The Berlin Circuit of The United Methodist Church

The gospel lesson for this week is the story of the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus. This is a story that is unique to Luke's gospel. In the story, two disciples encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus, but are "prevented from recognizing Him." Later, Jesus breaks bread with the two disciples, and in that moment, their eyes are opened, and they recognize Jesus, but in the same moment, Jesus disappears from their sight.

One of the hallmarks of the resurrection stories of Jesus is the fact that the disciples are unable to recognize Jesus, or similarly, that they doubt the presence of the risen Christ. For example, in Matthew's gospel, we are told that some of the disciples who encountered the risen Christ doubted his presence when Christ issued the Great Commission. As modern persons, we typically think this is because the notion of resurrection is inconceivable. This would not have been true of ancient persons, who lived in a culture where such miracles were possible, and even expected.

I think the answer lies in the expectations that the disciples had about Jesus. There is a reality television show on the air now where the CEO of a company, without telling anyone besides his or her inner circle, starts working at his or her own company as an entry level employee, to get a better idea of the way that the company works on the ground level. At the conclusion of each episode, the CEO reveals to his or her "supervisors" and "co worker's" their true identity. In many cases, I think the fact that the fact that the supervisors are co workers are not able to recognize the CEO has to do with the fact that they might not even know what the CEO looks like, or if they did, they might have only glimpsed their picture on a newsletter or something. But there have been episodes where the CEO was well known in the media, and/or where the CEO otherwise maintained a high profile. The CEO's appearance was moderately disguised, but not drastically so--not so much that the other employees should not have been able to recognize him or her. In these cases, I think the CEO was not recognized because of the expectations that we have about status--a CEO is expected to look a certain way, act a certain way, and to be presented in a certain way. When they are presented out of context, our eyes are prevented from seeing them as they are.

During Jesus' lifetime, the disciples were unable to see that God was revealed in Jesus because they were looking for the wrong God. They were looking for a God who revealed and manifested power and glory and in the ways that Rome manifested power and glory and the way that Herod dreamed about power and glory. For both Rome and Herod, the whole point of life was to reveal and manifest as much power and glory as possible. Notice that Rome and Herod made sure that when crucifixions took place, they were high on a hill so that everyone could see how powerful they were. Certainly, the disciples thought, if God were truly revealed in Jesus God would have displayed God's power for everyone to see. Instead, Jesus told the disciples over and over again not to share with others about the demonstrations of God's power that Jesus revealed.

Now the eyes of the disciples were still blind. Certainly, the disciples thought, if Jesus were to be raised, it would have been with as much pomp and circumstance as possible, so that everyone could see it, in the way that they saw the crucifixion. There would have been loud trumpets and the clouds breaking open in a way that all of Jerusalem could see--surely, God would make sure that everyone saw and understood that Rome and Herod were not as powerful and glorious as He was. Certainly, it was not possible that God could be more powerful than Rome and Herod and not want to draw attention to this fact. It was not possible, therefore, that the person who walked along the road with them was the risen Christ.

But at the end of the story, the eyes of the disciples are opened for a moment. They are opened in a Eucharistic moment in the breaking of bread. In that moment, they see who Jesus is.

Maybe the reason why this story was passed down and recorded in Luke's gospel is not only because it was an account of the risen Christ, but what it represented for the early Church, and what it still represents for us. Sometimes, the risen Christ can be hidden from our eyes because we are looking for the wrong God and the wrong Jesus. We forget that our God is a God of service, compassion, and mercy. A God who has no interest in being Rome or Herod. We remember who God is and who Jesus is in the community, the Church, when we celebrate Christ crucified and risen.