent, devasted. Their spirits were broken. The one leader, their Lord, who they had put their trust and hopes in was dead. Not only was he dead, he had been humiliated and executed in a most horrible way – crucifixion on a Roman Cross. Luke understates their mood calling it “sad and gloomy”.
As followers of Jesus, they had thought that He was the one who would deliver Israel and set her free from foreign rule and domination. But the harsh realities of Israel’s political circumstances dashed their hopes, and their expectations of deliverance were destroyed. So, there they were on the road – lost without hope – when a stranger appears on the road walking alongside them.
Now we know with hindsight that this stranger is Jesus but at the time, they didn’t recognize him. This was a strange reality of all of the sightings of Jesus after his resurrection. It was Jesus but he was different. He was coming into his glory, and they didn’t see the Rabbi who had lived among them for three years. When Jesus appeared to his disciples in the upper room, he had to show them the wounds in his hands and feet. He had to show them to Thomas. Even to these two, he would have to provide a sign.
What transpires is a Q&A. Jesus asks questions of them, and they answer blindly without seeing what was before them. Then, the stranger speaks to them about the Messiah and explains the Scriptures concerning him and why it was he had to suffer and die on the Cross.
As he speaks, Luke tells us later that something was burning in their hearts and it excited them – but still they did not recognize him. Still the Word was a stranger to them.
After a seven-mile trek back to their homes, they arrive at Emmaus near sunset. The stranger seems to want to continue on, but they ask him to stay with them for dinner – to share a meal together. He agrees.
Now this is where the story becomes interesting and begins to weave itself into our celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
The women who were a part of the Passover pilgrimage prepare and set up a meal. Then when it was ready and set before them, the stranger takes his place at the table. The stranger takes the bread and does a typical Jewish thing. He takes the bread and holds it up before God and offers a blessing. He takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it and shares it with them. He does this very ordinary thing and something extraordinary happens. Their eyes are opened, and they recognize him.
Don’t miss this. Please understand what Luke is telling us here.
Jesus’ disciples, who knew him well, who had spent the better part of three years listening to him teach them, who they had walked alongside for seven miles in intimate conversation did not recognize him until he broke the bread and shared it with them.
The Word was a stranger to them – yes it burned in their hearts when they heard him speak – but it remained a stranger until he broke the bread, and their eyes were opened. Calvin would insist to you that in our Worship the Word and the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the Lord’s Supper are two parts of critically equal importance. Without one the other is diminished. Without a sharing of the bread, we cannot recognize the Word. Without the Word, the sharing of the bread has no extraordinary meaning.
We are called to Worship God. We hear the Word spoken to us and interpreted each week in Sunday Sermons and so our hearts burn. But our eyes are not opened to recognize the RISEN Lord until we share with him the bread of this meal. He has prepared a place for us. A setting has been laid out for us, and he welcomes us to come and join him here. This is where we make the connection between the Word of Scripture that speaks of him and the RISEN Lord. Here is where we connect the Word to the Rising.
Then what happens next? Jesus disappears from their midst, and they are suddenly overwhelmed with joy. They rise from their table and in near hysterical euphoria they return to Jerusalem to share the good news that they had seen the Risen Lord with the other disciples who have sheltered themselves behind locked doors.
In a reflection of that euphoria, we come to this table to share in this joyous feast.
In the fullness of our Worship, we are called by God to be gathered in, to hear the Word of God spoken to us and to see and experience the Risen Lord and then to affirm what we believe with the assurance of the Holy Spirit. From here we are led to go out into the world to share in an outpouring of our outrageous Joy what we have heard and seen and that we know to be the Truth.
Jesus Christ is Risen. Indeed! Extraordinary! Amen
