Luke 24:28-35
2013/10/6, World Communion Sunday
- As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther.
- But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
- When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.
- Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.
- They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
- They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together
- and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.”
- Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
May the peace of the Lord be among us.
Today is the World Communion Sunday that is observed every church. It began to be observed in 1936 by American Presbyterian churches. Then, all the other denominations began to participate in celebrating it around the 1940s, when the peace and justice got destroyed and fear and terror were spread in the entire world from World War 2. Christians of all denominations felt in need of identifying them as one in Jesus Christ and being reminded of their calling as peacemakers again. This is the beginning of the World Communion Sunday.
While the Roman Catholic Church had seven sacraments, the Protestant Church maintained only two of them, that is, Baptism and Communion. As Communion is the only sacrament that Jesus himself performed by sharing bread and wine with his disciples, it can be said to be the most important sacrament. Communion is an opportunity where we experience to share Jesus’ blood and flesh. It also makes us confess that Jesus is with us by providing strength for us through the bread and wine.
There are two scenes in the Bible in which Jesus at the table of bread and wine with his disciples. The first one is the one painted by Leonardo da Vinci, entitled “The Last Supper”, where Jesus has dinner with his disciples before dying on a cross. The other one is where the resurrected Jesus breaks bread for his disciples at a dinner table, which was painted by Rembrandt several times. You can find one of those paintings by Rembrandt in your Sunday bulletin. Today’s scripture reading is about the resurrected Jesus, who met two of his disciples on their way to Emmaus and set at the dinner table with them.
When Jesus died on a cross, all his disciples got scattered in all directions, including his chief disciple Peter who went back to his old work by saying “I’m going out to fish”, as in John ch. 24. They scattered mainly because they were afraid of getting persecuted just like Jesus and also because they found themselves hopeless when they witnessed their great expectation on Jesus disappearing with Jesus’ death.
The two disciples in today’s scripture reading were also in despair and shock because they witnessed Jesus dying in vain, who they had believed to be their Messiah. They were on their way back to their hometown Emmaus. While they had left the road and followed Jesus with hope and passion a few years back, now they were slowly walking down the road with devastation and fear. Even though Emmaus was only 12 km away from Jerusalem, they must have felt their trip too long.
Then a man came up and talked to them. The man didn’t seem to know about the terrible persecution on Jesus that had happened in Jerusalem those days. Feeling like letting go of their sadness, they began to talk about Jesus of Nazareth, the hope and joy that they had had with Jesus, the tragic end of Jesus, the darkness and hopelessness that had come upon to them afterwards, and the empty tomb that their women had found.
When they finished their story, the strange man rebuked their foolishness. The man was in fact Jesus Christ who had been resurrected, but the disciples couldn’t recognize him. The lord reminded them of many prophesies by Moses and other prophets, and said that the Messiah must go through sufferings in order to enter the glory of God. He also assured them of the fact that Jesus had died on a cross, not because of his weakness but because of his obedience to God’s will.
Upon hearing it, the disciples felt their hearts burning inside. They realized that Jesus the Nazareth was the son of God, that he suffered but he entered God’s glory, and that his resurrection would come only after death. They now grasped the full picture of the gospel that ‘Jesus dies and lives again’.
They also realized that, with Jesus’ death, it was not that their hope disappeared, but that the true hope just began. As they approached Emmaus while talking, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But the two disciples urged him to stay with them strongly. They invited him to their place and prepared a dinner table. This is the scene that Rembrandt painted in his piece “Supper at Emmaus”. In the painting, the light coming off from the strange man sitting in the middle is far brighter than the lamp light. Sitting at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. They received it in awe. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized that he was the resurrected Jesus Christ.
At that moment, Jesus disappeared from their sight. The author of this book, Luke seems to indicate that Jesus permeated the two disciples who just recognized who he was. The bread they were holding was Jesus’ flesh, and the wine they were drinking was Jesus’ blood. Now they came to be convinced of the resurrection of Jesus, and they recovered their enthusiasm for God. They are sharing their mysterious experience in awe, as follows.
Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
They could regain their enthusiasm and hope mainly because Jesus explained the Bible to them on the road. Likewise, we feel his presence when we feel our heart burning while reading the Bible. Jesus, who is alive and with us now, gives strength through the Bible to those who are living in this world that death and sins are ruling, and makes us regain courage and hope.
When the two disciples recognized that the strange man was Jesus, everything got clear to them. While Jesus had disappeared from their sight, they were still with him through the mysterious supper. They came to be able to see the great reality that they couldn’t see before because they were in fear and despair. The veil that had covered their souls now disappeared.
Then they went back to Jerusalem right away because they couldn’t help but talk about their joy and delight. They took the road to Jerusalem with great joy, while they had been in hopelessness when they had taken the same road just a few hours before. When they arrived in Jerusalem, some other disciples also told them about Jesus’ resurrection. They began to talk with happiness about what they had seen in Emmaus. But the story doesn’t end here. When they were discussing, the Lord came upon among them and said to them, “Peace be with you”. How amazing! The last word of the gospel is not ‘death’ but ‘peace’. The one who took the cross on behalf of all sinners, the one who got betrayed by his most beloved disciplesﾅ What he wanted to bring to the world was “the peace from heaven”!
Now we are about to share the table of Jesus. He is inviting you and me to this table of holiness and peace. The bread and wine that we are sharing are the Word that became flesh. We are invited to a holy life, a holy community, and a holy fellowship with the trinity God now. While the world is witnessing wars, conflicts and terrorism, the Lord is residing among us as ‘peace’.
In order for us to know the resurrected Jesus, we need to meet him by having the time to read the Bible daily. We are all on the journey of our life. We started the journey, but haven’t finished it. In order for Jesus to teach what we should do on this journey, we should read the Bible and think about Jesus, in every situation of life, in the problems that are not solved yet, in the sufferings that haven’t ended yet. While doing so, we should also pray that Jesus would explain the Bible to us.
I hope that, just as the eyes of the two disciples were opened when they received the bread from Jesus, our eyes get opened and the Bible makes sense to us today when we have this communion. I pray that we all have the same grace of the Lord as the one through which the two disciples who had been in despair felt their hearts burning and became the instruments for peace. Amen.