The Third Sunday of Easter, Year A, 2017 – Acts 2; 1 Peter 1:17-23; John 20:1-18
And he sat down at table with them, and taking bread he blessed it and broke it and gave it to them.
Last Saturday I phoned Joel at about 5:00 p.m. to check on something for Sunday. He and the family were over at a friend’s house having supper together…and over the phone came the sound of bedlam. Total chaos. Children shrieking and running; laughing and shouting; push toys putt-putting and something beep-beeping. Joel’s voice barely made it through the din. It made me thankful for adult children…but it also made me smile. Because I remember those family suppers! Four kids and one small kitchen table; four very talkative kids and a table with a leaf that tended to collapse unexpectedly; one child in the high chair with spaghetti in his hair; one child pretending her broccoli was a tree; no child, it seemed to me, ever using their fork…this was every supper of our lives, for years. It was bedlam, most of the time…and were it not for dessert, no vegetable would ever have been eaten. It was, honestly, exhausting; David and I often thought we would not make it to bedtime. (And in fact we didn’t, really: we usually fell asleep trying to read the kids their bedtime story!)
But looking back on it now, I remember it as joy.
There was a grace in this simple thing, our family suppers together. Grace was at work among us and we did not know it; a gift of love slowly poured out in the midst of all that noise, in the tears and laughter, in the patience of bearing with each other, of being with each other, of wiping dirty hands and picking spaghetti up off the floor and eating broccoli trees together, all those years. Love was being born in our ordinary time.
And it is a love, it is a grace, that has its start, our scripture tells us, today. It has its start in Easter, in the mystery that we are walking through these Easter weeks; in the mystery that Jesus is walking through with us, the mystery that is Christ crucified and risen.
Two disciples walking today toward Emmaeus on that first Sunday after Jesus was crucified. They are heading home—a husband and wife, perhaps, as NT Wright (and Prof. Demson!) argue—and they are weary; skuthrōpoi, Luke tells us, gloomy, sad at heart. For they have seen Jesus crucified and they had hoped, they say to the stranger who joins them on the way; they had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.
They had hoped: they walk on this first Sunday of Easter in the grief of hope lost. They are heading home, away from Jerusalem, away from kingdom hope. It was so near, they had thought, the great day, their great day, in Jesus of Nazareth the victory of God. But we had hoped that this man was the one to redeem Israel.
But Jesus of Nazareth has been crucified and they are walking away from Jerusalem and hope back to ordinary life. And it is here that Jesus meets them.
The story is delicious for us who hear it, because they do not know who it is who walks with them. Here they are, all gloomy, and all the time hope is right there with them on the road. Their eyes, Luke tells us, were kept from recognizing him.
Here it is again: this strange thing about Easter, the mystery of it, its hiddenness. Mary Magdalene does not know Jesus when he is standing in front of her in the garden. Peter and the beloved disciple do not see him. Thomas does not credit his friends’ own words until Jesus is standing in front of him with nail-marks in his hands. These disciples too have heard the news of the empty tomb, but it has meant nothing to them, or at least nothing of hope. They stand there skuthrōpoi, with Jesus beside them. In the face of the cross, they do not know what to think.
And they have a point. They have seen in the death of Jesus the end of hope: the will of the world to destroy, to turn away from what is good, from God; the will to turn away and its cost. Greek has a great word for this cost: katargeo. It means to nullify, to render null and void. This is what the disciples have seen: the absolute zero of the tomb. They are sick at heart, and at the word of hope, at the news of the empty tomb, they do not know what to think. We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Surely hope does not look like this cross.
And they are right. There is no place in the world for a hope that looks like this. There is no way back by effort of intellect or will, by education or enlightened social programming, from the zero of the tomb. They do not see hope because they cannot: there is in the world no way out.
And then, Jesus speaks. Here, Jesus speaks, on this road away from Jerusalem and hope. Take heart. Be of good cheer. I have conquered the world.
Strangely I have conquered, on a cross. From a tomb. From the place where hope ends; from the black hole that is death. The disciples do not see the risen Jesus on their own because they cannot. What happens in the empty tomb rewrites the world. Kaine ktisis, Paul says, breaking off in the middle of a sentence. New creation.
Why is the risen Jesus known in the breaking of the bread? Because that is the only place he can be known. Because the bread that is broken and given is the sign, is the shape, is the place of the new creation. This is my body, given for you. For our turning away, this turning away from God that is finally our destruction, the place of the tomb; for our turning away, his self-giving. Love, the Song of songs says, is stronger than death. This is the Word hidden in the cross of the Christ and in the empty tomb. New creation.
So we come to the disciples’ home, and supper together on the ordinary day. It is love that is known in the risen Jesus. This is my body, given for you. The love of Christ in the meal that is shared, friends around a table, the body that is there broken, food for the dying human being.
It is the love of Christ in the breaking of the bread that interprets for the disciples the tomb. How can they know the cross as good news until they see in the hands of Jesus, in the breaking of the bread, its word of love?
Mary Magdalene knows Jesus when he calls her by name.
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters I will be with you
When you walk through fire you shall not be burned…
For I am the Lord your God…
You are precious in my sight
And honoured and I love you (Isaiah 43)
I have called you by name; you are mine. In the prophet Isaiah God speaks it: I love you. I have called you by name; you are mine. In Jesus, crucified and risen, God lives it. Mary. In my cross and empty tomb, I call you by name. In the nail-marks on my risen hands. I call you by name. Thomas. You are mine. Easter, this mystery of grave and garden, of new life dawning out of the absolute darkness of the tomb, Easter is God’s word of love. On this day, in this Christ, this crucified one, he gives himself to us.
And taking bread he blessed it and broke it and gave it to them.
Why is the risen Jesus known finally in the breaking of the bread? Because that is the only place he can be known. Because the bread that is broken and given is the place of his love. This is my body, given for you.
Easter is the gift of love, and so it comes gently and hidden, in the breaking of the bread.
So it comes not in palaces and on thrones, but at supper, at this supper, the supper of the lamb. This bread, this body, broken and shared together; this is our feast of love. This is where we know him, in the breaking of the bread. This day, today, this Eucharist, is the place of our hope. No longer skuthropoi, gloomy and hopeless, but alive; our hearts burning within us. This is the place of resurrection.
And it is so ordinary. This meal, on this day, in this ordinary and beautiful church. All the meals, on all the days, every supper that we eat: blessed now because they are in Christ the place of self-giving, the place where Christ has made himself known. In our homes and ordinary days, the place of new creation.
I am glad for the memory of all those crazy suppers we had together in our home when our kids were little. I am glad for the noise and the time it took and the patience it demanded; because that table was the table of love. It was the supper of the lamb. We did not know it at the time; we did not see him in the midst of the mess and the din. But those suppers were given to us, like this Eucharist is given to us, to be the place where Christ is known.
So take the time. Turn off your cell phones. Close your screens.
Talk to each other, your families and your friends. Sit with each other, even when you are too tired to have anything to say.
Say grace. That grace we say at the beginning of the meal is not a small thing. We are inviting Christ to come in. Stay with us Lord, for the day is far spent and evening is at hand. Stay with us in our suppers, stay with us in our homes, these gifts you have given. May we know you in the breaking of the bread.
AMEN
