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Known in the Breaking of the Bread
Did not our hearts burn within us,
while he talked to us on the road,
while he opened to us the scriptures?
Luke 24:32
The appearance of the risen Lord to the runaway disciples on the Emmaus road is one of the gems of Biblical literature. But it is more than just an attractive story. The elusive and enigmatic relationship between Jesus and his disciples after his death has much to tell us about the nature of our own faith experience.
In this story Jesus makes himself known in both word and sacrament. Through his explanation of the scriptures (v. 27), which Cleopas and his companion (vv. 13.18) thought they already understood, God’s word took on a wholly new meaning (v. 26). Through Jesus’ gesture at table (v. 30) a simple meal became a sacrament of reconciliation with the disciples who had abandoned him (Matthew 26:56).
Through the Lord’s presence ordinary things become extraordinary; familiar realities become windows which upon onto the divine. The experience of the Emmaus disciples is one which is available to us through faith. For it is faith which enables us to see beyond appearances and to catch a glimpse of the Good Shepherd who guides us on our way our whole life long. For, as scripture says,
He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge.
His faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
You will not fear the terror of the night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.
Psalm 91:3-6
The ability to see beyond appearances is not much esteemed in our society, where the saying goes, “What you see is what you get.” Those who march to the beat of a different drummer are often considered mad or, at best, harmless eccentrics. But it is just such people who are the sign that God is truly in our midst.
The spiritual giants of the Christian church were able, like the Emmaus disciples, to find God, whether in his creation, or in the least of his brethren, or in the breaking of the bread. The opposite of such faith is not skepticism, for, as we see in today’s gospel, faith can be born out of skepticism and disillusionment. Jesus’ consolation and reassurance come to those afflicted by the pain and sorrow of his loss: “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel (Luke 24:21).”
The opposite of faith is literalism: what you see is what you get. The opposite of faith is blindness to the symbolic quality of life. The opposite of faith is the inability to be surprised by joy. Sometimes, in order to grasp the invisible in the visible, we must be deprived of things which we have come to take for granted. Sometimes only the departure of a loved one can make us realize how much that person meant to us, how much those seemingly trivial acts of daily living were filled with love and tenderness.
Jesus’ departure from his disciples made possible a new awareness of what his presence had meant to them. God grant that our eyes may be opened, so that we may know him in the breaking of the bread (v. 35).
April 3, 2005
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