Acts
2:14a, 36 - 41
Psalm
116:1 – 3, 10 – 17
I
Peter 1:17 – 23
Luke
24:13 – 35
This
is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, April
23, 2023 by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“KNOWING THE LORD, AND MAKING HIM KNOWN”
(Homily text: Luke 24:13 – 35)
St. Luke provides us with a wonderful
account of one of the Lord’s resurrection appearances, this one to two of the
disciples as they made their way from Jerusalem toward a town called Emmaus on
Easter Sunday afternoon and evening. This account is Luke’s alone, a wonderful
gift to us and to Christians down through time.
One aspect of the interchange in this
account between Jesus and the two disciples that’s always fascinated me is that
as the Lord joins the two on the road, neither one of them recognized Him.
Then, Luke tells us, “Their eyes were opened” and they knew who He was. This
happened over a meal at the inn they were going to as the Lord broke bread with
them.
Isn’t it interesting that their being
able to know Jesus’ identity was given as a gift, something they themselves
couldn’t have managed to come to know. I think that’s a good way to understand
the substance of what happened.
Surely St. Augustine of Hippo[1],
perhaps the western Church’s foremost theologian, would agree with the idea
that being able to know God and His son, Jesus the Christ, is a gift, God’s
gift. Augustine says that our sinful condition is so profound, so deep, that we
are entirely unable to know God, absent God’s gift of grace, which corrects our
faulty vision and which enables us to see God clearly.
Since Cleopas and the other, unnamed
disciple, were able to know the Lord as the bread was being broken, the
question might arise in our thinking: “What are the ways we know God?”
Here are some ways with might know God:
1.
In
the Holy Eucharist:
We come to the holy table at which the meal of communion with the Lord is
celebrated. Essentially, this action is a ritualized enactment of what happened
at the Last Supper. Our understanding, as Episcopalians/Anglicans is that the
Lord is really present[2] in
the bread and in the wine in ways that we don’t fully understand. But, we
maintain, we don’t need to fully know just how this mystery works. It’s important
simply to know that it does. To receive the bread and the wine, according to
this understanding (which, I believe, is the correct one) is to become one with
the Lord – to commune (defined as “being one with” Him.
2.
In
Holy Scripture:
The Bible is a record of God’s dealing with humanity over time. I firmly
believe that each incident in this interactive drama is preserved for us in its
sacred pages because – due to God’s unchanging nature and the human condition’s
recurring nature – the basic elements of the interaction between God and
humankind are unchanging. So the things that happened many centuries ago are
bound to happen again. Therefore, the Bible retains its relevance to our lives
today.
3.
In
God’s working in other’s lives: One reason the Church exists, and – in
particular – the local parish exists, is to provide a laboratory for us to see
God at work in each other’s lives. For example, when someone is miraculously
healed of a physical condition, something that medical science is unable to
explain, we might come to the conclusion that God was at work in the process.
Likewise, when someone overcomes a serious challenge – addiction of one kind or
another is an example – God can be seen in the process of restoration.
Now, in connection with this last
point, we might ask ourselves, “How is my life a means by which the Lord is
made known?” After all, it’s been said that our lives and the way in which we
live them, is the only Bible many people will ever read. True enough, I think.
No wonder that St. Paul, writing in
many of his letters to the new Christians in the churches he had founded,
admonishes them time and again, telling them that – because they have come to
Christ and have become Christ’s forever – they can no longer live as they did
beforehand. Their lives must change, reflecting God’s character (love, joy,
peace, patience, perseverance, etc.) and the new and better way of living that
Christ’s true and abiding presence makes known.
So may it be for us today.
AMEN.
[1] Augustine lived from 354 – 430 AD, and was Bishop of the north African
city, Hippo.
[2] This understanding of the nature of the Eucharist was articulated by the reformer Martin Luther. He used the term Consubstantiation to explain that the Lord was really present in the communion elements. His position is midway between the Roman Catholic understanding, known as Transubstantiation, a belief that the accidents of the communion (bread and wine) do not change, but the substance of them (the Lord’s presence) does change, and the Protestant understanding, which maintains that the Lord’s Supper is a memorial, and nothing more.
