The Road to Emmaus

1989 (Year C), 9 April /
Easter 2

St Peter de Beauvoir Town and All Saints Church Haggerston

The Bishop of Durham seems to do it every year without fail. The church press is still full of what he did or didn’t say and letters giving people’s own interpretation about that first Easter. Quite what the impact is of what he has to say I don’t know – maybe the professionals get it all out of proportion, you would have more idea than I.

At the moment he’s being accused of all kinds of things and he’s being told that his views are not appropriate for someone who holds the office of a bishop in the church.

In fact far from causing the church trouble I think he does the church a service because he makes us think carefully about the early church’s experience of the risen Christ, how those first Christians reflected on their experiences and what stories they told to enable themselves to express the truths they knew.

Listening to the Bishop’s critics you’d be forgiven for thinking that there was one indisputable version of the Resurrection, and it’s the one that’s written down in the bible. It’s the version we’re all to believe and that’s the one which he is questioning. Anybody who reads the gospels will be immediately aware of the difficulties. For instance we are told that Jesus could be touched just like any other person – Thomas could put his hands into the wounds of the hands and feet and side. The next moment however the body disappears through a wall. Moreover all this happens after Jesus had become present with his disciples in a room when all the doors had been locked.

We are told that some of Jesus’ closest friends knew him straight away, others among them Mary and the two people in the gospel this morning were with him for sometime without knowing who he was.

There seems to be contradictions to say the least – many things which don’t rest easily together. On the face of it there is not one consistent story. There are many experiences, many reflections but no definitive statement on the resurrection.

There is one common theme, however, in all this. In the course of time the friends of Jesus reflected on their experiences after his death. As they reflected they became aware that in some way and for each one it was expressed slightly differently – that Jesus was with them.

Quite quickly individual experiences of the risen Christ were shared – the two people in the gospel today first of all compared how they both felt then they went back to Jerusalem. to talk to the eleven. They told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised him at the breaking of bread.

What was individual becomes common. It becomes a shared history which is used by others to interpret their experiences and make sense of new insights.

It is also a parable for us and a guide as to how we might proceed with our understanding and experiences of God. The risen Christ reaches out through time to all of us. All of us have some relationship with him. We wouldn’t be here today if this were not so. It may not be as dramatic as some of the accounts given us in the New Testament, but Jesus continues to touch our lives. Maybe the experience is private. But the examples given us in the Bible suggest that to make sense of it, it must be shared. And shared not only for our own benefit but for the benefit of the worshipping community as a whole.

I think that we are often embarrassed and shy about our experiences. So frightened of being misunderstood or laughed at that we convince ourselves that nothing like this has ever happened to us. We imagine that the earth must have moved for these first Christians and since it never has for us then obviously nothing has happened.

We become increasingly less skilled at recognising Jesus present with us and unable to name him when we bump into him. What we forget is that Jesus created and sustained the community of his friends by speech and touch and the sharing of food. That was during his life. And it was the same after the resurrection.

In small and apparently insignificant ways Jesus becomes known. two friends walking down a road together and sharing a meal, Jesus is present. With a confused woman. weeping at a grave Jesus is present. With frightened and disillusioned men Jesus is present.

Where are the points in our lives that we might begin to see the same similar things? They certainly exist. By identifying them for what they are we will see more clearly. By sharing them we are all enriched and what is more we continue to re-interpret the truths we know to our age and allow Jesus to become present again and again. AMEN