Br. Adam McCoy, OHC
Easter 3 B - Sunday, April 22, 2012
Gang nach Emmaus (the road to Emmaus),
by Robert Zünd (1826-1909), Kunstmuseum, St Gallen, Switzerland
Acts 3:12-19
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48
I am sure I have told this story before, so I ask pardon of the brethren for repeating it. But it was, and remains, an important learning in my life.
In 1982, I accompanied our Superior, Clark Trafton, to West Africa, to visit our then-newly established monastery in Cape Coast, Ghana, and to visit our former monastery and mission at Bolahun, Liberia. At Monrovia we were joined by Br. Laurence, who had taught science and mathematics at our school in Bolahun for many years. He must have seen me staring out the window at the forest. I was hoping, of course, for a jungle, with large animals and vines and if not Tarzan, at least something exciting and exotic. I think he could see my disappointment.
It looked pretty much like any scruffy forest anywhere, sort of like the forests in central Michigan where I had gone to college, and which contained nothing exotic at all. Nothing. I thought. So Laurence took me in hand, and started to point out the different kinds of trees and plants, and the kinds of ecology they represented, with the typical animals and insects, and how humans interacted with them. My mind opened. By the time we reached Bolahun, I was seeing the Liberian forest with completely different eyes. It had been flat, dull, uninteresting. Now it pulsed with energy for me.
Sometimes we think we know what we’re seeing, because we’ve seen it so many times before, or it looks like something we’ve seen somewhere else. But when we begin to understand, bit by bit, what we are looking at, we gain a different understanding, and it comes alive.
The portion of the vast scriptural forest we are looking at today is part of the Resurrection story in the Gospel of Luke, a story which we have heard so often, it may seem flat, even uninteresting to us. We’re not supposed to admit that in Church, but it can happen.
Luke’s account of the Resurrection is not at all episodic, but consists of a single connected narrative, the story of the road to Emmaus, in which two disciples share an extended conversation with the resurrected Jesus, recognize him in the breaking of the bread, and then, after he disappears, rush to join the rest of the disciples back in Jerusalem, where today’s Gospel tells us Jesus appeared in the midst of them, in an encounter very much like the story of Thomas in John, but without Thomas and without the doubt.
By far the biggest tree in this forest is the statement Jesus makes about himself and the scriptures: "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you -- that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." This repeats the gist of what Jesus told the two disciples as they walked toward Emmaus, in the earlier part of Luke, of which our passage today is the conclusion, and it is underscored again by Peter in the speech we just heard from the Acts of the Apostles. It’s a statement so general we are tempted to move past it quickly. But we shouldn’t. It should prompt us to ask, What passages of scripture are you talking about? What do they say? Just what kind of tree is this? Is this a later editor telling us to read the footnotes? Or is it more? There’s no secret to the answer: When we unfold these passages and consider them whole in relation to Jesus, there is more. Much more.
There are many, many places we might look in the Old Testament for references to Jesus, and each one will take us in fascinating directions. But the ones that seem most appropriate in the context of the day of the Resurrection appearances might be those that explain the meaning of Jesus’ death. And for this purpose there are no more important references in the Jewish scriptures than the songs of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah. The early Church saw in them the principal prophecy and explanation of the Passion. If we look at them, we will have a much better idea of Jesus’s character and the events of the crucifixion. But we will also, and this is what I hope we can look at today, have a much better idea of what the Servant’s suffering was going to accomplish, what it was to build. In other words, what the Resurrection victory might look like to scripture-saturated early Christians.
There are four Servant Songs in Isaiah. The first (Isaiah 42:1ff) speaks of justice as the servant’s accomplishment: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” The second (Isaiah 49:1ff) says the Servant was called from birth, and will bring universal salvation: “The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name....I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” The third (Isaiah 50:4ff) tells of his gracious teaching, which will be rewarded by shame and violence: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary....I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.” And the fourth (Isaiah 52:13ff) tells us that by his sufferings we shall be healed:
“He was despised and rejected; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:3-5)A man who is chosen by the Spirit, called from birth, who will suffer shame and violence, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
We are all aware of the identity of Jesus from Isaiah, because these passages are so prominent in the Church’s worship and teaching. But perhaps we are not so aware of the promises God intends though them, and which the early Christians would have known as well:
- Justice to all the nations;
- universal salvation;
- gracious teaching;
- and healing for all.
The fulfillment of the promise of the Resurrection begins with the disciples themselves. We’re so busy looking at Jesus in Luke’s narrative that a closer look at how the Resurrection has begun to change the disciples is worth our time. The two who have spent all day – all day! – listening to Jesus are moved, first, to invite him to stay with them, something very rare in Mediterranean culture, which on the whole distrusted strangers and generally related to them only in public. Their hearts have been opened – to a stranger. Because they have included him in their meal, that meal becomes a foretaste of the eschatological banquet: like their hearts, their eyes are opened and they recognize Him. And as a result, their understanding of what happened on the road is transformed: “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
Their next act is also to share. They share their experience with the other disciples, and when they do, they find confirmation of their experience. And it is in the midst of that sharing that the risen Christ comes among them. Peace, he says: the great Shalom of God, the healing of the brokenness of the world has begun, begun with the victory in the brokenness of Jesus’ own physical body. And what is their reaction? Fear at first, but then joy, “joy so great that they still could not believe it”, as the Jerusalem Bible translates it. He is not a ghost, or even an angel, and to show them, he eats what they have been eating. He shares their life among them. His gracious teaching opens their minds and prepares them for the work they will be given: to proclaim healing and salvation and justice to a world so needy that it can hardly name its desire, hardly knows what it needs.
This little meeting on the day after the Resurrection is the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s promises to Isaiah’s Suffering Servant. It is the real beginning of the Church. The fulfillment of the promises, the building of the Church, begins with listening in trust to a God-filled stranger; opening hearts in hospitality; sharing a meal as a family shares; being willing to come to new understanding; sharing the news with others instead of keeping it personal and private; finding Christ in the midst of the believing community; revaluing the suffering of Christ and in so doing, revaluing the world’s values; finding joy in Christ’s presence; and taking on the witness, the martyria, the martyrdom, of becoming the agents of the Suffering Servant of God for the transformation of the world. So much from such a plain statement “that everything written about me ... has to be fulfilled.” It seemed so schematic at first, but when we begin to unpack that “everything” – how wonderful!
Are you part of Luke’s Resurrection community? Am I? Are we ready for the joy? Are we ready for everything to be fulfilled?
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