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Lord, open your Word to our hearts this Easter,

and our hearts to your Word always.  AMEN.

+Tim Winton, 11/V/13 (adapted)

‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, and while he was opening the scriptures to us?’

Some of us will have had that burning sensation during Canon Andy’s sermon here last Sunday, when he urged us to reflect on ‘Reconciliation, Prophetic Imagination, and Pastoral Attention’, and the Cathedral’s ministry of welcome and inclusion [https://www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk/news/sunday-sermon-eucharist/].  If you missed it, or even if you heard it, it is well worth a read.

You can find it and lots of other sermons on the website – just browse the News page and you’ll find them.

And so I wanted to continue that reflection on the life and mission of the Cathedral, thinking especially of that aspect of our life together which is celebrated in our ministries of Word and Sacrament – Word and Sacrament.

The narrative of Jesus meeting the two Disciples on the road to Emmaus is one of the most thrilling of the Resurrection narratives.  And it has also long been used as an image of the Church, of what we do when we meet each Sunday to celebrate Communion together.

Let’s think first about who it was that met Jesus when he ‘came near and went with them’ [Lk 24:15].  They are described as ‘two of the Disciples, going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem’ [Lk 24:13].  We’re only told the name of one of them – Cleopas – an interesting name, with Aramaic, Greek and Egyptian backgrounds, most famously known in the feminine version, ‘Cleopatra’.  But Clopas, or Cleopas, or Cleophas, is also interesting in that it is only mentioned one other time in the New Testament.  And that is in John 19:25, where Mary, the wife of Clopas, is standing near the Cross of Jesus with Mary, his mother, his aunt, and Mary Magdalene.  There must be a strong possibility that the Clopas on the road to Emmaus was the husband of Mary, and that she was with him – a married couple, returning to their village of Emmaus, seven miles outside Jerusalem, on the day after the Sabbath, after the huge disappointment of the death of Jesus on Good Friday.  This would have been their first opportunity to go home, as the Law would not have allowed them to walk that far on the Sabbath.  Speculation, I know, but an interesting possibility.

Jesus joins them on the road, they walk together, they don’t recognise him.  Someone suggested to me this week that perhaps they were so down-cast, walking with their heads down, that they didn’t even look up to see who the stranger was.

The conversation they have on the road is well-known, and we’ve heard it already.  But the crux comes when Jesus begins with Moses and all the prophets, and interprets to them the things about himself [Lk 24:27].

What happened to that teaching?  It’s astonishing to me that Luke – the only one to tell this particular Resurrection story – that Luke didn’t write down everything that Jesus told these two Disciples.  Why wouldn’t he?  And the only reason I can think of is that Jesus’ teaching on the road to Emmaus was already known, it was already being taught in the Churches, quoted in the Gospels that were being written.  So, when we read ‘this was in fulfilment of the Scriptures’, or ‘as it is written in the Prophet Isaiah’, and so on, I think there is a strong chance that we are entering the stream of reflection in the Early Church about the links between Jesus and what we now call the Old Testament, a stream of reflection which goes back to Jesus on the road to Emmaus, as well as to the teaching of his earthly ministry.

Later on, the two Disciples say, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the Scriptures to us?’ [Lk 24:32].

Now, we might have loved to have been with those two disciples on the road, we would have loved to have been part of this experience on that first Easter Sunday.  But, in fact, every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we are given the opportunity meet Jesus in the same way.  Jesus explained the Scriptures to the two disciples: ‘He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” [Lk 24:27], and we also listen to the Scriptures, Sunday by Sunday, and day by day, we are invited to open our hearts to them, and the preacher is invited to reflect on them, and to open them up for the congregation.  This has sometimes been called ‘The Breaking of the Scriptures’, in the same way that we shall break bread later.

Each time we meet for worship, we are invited to journey along the road to Emmaus – the whole of this Gospel story seems to be set out like a Service of Worship.

Having heard the Scriptures, in the readings, and had them interpreted for us, in the sermon, we’re invited to respond to them.

On the road to Emmaus, the Disciples response was to say, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over’ [Lk 24:29].  They invited him to stay and eat with them, they opened their hearts to him.

Our response to the hearing and breaking of the Scripture is threefold: firstly, we often respond by using an affirmation of faith, a Creed, something which says, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe’, even if we also want to add ‘Help my unbelief’.  In the Book of Common Prayer version, which we’re singing this morning, the Nicene Creed was translated into English as ‘I believe in one God’.  The Common Worship translation, which we sometimes use when we say the Creed, is a better version of the original Greek, ‘Πιστεύομεν’, ‘We believe in God’.  The affirmation of faith is not just personal, but is also communal.  If we struggle with faith, we can affirm that faith in the body of the Church, knowing that this is the faith that the Church holds and proclaims, even if we are having difficulties at a particular time.  We respond to the breaking of Scripture by affirming our faith together.

Our second response is by praying for the Church and the world.  That is why the prayers come where they do.  We hear of God’s love for us in the Scriptures, we have his Word explained in the sermon, we respond in faith to what we have heard, and then we pray that the love we have heard about and proclaimed may be shared with the whole world.  And so we pray.  We’re not telling God anything he doesn’t know already, but as a Cathedral Community we are lifting to him the joys and sorrows of the world, and praying for his love and healing to be poured into every situation.

And our third response to the Breaking of Scripture is in the Peace.  As we shall say, ‘The risen Christ came and stood among his Disciples and said, ‘Peace be with you’’ [Common Worship].  Jesus first words to the Disciples in the locked room on the evening of the first Easter Day: ‘Peace be with you’ [Jn 20:19].  We share that peace with each other as part of our response to hearing the Word of God read and explained to us, and our acknowledgement of each other as part of the Body of Christ.

And so the story continues.  Jesus goes into the house, and ‘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 the recognized Jesus’ [Lk 24:30f.].

The Eucharist that we are celebrating today follows exactly the same pattern as that of Jesus in the Upper Room at the Last Supper, and in that house in Emmaus.

Jesus took bread and wine, as we shall take it.  He blessed it as we shall do in the Eucharistic Prayer.  He broke it, as we shall do after the Lord’s Prayer.  And he gave it to them as we shall do when we receive Communion.

The Breaking of the Scripture on the road to Emmaus, and the Breaking of the Bread in the house at Emmaus, have become normative for us – this is what Jesus did, and so this is what Christians do when they meet Sunday by Sunday, day by day.

And so I suppose the question for us who gather here week by week, or for those of us who are occasional visitors, is ‘Are our eyes opened, and do we recognize Jesus’ in the breaking of the bread?

And does that recognition make any difference to our lives, to what we do on all the other days of the week, to the life and work of this Cathedral Church?

When Jesus was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight [Lk 24:30-31].  It is strange that he vanished immediately, but surely Jesus wanted them to understand that he is present with the Church every time it celebrates the Eucharist.  During the Last Supper Jesus said, ‘Do this in remembrance of me’ [Lk 22:19].  Jesus himself taught them in the house in Emmaus that when they do this in remembrance of him he really is with them and their hearts burn within them.  From now on every time they do this in remembrance of Jesus he will be with them just as he was with them on the road to Emmaus.  Every time we do this in remembrance of Jesus, he is with us just as he was with the two Disciples on the road to Emmaus.

When we hear the Word of God, not only do we hear it with our ears and understand it with our minds, but the Holy Spirit works within us to allow the Word of God to heal and renew us, just as the Word healed and renewed the two Disciples on the road to Emmaus, burning their hearts.  The Holy Spirit works on us, too, every time we gather in Church and the Word of God is proclaimed.  We might wish that we could have been with those two Disciples on the road, we would have loved to have been part of that experience.  But every time we come to worship, we are being fed, our hearts are burning within us, even if, like the two Disciples, we don’t realise it at the time.

John Wesley, amongst many others, talked of this as ‘Sanctification’, the progressive work of Grace within us, transforming us to be more and more like Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So, as individuals and as the Cathedral Community, we are on the road to Emmaus, we’re on a journey, listening to Scripture, breaking the Scripture, and taking, blessing, breaking and sharing the bread and wine, and, seen or unseen, Jesus is with us on this journey.

Some people may well know of Ann Lewin, a poet and writer and friend of mine.  She wrote the little poem, ‘Emmaus Walk’, with which I want to end:

EMMAUS WALK

‘Don’t talk to strangers’, we are

Told in childhood.  It takes years

To grow through infant training.

Daring to trust comes with maturity,

Or perhaps is born of desperation.

The Emmaus two discovered

That the stranger unlocked

Understanding;

Shared food became a blessing.

(Ann Lewin)