Crumbs of Bread, a Drop of Wine

While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him [Luke 24:15-16].

With a tip of the hat to my first writing teacher, Ms. Geraldine Johnston, at Huss High School so long ago, I’ve learned that writers should try to avoid the use of the passive tense. Yet, particularly when it is used sparingly, the passive voice can communicate a point with great clarity. So it is with the verses quoted above from St. Luke’s gospel. In this quite familiar “on the road” story, Cleopas, and an unnamed companion, are walking to Emmaus during the afternoon hours of that first Easter Sunday [see Luke 24:13-35 — the Gospel reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday]. They’re talking current affairs, “about all these things that had happened” [24:14]. Jesus turns up — by now we’ve learned that He has a tendency to do that — yet they don’t recognize him. Rich irony is added, of course, because we who know “the rest of the story,” quickly recognize the rabbi from Nazareth. Or, as I argue below, do we really?

We’re told later that the two travelers are close associates of “the Twelve,” or rather now, “the Eleven” [24:33] They’ve seen Jesus before. They just don’t “see him” now, even though He is standing right there in front of them.

Scholars have, of course, debated what Luke meant by his use of the passive voice in verses 15-16. Many have suggested its use signals to the listener and to the reader that it is God who prevents the two travelers from recognizing their Lord. I know, I know, when in doubt, blame God, but that explanation is for me too simplistic. God, after all, gets blamed for everything. I prefer to think that it was their own “viewpoint” that kept their eyes from recognizing their new traveling companion. One can characterize their viewpoint from their reaction to our Lord.

In our story, Jesus essentially says, “Wassup?”

They look at him and they’re incredulous. They retort, “Are you the only bumpkin in Jerusalem who doesn’t know what’s going on? Don’t you have a Twitter account?”

They then relate to their naive companion that they’d known Jesus of Nazareth, “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people” [24:19], but that to their horror and disappointment, He’d been handed over to authorities a few days earlier and then He’d been summarily executed as a common criminal. They confess their viewpoint and their broken-heartedness in verse 21: “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

Indeed, their hopes had been huge. Oppressed as the Jews were by the heavy hand of Rome, they thought — no, they had hoped — that Jesus would understand their plight and throw off the mighty yoke around their collective necks. They had hoped he would redeem Israel. As a pastor friend of mine allows, “They looked at their souvenir palm fronds, kept as mementos from one week before, recalled the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, and sighed to themselves, “Is this all there is?”

They fail to recognize Jesus even when he begins to expound upon all the scriptures, explaining how it was necessary that “the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory” [v. 26]. Their eyes remained closed because their hopes, as huge as they thought they were, were actually not nearly large enough. Did Jesus’ heart not ache when he heard their words? He had assuredly come to redeem Israel, but not as a conquering hero. He had instead come to do and to be so much more!

As if the plot had not twisted back upon itself several times by now, things really get interesting when they invite this unknown traveler — this “stranger” — to stay with them when they reach their destination since, after all, it is late in the day. As soon as the table is set, Jesus upends the expected social roles. He becomes the host and they the guests. Even as they began to dine with Him, Cleopas and his unnamed companion still don’t recognize their Lord. Their eyes are still reflecting upon what might have been. Their hopes have been vanquished. What might be possible in the days ahead?

All too often, it seems to me, that the church responds to God, to the risen Lord, to the challenges around us, much like Cleopas and his unnamed companion. We’ve read and studied about Jesus; we know He’s special. But the challenges we face are so strong, sometimes so overwhelming. And sometimes it seems as if our own hopes have been dashed. We’d hoped that:

• “He would show us how to get a praise band, so that we could attract more young people.”
• “He would help us renovate (or build) a new family life center, since those facilities seem to be a key to congregational success.”
• “He would send us new members — particularly young professionals — since that would ease the financial strain of personnel and physical plant.”
• “He would equip us to be better community organizers, so that we could influence good causes around us?”
• “He’d be the one to (fill in your own hope here).”

Can we see that as large and important as those hopes appear to be, they’re not nearly large enough to match the sort of promised action the resurrected Lord offers?

I had an email exchange with a friend the other day in which she laid out her sadness, her fears, and her deep sense of loss in these days in which so many battle an insidious, invisible intruder like COVID-19. During the exchange, she related how her prayer — indeed her fervent hope — was that we’d soon be “back to normal.” I thought, but was far too cowardly to say, “Ah! But don’t you see that Jesus offers us much more Hope than that!”

It’s important that the myopia of Cleopas and his unnamed companion dissipates completely at the end of the story. Just when they are about to serve their guest some supper, He reverses roles, takes the bread, gives thanks, and breaks it for them. With His actions, the resurrected Lord transforms their world in the giving of the bread and, no doubt, in the sharing of the cup. It is in this action of becoming one with their Lord, and one with each other, that they can finally see the world as Christ presents it — redeemed through his body and blood. And, in the light of that present reality, Hope has no bounds.

It is at Christ’s Table that we, who have lost all true perspective, have the scales peeled away from our eyes in order that we might finally see. The result is Hope. Hope, like the crumb of bread and the drop of wine or juice, is on our lips, and our response can only be a cry of sheer Joy! In Christ’s face, we see a world not bounded by our meagre hopes, but a world fulfilled by the unlimited, unmerited, heretofore unimaginable, saving Grace of the One True Lord, in whose resurrected life we share.

Oh, one more thing: Luke doesn’t reveal to us the identity of Cleopas’ companion, but you know that traveler well. Indeed, you know that traveler’s name. Oh, come on, think for a second, sure you do!