...but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

-Luke 24:16

Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.

-Luke 24:31

DON'T YOU FIND IT IRONIC? I mean, here it is one week after Easter, and we are gathered here for worship once again. Last week we lifted our voices in exclamation:

"Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!"

The whole scene reminds of us another Easter hymn we used to sing:

Come, ye Faithful, raise the strain
of triumphant gladness!
God has brought his people into joy from sadness;
Christ the Lord is risen today! Alleluia!

But that was last week. How does the Easter message of the resurrection affect us this week?

For one thing, according to the news media -
Nearly 1.1 billion people around the globe lack access to safe, clean drinking water;
Iraqi women, t cially in Baghdad, fear for their lives and dare not go out into the streets where war rages;
Government and rebel violence in the Sudan's Darftir region has left some 2000,000 dead and another 2.5 million displaced.

"Can't be...!" You sav
 

This morning I want to ask you to retrace the adventure of discovering this risen Christ who stood among his disciples that evening of the first Easter and said to them, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." Then he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit."

I suspect that there are some of us who may not fully grasp the potential of our Christian faith and the gift of God's grace, corn-combined with the power of the Holy Spirit and what he can accomplish in our lives. There may even be some who grew up in the church that may now be satisfied with a paper God and have forgotten that Jesus Christ's resurrection message was: "Go tell them that I am risen and meet me on the road to Galilee! There I will meet you and lead you into an adventure like you have never known before."

A careful look at St. Luke's Gospel account may well shed some light on our study about the disciples recognizing Jesus. This is what the text has to say:

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all the things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing with themselves, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. (V. 16)

We find in this pericope, or this extract from the larger body of material, that the narrative hinges on two verses that use some form of the word "recognize." The first place it is found is in verse 16, which reads, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. In this instance, "recognizing" is used as a participle, to denote that some event is still in process. The second place where the word is found is in verse 31 where it states that then their eyes were opened and they recognized him.

Webster's Unabridged Dictionary defines the root stem of the word "recognize" as "to perceive something as existing or true; or to acknowledge that something is valid."

The word "recognize" comes from a Greek word which means to have the ability to see, or, to perceive.

The two travelers on their way to Emmaus were so pre-occupied with their own thoughts that they hadn't the slightest notion that they would ever see Jesus again. (Can't be.) They were so wrapped up in their own little world, that nothing was able to penetrate their lack of vision in recognizing Jesus. All that they were capable of saying to the stranger who moved in stride with them were words deprived of any hope and over-loaded with the gravity of disappointment:

"Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" they asked Jesus. "What things?" Jesus questioned innocently. This opened the way for them to share the complete story in its entirety about the crucifixion of Jesus and how the disciples had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.

Here is a picture of theology in process. The moment of meeting is the matrix when two persons in their deepest sense of gloom, are confronted at the cross-roads of life. And the two travelers do not recognize him! Can't be him!

Karl Barth, the late eminent theologian of Reformed theology, states that when he wrote his Church Dogmatics he did it in a series of "present moments." That is to say, he began to write out of actual life experiences and not as if he were cataloging an enormous amount of factual material. It is at that point where the living God confronts us in our deepest moments of despair that healing and redemption can come to our tired, worn bodies, scurrying for meaningful answers.

This was no idle meeting of two disciples and the Christ. It was an act of worship where the Eternal God became living reality for two persons who opened their lives to Christ.

The late Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, is recorded to have said that

Worship is the one means by which the world can save
 itself from political chaos and collapse -
it is to open up the heart to the love of God -
it is to devote the will to the purpose of God.

Worship, then, does not need to be confined to stated occasions necessarily, but for the majority, if it isn't, worship may never take place, excepting when the human spirit reaches out and is touched by the Spirit of the living God. Paul the Apostle says it succinctly in his Letter to the Romans
 

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and-sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

A dozen or more years ago, a perceptive woman who resided at the time in a retirement community, gave me the print of a picture that hung in the study of her husband's church where he served. It is titled simply, "The Presence."

The original was painted with broad strokes so that the human eye is required to complete the picture with an imaginative and questioning mind. The artist painted the picture as if standing in the entry way of some great cathedral, looking the full length of the nave toward the high altar and the pulpit. No one is at the altar nor is there anyone in the pulpit. As your eye gazes about the interior of the church, it finally comes to rest on one lone worshiper with arms resting on the chair in front of him and head bowed. While your attention dances from the high altar to the pulpit and the single worshiper, you will almost miss the figure in the foreground hidden in the shadow of one of the great pillars of the church. It is the Christ - hence - The Presence. Again we are reminded of Karl Barth's "present moments" when writing his Dogmatics. Christ is very real in his presence even though we do not always sense his being there. In some way, the painting may speak to us of the discouragement of the two on their way to Emmaus, when as Jesus walked in step with them, entering into conversation, their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

This brings us to the second form of the word "recognize" found in verse 31 as we return to look at Luke's account of the two walking toward Emmaus.
 

As the two neared their destination, facing the sunset, they invited their new-found friend into their house for some refreshment and rest. At their invitation, as he was the invited guest, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and divided it among the group. The words sounded so familiar and the voice so resembling another voice they had often heard many times before. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.

In verse 31, for the second time we come across the word "recognize" there is another word that is very familiar to us. The word is "ophthalmos " from which we derive the word ophthalmology. A rough transliteration of the word might be something like this:

their eyes had been dimmed, or their eyes had been prevented, or hindered from recognizing him.

Many of us know the meaning of the word when we make our annual pilgrimage to the ophthalmologist who examines our eyes with state-of-the-art optical instruments. Without corrective lenses the world appears out of focus and objects are fuzzy and the boundaries are blurred. We have defective visual acuity. We are prevented, or hindered from seeing objects clearly because our eyesight is imperfect.

Why couldn't the two travelers on their way to Emmaus recognize who Jesus was? Was it disbelief, or was it because of their pre­occupation with the recent events of the crucifixion, or was it because their eyes could not perceive the glorified body with which Jesus was now clothed following the resurrection? This whole idea of conquering death, being raised from the dead was over-whelming to them. As they had approached Emmaus on their journey, their only question to the stranger was one of disbelief-"Are you the only one who does not know what happened in the last few days?" Their eyes were kept from recognizing him, but after the encounter on the road and their sharing in the meal when Jesus was handed bread, he broke, blessed and gave it to them, then they recognized him for then their eyes were opened.

Where does this leave us?

Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, which is based on the Easter motive, explodes with the crashing sound of the storm at the time of the resurrection, which is followed by the first tremulous notes of hope and life, then broadens into a song of thanksgiving. What was lost in the shadows of the night in all its fulfillment of disappointment and anguish, is now released into a mighty crescendo of faith!

As one noteworthy has commented, maybe we are living on the wrong side of Easter. When our eyes are fixed on the sunset as we make our way toward whatever Emmaus is for us, our eyes are hindered from beholding the risen Christ. We become so pre­occupied with our own little world that we lose sight of the possible adventure that could be ours.  We cannot see the Christ whose Presence is hidden in the shadows of life, even when we proclaim to be believers in the faith of the risen Christ. It is only as the Presence, the Christ, unobtrusive as he is, meets us at that point of meeting in our strained lives, that our spiritual eyesight is cleared and we come to recognize him in the simple things of life -such as breaking bread, giving thanks in prayer that we fathom the meaning of his pierced hands, only to realize that he has vanished from our sight.

Recall what he told his disciples on that first Easter Sunday evening? Go, tell them 1 am risen, then meet me on the road to Galilee and I will lead you into an adventure like you have never seen before.

The Easter message did not stop a week ago. The Christ who left the grave and took to the open road invites you to experience his presence now - the Christ who

died that we might be forgiven.
He died to make us good,
that we might go at last to heaven,
saved by his precious blood.

O dearly, dearly has he loved
and we must love him too,
and trust in his redeeming blood
and try his works to do.

Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania,  www.apcusa.org