How We Know Easter
FROM THE RECTOR
One of my favorite services of the year is one we rarely observe as a congregation—Easter Evening. After the drama of the Easter Vigil and after the joy of Easter Morning, the church observes yet another Easter service as the sun sets, as the excitement wears off, as the long reality of the journey ahead begins to sink in. The gospel lesson for Easter Evening picks up where Luke’s telling of the discovery of the empty tomb leaves off, after the women have conversed with the angels and reported their findings to the apostles, after the men have dismissed their words as an idle tale, and after Peter has raced to the tomb and gone home amazed but unsure of what had happened.
On Easter Evening, two disciples walked the seven-mile trek from Jerusalem to a town called Emmaus. One was named Cleopas, but the other was never identified. They discussed what had happened in the holy city—how Jesus had been betrayed, arrested, tortured and killed and how reports of the empty tomb had begun to spread among his followers. The risen Jesus came and walked with them, asking them to explain what had taken place. When they described what had taken place earlier that same day, they acknowledged the women’s report and the angels’ insistence that Jesus had been raised from the dead, but they admitted that, because no one had actually seen the risen Christ, the community of the disciples was unsure what to make of these reports. So the two disciples walked toward whatever future lay ahead of them in Emmaus.
Pushing back against their lack of understanding, Jesus began to explain to them why God’s anointed needed to suffer before entering into glory, relying on the Jewish scriptures to make his point. The disciples were intrigued—their hearts burned inside of them, Luke tells us—but still they could not recognize the one with whom they walked. Only after pressing their companion to stay with them in Emmaus and after watching him take, bless, and break a loaf of bread and give some to them did they recognize the one with whom they sat at the table. As their eyes were opened, the risen Lord disappeared from their sight. Immediately, they got up and ran all the way back to Jerusalem to share what had happened with the other apostles, who by then also had their own stories of encounters with Jesus to tell.
Whenever we read the full story of Easter, we learn again what has always been true—that the fullness of Jesus’ resurrection is never received all at once but over time as we encounter the risen Christ together. Although Luke is the only gospel writer to provide the Emmaus story, all four gospel accounts make it clear that no one beheld the empty tomb and immediately understood what God had done. Until Jesus made himself known to them, those who came to the tomb were filled with a mixture of fear, sadness, excitement, and confusion. There is no telling of the story in which those who saw that the stone was rolled away believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Believing that always requires an experience of the living Christ.
Last year, because of the pandemic, we held an extra service on Easter Evening outside in the greenspace. For those who gathered, most of whom felt particularly vulnerable, it was their only chance to receive the body and blood of Christ at Easter. For them, the beauty and excitement of a full church on Easter Morning was as impenetrable as the mystery of the resurrection had been to those who walked the Emmaus road. They needed Jesus to show up and give himself to them hours after the frenzy of the morning had passed. This year, we celebrated Easter Evening only with the women at the correctional facility across the street and with the students at St. Martin’s. In both places, Jesus met those who gathered in ways that were not recognizable to them earlier in the day. Even if you missed the chance to look for Jesus on Easter Evening, where will you look for him now?
Where does the risen Christ show up most profoundly in your life? Some of us feel closest to Jesus in the joyful chaos of Easter Morning, but most of us encounter him more fully later on, when everything is quiet and when Jesus is willing to meet us and give himself to us wherever we are. The story of Easter remains unfinished until Jesus’ followers meet their risen savior, and Luke reminds us that we meet him in principally the sacrament of his body and blood. Although we also associate Holy Communion with the final meal Jesus shared with his disciples before he died, Christians now share that meal with the risen Christ. In the breaking of the bread, we see the crucified and resurrected on. As people of faith, we, too, walk down the Emmaus road, trying to make sense of what happened at Easter, but it is when we meet him at the table that we know the resurrection of Jesus.
Yours Faithfully,
Evan D. Garner