Today’s Gospel reading takes us back to that very first Easter day. This time it is Luke’s account of what took place. Unique to Luke’s Gospel is what takes place after the women had found Jesus’ tomb empty on the first Easter morning: two of the disciples were walking on the road to a village called Emmaus, talking with each other about everything that had happened. Jesus himself came up and walked along with them, but they were kept from recognizing him. After Jesus asked them what they were talking about, they told him, with downcast faces, of all that had taken place that week: how the Chief Priests and rulers had handed Jesus over to be crucified, how the women had found the tomb empty, and how they had hoped in Jesus as the redemption of Israel.
Then, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, Jesus explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. It was nearly evening when they reached the village, so Jesus stayed with them, and when he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave 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 returned at once to Jerusalem. We could imagine that wouldn’t have been a leisurely walk, but a hurried one, rushing and running. They found the Eleven and those with them and told them: “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how they recognized Jesus when he broke the bread (from Luke 24:13-35).
While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you!”—words John recorded in his version too. We heard last week that the disciples were together in the house with the doors locked for fear of the religious leaders. The very real danger was that they would themselves receive the same treatment as Jesus.
In today’s text we hear that the disciples were startled and frightened when Jesus came to be with them, thinking they saw a ghost. We would be too, wouldn’t we—all of a sudden, Jesus just appearing standing in the room, even though the doors were locked.
But this wasn’t their minds playing tricks on them, as if they thought they saw something. And it is not a ghost, or the spirit of Jesus. Last week in John, the locked doors are emphasised, this week in Luke it is the fish—ghosts don’t bite, and chew and swallow food. Jesus is bodily risen. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” Then Jesus proclaimed this is what the scriptures (at that time, the Old Testament) had pointed to and promised. He said to them: “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms”.
How did Jesus just come and stand among them, even though the doors were locked? Well, Jesus can do anything. With God, all things are possible! He had risen from death and emerged from out of a sealed tomb. He had come through walls and locked doors to pronounce peace to his disciples and eat with them. And in today’s Gospel reading, Luke tells us of a third obstacle Jesus has overcome: Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.
In our natural spiritual condition, we cannot understand the things of God, and not only that, reject them. Paul would later say that the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing (1 Corinthians 1:18). That’s because ever since Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, the human mind is set on the flesh and is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot (Romans 8:7). All people, naturally, are darkened in their spiritual understanding (Ephesians 4:18).
It was natural for the disciples to be confused, and to not understand. But this is no insurmountable problem for the risen Lord and Christ. He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
Arguably the greatest crisis today is people desperately longing to discover who they are—and whose they are. The work a person does, the interests they have, the team they support, the suburb they live in, the church they attend or the charities they support, their ethnicity, their spiritual views, the products they buy and labels that they wear, the gender and sexual expression they identify with are all a part of people shaping their identity so as to fit in with a community they identify with.
Dear brothers and sisters, today’s set of readings tell us the identity God has first given us as Christians—who we are, and whose we are. From the reading from 1 John, we heard that we are children of God; recipients of the Father’s lavish love in Christ, redeemed by him, brought into his family. In today’s Gospel reading, we hear Jesus say to his disciples: “You are witnesses.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t say: “I will teach you how to become witnesses” or “you will do some witnessing work” or “you will become witnesses.” He says: “you are witnesses of these things.”
We are his witnesses in today’s church. Just as Jesus came to be with his disciples in the house and brought them his peace, he is here with us too, in this house, to bring us his peace, through his absolving of all our sins, through giving us his body and blood to bring us all the benefits from his crucifixion at Jerusalem 2000 years ago. Being children of God and being his witnesses are inseparable. He opens our mind to understand the scriptures, that everything written in the Law of Moses, Prophets and the Psalms are fulfilled in him who is risen and with us here and now, to give his blessing of peace to us before we again go from this place out into the world.
Being witnesses might cause us anxiety and discomfort, and raise a whole range of questions: “How am I a witness?” What if we ‘mess it up’? What if we say the wrong thing, or don’t know what to say? What if they get upset with us? What if they don’t believe, and we push them further away from God and his church? What about those who we love and care for yet who don’t share the faith? If only we could make our family members and friends believe; if only we had the right logical arguments to counter their logic…
Jesus says to us here today: “You are my witnesses.” He doesn’t call us to do something that would be impossible for us to do, for no-one can be reasoned into the Kingdom of Heaven. It is only God who converts. Jesus has done all that is needed for people to be born again as children of God. It is Jesus who overcomes all obstacles and opens the darkened minds of people to understand the scriptures. Our task is not to be Christ, but his witnesses, bearers of the message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Christ crucified that was first preached at Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.
Jesus gathers us and calls us out to be his witnesses, witnesses in a world with no hope of overcoming death, except for Jesus who triumphed over the grave. We go out into a world desperate to be loved with true love, not romantic, erotic love with so many conditions attached. We go out into a world championing its own self-righteousness, yet living unrighteously, in conflict, violence, selfishness, greed, hatred, lust and envy, looking for all kinds of things to fill the deepest human needs yet never truly being fulfilled. We go out into a world that champions inclusivity, but only includes those it does not exclude. We go out into a world that is fearful and anxious, not knowing lasting peace without knowing God. We go out into a world in which people lose their life by trying to find it; searching for identity working, buying and fighting, seeking satisfaction but never satisfied. We go out into a world in bondage to decay which will one day decay no more and finally end, whether to climate change or whatever else God uses to usher in the last day.
We go out into a world that needs the one thing that only the church has to provide—the forgiveness of sins of all those who repent. In all these things when people see the way you live as people who have sure hope in God and ask you for the basis hope you have, we are simply called to point to God’s love for the whole world in Jesus’ suffering and death, his resurrection, and the forgiveness of sins in his name, for life and salvation. Don’t think what might not happen. Think what is possible for him, whose tomb was found empty, who rose again and lives. Think what could happen, with the risen Christ with you, for whom nothing is impossible, who opens people’s mind to understand the scriptures. He is the One who has fulfilled the Scriptures, and fulfilled them for you. He is the One who has opened your mind to know him and see God’s love for you in his death and resurrection.
As you go, Christ goes before you, as you serve, Christ serves with you, as you speak, Christ speaks through you, and as you point to his death for the forgiveness of sins and his resurrection for our bodily resurrection at the last day, all who believe will be given the right to be called the children of God and be his witnesses, just like you. Amen
