Texts:

Acts 3:1-10

Psalm 105:1-8 or 118:19-24

Luke 24:13-35

Over the last month, the death by suicide of a friend’s husband has been nibbling away at me subconsciously as I have struggled to make sense of his death. Our prayer book is clear: “The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. It finds all its meaning in the resurrection” (BCP, 507). We have just celebrated Easter and Jesus is risen from the dead. I am living in the tension between death and resurrection.

I am also living with the tension of graduating from ETSS while not knowing what my next step is. This change bears its own goodbyes, griefs, and anticipations. We seniors are in a time of transition. Our time in seminary is coming to a close. In 5 short weeks, we will be graduates of ETSS.

As I think about Larry’s death and the short remaining time here, I face a frightening prospect. I, as a priest, could be dealing with a similar situation in the not too distant future. I have been taught how to plan the liturgy and how to lead the burial service. I am unsettled by the question raised for me with Larry’s death. Where will the words in this Easter liturgy come from: will it be from an intellectual assent to the proposition of the resurrection or will it be from my gut, from a heart burning with the conviction of the resurrection? What good news of Christ can I share in such a situation?

While I was on my way to Houston for the funeral, I heard a country tune with the following words:

Well, I don’t care if it rains or freezes,

Long as I have my plastic Jesus

Riding on the dashboard of my car

Through all trials and tribulations,

We will travel every nation,

With my plastic Jesus I’ll go far.

I found myself belly-laughing. I can’t explain my reaction, except that I was feeling very sad and this song caught me off guard.

For me, the walk out to Emmaus is like a funeral service without the perspective the resurrection. The disciples were bereft at the death of their friend Jesus. Perhaps there were intense periods of talking and then moments of emotion-filled silence as they pondered the events since the crucifixion. Can there be any sorrow like that of losing a friend to a violent and shameful death?

As a traveler on that same road to Emmaus, I might have left these two to their conversation. Jesus did not walk past them; instead, he joined them. However, his disciples did not know it was Jesus because “their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (24:16).

One of the clergy I know said recently, “Don’t wear a collar on a plane unless you want to hear a your seatmate’s story.” I almost winced when the “stranger” asked the disciples, “What are you talking about?” He got that earful my clergy friend warned me about.

To me, the disciples’ description of what happened sounds like a sentence running wildly over punctuation marks. It’s almost as if there are no commas or periods for a breath. Words tumble from their mouths. Something about Nazareth. Something about the chief priests and leaders. Some words get choked in throats taut with grief. They cannot see how their dead friend can redeem Israel. On top of it all, it’s the third day and the women have not been able to find the body. They at least had an angelic vision that affirmed that Jesus was alive. The men did not have that comfort: “they did not see him” (24:24).

As well-trained seminarians, we might expect Jesus to comfort these grief-stricken disciples. In The Message Jesus explodes, “So thick-headed! So slow-hearted!” – not exactly your compassionate CPE response!

Perhaps out of his frustration with those disciples he shouted, “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer and then enter into glory?” (24:26)

Then did he have to take a couple of deep breaths?

It’s just as well there were miles to walk to Emmaus. It took that long for Jesus to remind his disciples that his whole ministry was a continuation of the story of God’s love for God’s people. This is a love that struggles to be heard in their hearts, even when they discount miracles and reject prophetic messages. Discounting and rejection happened to Moses and Elijah, to John the Baptist, and even to Jesus in his hometown, Nazareth.

We all walk to Emmaus at times. Just like the discouraged and grieving disciples, our understanding may be dimmed with the heaviness of things in our lives or with transitions and deaths in which we cannot easily see the resurrection. Like them we may not “see” what is before our faces. We need Jesus to walk with us and lend us his eyes. Jesus had to teach them and us to see his life, death and resurrection in the patterns of the Hebrew Bible.

Patterns like suffering before glory. His glory is to proclaim good news to the poor. His glory is to release the imprisoned. His glory is to heal the blind. Jesus’ glory is the down and dirty gritty kind of glory that connects to the depths of human pathos and suffering.

Was teaching enough? No! The disciples’ eyes remained firmly shut. Only at the breaking of the bread were their eyes were opened. Both teaching and table fellowship are needed to see the resurrected Jesus.

Why did they recognize him in the breaking of the bread? This was one more meal in a long series of meals. They had spent hours with Jesus at table. Jesus had eaten with them and with that hodge-podge of sinners and tax collectors, despite the disapproval of religious folks. They had chewed over the need for repentance and forgiveness at table. Jesus had talked with his followers about the present and yet to come kingdom of God.

Perhaps this first supper after the resurrection reminded the disciples that Jesus was betrayed in the context of a meal. This first supper was unique because it is the meal that both the historical Jesus and the risen Christ host. The Emmaus meal now becomes the basis for hope. This hope is deeply connected to their new understanding of how the suffering and risen Messiah is the fulfillment of all the scriptures.

“That same hour” (24:33) the disciples returned to Jerusalem to share the good news “The Lord has indeed risen” (24:34). They shared Jesus’ teaching and how they had recognized him in the breaking of bread.

At Larry’s funeral, I overheard people talking about how they knew Larry, what he meant to them, and their surprise and grief at his death.

During the service, his children and a friend shared stories about his life. His pastor noted that Larry loved to canoe and kayak. Both Larry and the pastor loved to paddle in wild waters. One winter morning, however, the pastor got up to find his favorite wild water stream frozen solid. If he hadn’t known otherwise, he would have sworn that the only reality for that river was its frozen state. The weather changed, of course, and the river returned to its previous lively ways.

Larry’s death was like the river on that winter morning. The pastor urged us not to view his life only from the perspective of his death. We needed to remember how he lived life fully and enthusiastically. That story was told over plates of food at the reception after the funeral. Larry was passionate about the outdoors, environmental advocacy, scouting and his family. His death is still an enigma.

My response to this situation is becoming clearer.

I want to say, mostly to myself, and then to all of us –

We do not rely on a Plastic Jesus. We do not walk with a Plastic Jesus.

Jesus is the Messiah who suffers and then enters into glory. There is just no comparison between this Jesus and Plastic Jesus.

• Plastic Jesus avoids suffering and his glory is nicotine-stained and cracked.
• Messiah Jesus is a man who “was despised and rejected by others and a man of suffering and acquainted with our infirmities” (Is 53:3). In fulfillment of the pattern of scriptures, God will spare nothing and nobody to get his love message through to all creation. God even gives his only Son to suffering and death before he welcomes him back to glory.

Messiah Jesus took Larry through the valley of the shadow of death and placed him back in the stream of Living Water.

At the ordination to the priesthood, the bishop asks the candidate whether she will cultivate holy habits: diligent reading and study of scripture, patterning her life in the manner of Christ, and prayer. These are not for private benefit. By grace, these are accomplished in the power of the Holy Trinity. They strengthen her and enable her to minister Christ’s reconciling love to the people she is called to serve.

We practice these habits so that we, on that road to Emmaus at certain times in our lives, feel the urgency to invite the risen Lord to stay for a meal. As priests, we take the bread, bless it, break it, and share it so that all of us can recognize the Messiah who suffers before entering into glory.

Along the way, we might discover that our hearts are burning within us.

Where will your burning heart take you and to whom will you witness,

Alleluia. The Lord is risen.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Timoteo Matovina, Nina M. Torres-Vidal (eds) (2002). Camino a Emaús: Compartiendo el ministerio de Jesús. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

Song credited to Ed Rush and George Cromarty. This song was recorded around 1964-5 by Ernie Marrs and was included in the film “Cool Hand Luke”.

Dr. Charles B. Simmons, Senior Minister, Memorial Drive United Methodist Church, Houston, TX