For Next Week: Go to Church!! (Maundy Thursday Worship 7:00PM)
For the Week after: Road to Emmaus
READ: Luke 24
PRAY: In this week’s story, Christ appears in the breaking of the bread. Pray for Christ to be present and reveal himself whenever you eat this week. If you aren’t in the habit of regular table grace, now is a good time to start!
PONDER:
The disciples on the roadside are wrestling with doubt. Remember a time in your faith life when you experienced doubt. How did you move from doubt to faith? Did this experience strengthen your faith? Why or why not?
How did Jesus reveal himself to the disciples? How does Jesus continue to reveal himself to you? To our world / community?
If you met Jesus walking along the road, how would you know that it was him? How would he be able to convince you? What would you say to Jesus / ask him once you knew it was him?
We experience Jesus weekly in the breaking of the bread at the Communion table. Remember a time you received communion that was particularly powerful for you. What made it different? Looking back, was there a way in which Jesus was revealing himself to you in that meal?
How do you encounter Jesus weekly through the Sacrament of Holy Communion? Why is this important to you?
DO: Jesus made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of the bread. Consider baking a loaf of bread to bring to communion. Or, better yet, bake a loaf of bread to give to or share with a friend or neighbor – make Jesus known to them through the breaking of the bread!
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2 comments:
Good morning Pastor Amy, May I use some of your postings for our Adult Sunday School class? Thank you so much for your insights. Please respond to jdgehret@dejazzd.com.
In Christ, Deb Gehret
The women encounter an empty tomb and are perplexed. Two angels appear to them and they are terrified. The angels retell Christ’s story and they remembered. The women told all this to the men and they seemed to them an idle tale and they did not believe. Peter ran to the tomb and he was amazed.
These were the reactions of the early Church when they heard the Gospel. If not the empty tomb or angelic messengers, what makes these words real for them and for us?
WORD
Jesus appears to the disciples twice in Luke’s account (Luke 24:15, 36).
In each instance, what common activity are the disciples engaged in before Jesus appears?
According to this post-Resurrection model, in what activities might we expect Jesus to reveal himself to us? In what ways is Jesus revealed to us?
The disciples saw the risen Jesus, but they were afraid (24:37) and were unable to recognize him (24:16). Boring & Craddock write, “Recognizing God’s act in Jesus is not a matter of human insight but is itself a divine gift” (People’s New Testament Commentary, p. 279).
What does this mean for us and our ability to see Christ among us?
How does God reveal Christ to us? (see 1 Corinthians 2:6-16; Ephesians 2:8-10)
After Jesus was raised, his disciples turned to the Bible (Old Testament Scripture) to understand what happened. Before this, they would have answered Jesus’ question in 24:25-26 in the negative. They expected the Messiah to come and free the nation of Israel from their enemies, feed the hungry, and bring peace on earth. That’s how they interpreted the Bible. But after the resurrection, they read the same Scriptures with new eyes.
Jesus’ disciples discovered in the Bible many passages that illustrated their new faith (see John 2:22; 12:16; 16:12-13; 20:9; 1 Peter 1:10). Read from a Christian perspective, the entire Old Testament (24:26) points to God’s ultimate act in Christ, or as Luther puts it, “is a cradle for the Christ child.” However, this doesn’t mean Jews have simply gotten it wrong all this time. As Christians, we read the whole Bible in light of our faith in Christ. As demonstrated in this story, such a reading isn’t to be assumed, but requires study and interpretation (see Acts 2:22-32; 8:26-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12-18).
In light of this reality, how can (should) we as Christians seek out Christ?
How can (should) we as a Church witness to Christ? (see also the description of Jesus in Luke 24:19 for how he first witnessed to us)
SACRAMENT
Jesus doesn’t force himself on the disciples, but takes the initiative when they invite him. The words used to describe the meal in 24:30 are similar to those from the Last Supper in 22:19 and the multiplication of the loaves in 9:16. However, as in both of the previous instances, this is not a formal communion celebration – it is first and foremost an ordinary meal. Boring & Craddock write, “the boundary between ‘ordinary’ meals and the Eucharist grows thin. Every meal can point to the risen Christ” (281).
What does this mean for us in our daily eating and drinking?
Do you say a table grace before meals? If so, does your prayer point to this reality of the risen Christ?
How (if at all) do you expect Christ’s presence at your table?
How is this similar and different from the experience of Christ in the Eucharist?
BIBLICAL LITERALISM
The Bible was written and transcribed by many authors over a period of many centuries. As Lutherans, we believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of our proclamation, faith, and life (ELCA Constitution). However, at the same time, we don’t believe that the earth is flat (Isaiah 11:12) or that the sun revolves around the earth (Ecclesiastes 1:5). The Bible is not a scientific or historical document. It is a collection of documents that witness to God’s mighty acts in the world and relationship with humanity, culminating in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
As such, the Bible not only contains certain contradictions, but does so intentionally, in order to reveal the many dimensions and meanings of the divine that cannot be comprehended in simple human terms.
The entire 24th Chapter of Luke occurs in one symbolic day (Easter Sunday). Since it was already evening when Jesus and the two disciples sat down to eat, this would mean that the ascension of 24:51 would have happened late into the night. The point is not the chronology, but the reality of what happened in the church’s experience after Easter.
Luke describes a risen Christ “having flesh and bones” (v. 39) and “eating a piece of broiled fish” (v.42). Compare this to Paul’s description of the resurrection body in 1 Corinthians 15:35-50. Boring and Craddock write, “The New Testament thus pictures the reality of the resurrection in different ways that are not to be harmonized. Each image brings out some theological meaning of the resurrection or closes the door to some misunderstanding: the variety of imagery points to the divine mystery that cannot be captured in one representation” (282).
Luke is the only New Testament author to describe the ascension. According to Paul, Christ was exalted to heaven at the resurrection and all appearances after the resurrection are from there (1 Corinthians 15:3-11). Even Luke’s own descriptions of the ascension don’t match up (compare Luke 24:50-53 with Acts 1:9-11). For this reason, some manuscripts omit the ascension account from the end of Luke’s Gospel. However, Luke himself acknowledges the first ascension account in Acts 1:2, consciously acknowledging the two contradictory accounts, to make the point that while it can be pictured in different ways, that “God raised up Jesus and made him Lord of all” is the central message of Christ’s role after the resurrection (see Philemon 2:5-11; Boring & Craddock, p. 282).
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