Will We Recognize the Christ
in the Breaking of the Bread?

Rev. Kristi Denham
Congregational Church of Belmont
Easter Sunday ~ April 4, 2010

We have walked through Holy Week. We celebrated Palm Sunday with a telling of the Passion Story by our children. They learned a lot. Although some of us found it very hard to watch a young Daniela Sanchez as she played the role of Jesus and stood with her arms outstretched on that cross! It certainly made the telling all the more poignant.

And our Maundy Thursday Service this year was truly powerful, as the story was told and the lights went out one by one and the choir shared their wonderful music with us. We remembered as Jesus, in his humanity, begged his disciples to remember.

And now we celebrate the resurrection: Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! This is the most joyful day of the Christian calendar but for many it is also the most problematic. Do we really have to believe in the literal physical resurrection of Jesus in order to call ourselves Christians?

As minister in a Progressive Christian church, I can honestly answer that question: No!

Our own Minister Emeritus, the Reverend John Brooke, preached an Easter sermon probably some twenty years ago admitting the he couldn’t buy it. He knew, as I do, that most Biblical scholars find the stories inconsistent at best and untenable, unscientific and completely illogical at worst.

Did the story happen this way?

Paul, the author of all those letters to the early churches he founded, is the earliest written witness to the resurrection. And for him, resurrection came as a blinding light and a loud voice. It was a vision and he was fine with that.

People in the first century believed in the power of visions. They make us uncomfortable as post-modern thinkers, but some of us would admit to having had one or two.

All four gospels speak of the resurrection but Matthew, Luke and John base their stories on the Gospel According to Mark and he ends his telling at the empty tomb. It is up to those who hear his gospel to listen, learn and decide for themselves what it all means.

Matthew, Luke and John all expand on Mark’s story and add resurrection appearances that are as troubling as they are mysterious. How can someone both be physical enough to share a meal and then disappear from sight or show the wounds in his hands and still walk through walls as happens in John’s Gospel?

But once again ancient people had no trouble believing in visions that were as visceral as they were visual or audible. We in the scientific age have to question their reality before we decide what to make of them.

Today we have heard the story of Cleopas and his companion (probably his wife) as they travel from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus and encounter the Christ on the way. It is a story found only in the Gospel According to Luke. Did it really happen?

Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, in their excellent study of what the Gospels really teach about Jesus’ final days in Jerusalem, called “The Last Week,” suggest that we read the resurrection stories the way we read the parables of Jesus.

When we hear the story of the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son, we don’t need there to have been a particular Samaritan helping a particular stranger or an historical Prodigal Son with a specific grumpy older brother and a loving father for these stories to hold truth for us. Their truth is deeper than detail. Their meaning is what matters.

So it is with the story of the encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus. It is a story that perfectly describes how the early church came to understand all that Jesus had taught and experienced.

The historical fact of Jesus’ death clearly devastated his disciples and all those who were hoping that the Messiah would finally bring peace to Israel. But they continued to meet, to pray, to share meals together, and to practice his teachings on love and justice.