Third Sunday of Easter
April 30, 2017
“Opening the Scriptures, Breaking the Bread” (Luke 24:13-35)
One of my favorite paintings is one we happen to have hanging in the hallway here at St. Matthew’s. I’ve brought it forward this morning, because it goes with the Gospel reading for today. The painting is called, in German, “Gang nach Emmaus,” “The Road to Emmaus,” by a 19th-century Swiss artist, Robert Zünd. I love this painting, because it really activates my imagination. You’re looking from a distance at Jesus walking with two disciples on the road to Emmaus, while Jesus is opening the Scriptures to them. You wish you could zoom yourself into the picture and listen in and walk along. What a Bible study that must have been!
And then, if you know the story from Luke 24, your mind goes ahead to when they arrive at Emmaus, and they ask Jesus, whom they do not yet recognize–they ask him to stay, and he breaks bread with them at table. Then their eyes are opened, and they recognize him as Jesus, risen from the dead, and they marvel at what had just happened.
What a day, what an experience that must have been! To have Jesus opening the Scriptures to you. To have Jesus present with you, breaking the bread at table. Imagine that! No, don’t just imagine it. Experience it! Because that is exactly what Jesus is doing here today, right here among us: “Opening the Scriptures, Breaking the Bread.”
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