Easter 3, Year A
Psalm: 116
1st Reading : Acts 2.14a, 36-41
2nd Reading: 1 Peter 1.17-23
Gospel : Luke 24.13-35
Did not our hearts burn within us while he was talking with us on the road (Luke 24. 32)
I have always been attracted to Luke’s account of the walk to Emmaus, perhaps because I too enjoy the opportunity for conversation which a walk so often brings. We all enjoy the delicious suspense of knowing who the stranger is long before the two disciples themselves recognise him in that heart-stopping moment, so memorably captured by both Veronese and Caravaggio, when he breaks the bread. But the primary focus of Luke’s account is what took place earlier, on the road to Emmaus – the opening of the disciples hearts to his interpretation of the whole narrative of the Hebrew scriptures as pointing forward to his suffering and death and resurrection. Was it not necessary, the stranger insists, that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory? (Luke 24.26). It was this revelation, confirmed in that moment of recognition, that turned their sorrow into joy, changing their lives for ever. As they recall the conversation, they remember how their hearts burned within them.
What do you think he said? Searching the Old Testament, you won’t find a conclusive succession of proof texts to which Jesus might have pointed, though perhaps Handel makes a pretty good fist of it in the texts he selects for Messiah. More telling than any selection of texts is the overall pattern of God’s activity which only makes complete sense when understood as foreshadowing the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. Beginning with Moses. It’s not so much that Moses said things which pointed forward to Jesus, but rather that he acted in obedience to God’s word in a manner which has become a great paradigm for the activity of God in rescuing an oppressed people from slavery and leading them through all manner of vicissitudes to establish them in a land which they could call their own.
But Moses and the Exodus is only the beginning. The historical books of the Old Testament go on to tell the story of a people who prospered from time to time, when they accepted the leadership of kings and prophets who were themselves obedient to God. More often they took for granted the loving care which had been lavished upon them, preferring to go their own way, provoking their neighbours, and ultimately bringing down upon themselves the disaster of defeat and exile. Yet they were never abandoned by God. Again and again he rescued them, sending them leaders who reminded them of their obligation to love and serve God. Sadly, such moments never lasted very long, before they drifted away again. Finally the truth began to dawn that obedience to an externally imposed set of laws was unattainable. The prophets began to speak of a law that would be written in the hearts of God’s people, so that they would not need to be taught. At about the same time it began to be perceived that the endless cycle of disobedience and punishment, followed by repentance, forgiveness, restoration and another round of backsliding and disobedience might be broken by the life of an innocent victim who would voluntarily absorb and carry all that pain and evil and rejection and injury on behalf of the whole people of God.
The golden thread of this narrative does indeed run through the Old Testament, but it was not the narrative people wanted to hear. The concept of the Suffering Servant, despised and rejected, is only one strand of prophetic insight in a library of books and prophecies, many of which look forward to a resurgent Israel without saying too much about the path leading from the present to that glorious future. A first century Jew could look back with some pride to the progress which had been made since their return from exile some 500 years earlier. Yes, they were under Roman occupation now, but they had secured for themselves a degree of autonomy, the Temple was being rebuilt, and with memories of the not-so-distant Maccabean revolt to draw on, one might well dream of a Messiah who would arise and restore full independence, in accordance with so many prophecies of a golden future. We may suppose that something of that sort was in the minds of the two disciples, walking sadly away from Jerusalem, when they admitted to their travelling companion that they had hoped that Jesus was the one to redeem Israel.
Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory? Such ideas didn’t fit with the notion of Messiah that was current in first century Palestine. But their hearts burned within them as they were shown that the events of the past few days were not after all the catastrophic collapse of their most dearly cherished hopes and dreams, but the beginning of a more wonderful realisation of the prophetic visions than they could have ever imagined. As they listened to this new interpretation of the Scriptures, they understood that this made sense of what had happened to Jesus, so that the hopes they had of him were not misplaced after all. The suffering and death of Jesus was marked not with the stigma of failure, but with the stigmata of triumphant resurrection of strength from weakness, of glory from apparent catastrophe. No wonder their hearts burned within them.
As we gather this morning to share the bread of our Holy Communion at his table, we pray for that same sense of recognition that struck the two disciples at Emmaus. As we reflect on Jesus’ experience of suffering and humiliation at the hands of others, we pray for all who have walked that same road of obedient service with him, including Anne Maguire. We give thanks for all that he has done for us by the transforming power of his life, his suffering, his death and his glorious resurrection. As we walk with those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, we pray that our hearts may be opened, as theirs were, to understand how it was necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things, and then enter into his glory. With them we desire to understand that this is not just the key to a proper understanding of the scriptures, but the key to a proper understanding of life itself. It is as our eyes are opened to the presence of the risen Lord, and as our hearts burn within us, that ‘we are born anew’ as St Peter reminds us ‘through the living and enduring word of God’ (1 Peter 1.23).