When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him, and he vanished from their sight. 

(Luke 24:30-31)

About 15 years ago I was the convener of the Presbytery Mission and Discipleship Committee. We also had a family holiday in Cesme, a Turkish resort on the Aegean. A friend of Sue’s, Alex,  from her time working for the council had bought a house there and we went to visit him. As we sat in his living room my brain was silently prodding me: I knew him. I was sure I knew him. Then he put me out of my misery. He was a member of the committee I convened. 

Sometimes if we see someone we know in a context we don’t expect to see them in we may not recognise them. Maybe that’s the reason Cleopas and his companion don’t recognise Jesus when he joins them on the road to Emmaus. After all that’s the last context they’d expect to find him in. Last they’d seen of him he was nailed to a cross and very dead. Yes they’d heard the story of the empty tomb but that was way back in Jerusalem not here on the road to Emmaus. We’re not entirely sure where Emmaus was but best guess is a place called Imwas a twelve hour walk east of Jerusalem so if they got there at sundown they must have left Jerusalem only very shortly after the women had returned from the tomb and everything was still up in the air. So again Jesus was the last person they’d expect to see in this context.

I’m not sure that will do. Luke takes the trouble to give his name suggesting that the readers of his gospel may be familiar with it. There is some suggestion that his wife was among the women gathered at the cross. It’s hard to believe he walked all that way with Jesus at his side without thinking “Wait a minute! I know you from somewhere!” There’s something going on here especially as later on his eyes will be opened and he will recognise him. We know that Jesus’s resurrection body was different in some ways from the one that died on the cross. It could appear and disappear. He wasn’t immediately recognised - think Mary Magdalene thinking he was the gardener. Which is all whizz-bang and all that but why does Luke go to such lengths to emphasise that in this story?

Another question. Would we recognise Jesus if we met him on the road? There are plenty of pictures of him in our churches. Surely we’d know the face of Christ. Thing is we tend to picture Jesus in accordance with our preconceptions and expectations. When I was a kid there was a magazine called Look and Learn and the back page had the story of Jesus in colour. Jesus was distinctly white, with long flowing hair, a beard and eyes that if they weren’t blue were pretty close. He was, well Anglo-Saxon.

That’s OK. In Africa the face of Christ is black. In the East Indies the face of Christ is Polynesian. However Jewish and Middle-Eastern the human Jesus was - probably brown-skinned, clean-shaven with dark curly hair by the way - the risen Christ is the saviour for all humanity in all our variety of race, language, sexuality and culture. If we picture him to resemble us that’s fine. Though depicting him as the President the United States might be somewhat blasphemous. It also sends us in another direction.

When do Cleopas recognise Jesus? When he breaks the bread and shares it. That act of sharing - that mark of shared belonging was already a part of Christian worship when Paul was writing his letters decades before Luke wrote his gospel. It was a mark of the Christian community. It was in that sharing - that shared sense of belonging - that Cleopas recognised Jesus; when he saw the face of Christ. There in the house of Cleopas - not a temple or a synagogue or a church or a cathedral - the face of Christ was revealed. Revealed in the simple act - no ritual, no symbolism, no liturgy - of sharing bread the face of Christ was revealed. In perhaps the place you’d least expect, in an act so simple you’d never expect it, the face of Christ is revealed.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not dissing Holy Communion. It’s when we come closest to Christ in times of worship. It ends together the whole Christian Church - the body of Christ on Earth. It encapsulates the Gospel of Jesus and unites us with him in a powerful and primal way that requires a whole other sermon. But not today.

Today I just want to work with this moment of this story. This moment when two people choose to share their bread with an apparent stranger. This moment when Jesus shows his face in the blessing of that sharing. This moment that summarises and gives concrete shape to Jesus’s last commandment to his followers - love one another; that reflects Jesus’s last parable to his followers: when I was hungry you gave me food. It is in this sharing - this act of community - that Cleopas saw the face of Christ.

Maybe this is what Luke is getting at in telling this story. He was writing to 1st Century Christians but also to us. When we show the world what it means to belong together as community we show the face of Christ to the world. When we look after one another as community we show the face of Christ to the world. When we treat the people the world rejects or teaches us to hate with love and dignity we show the face of Christ to the world. When we see the riches of this world not as things to be seized but as things to be shared we become the context in which people recognise the face of Christ

Father may we ever seek the face of your Son among the poor and the homeless and the refugee. My we ever show his face in the things we say and do

Preached at Baxter Hall Eastriggs and Annan Old Parish Church

Complete Service