Eyes Held Back, Eyes Opened
Text: Luke 24:13-35
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
When it comes to Jesus’ resurrection, there are a few mysteries that we haven’t managed to untangle, even in the two millennia since it happened. One of those, a relatively minor one but intriguing nonetheless, is why people seem to have trouble recognizing Jesus right away after His resurrection. Mary Magdalene, Peter, James, John, Thomas, Nathanael, and as we hear in our Gospel reading today, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, all are unable to recognize Jesus on sight after He is raised from the dead. There are different attempted explanations, but we do have an answer given to us here. But before we get there, we have to give these two disciples a vision test to find out how their perception is in general.
What we see before in our Gospel reading is two people who have seen what they needed to see, and yet they still haven’t truly seen it for what it was. These two are not enemies of Jesus—they’re not part of the angry mob shouting for His crucifixion, nor are they the conspiratorial leadership of the people. They are simply those who saw, who hoped, but were disappointed. Their own words describe it accurately, if exhaustedly: “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth,” they said, “a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” The irony, of course, is that they’re talking to Jesus after He has in fact redeemed not only Israel, but all humanity. Yet they cannot recognize Him. And now we get to the reason that St. Luke gives us for why they can’t recognize Jesus this first Easter evening. He writes, “Their eyes were kept from recognizing Him.” Someone was holding them back from seeing Jesus for who He was. That someone was God.
The problem that the disciples on the road had was not merely grief or the fading evening light. It wasn’t a moral failure or inability to remember what Jesus looked like. It was that God had not yet opened their eyes. God had not given them the gift of perceiving. You may know someone like this. You may be someone like this sometimes. You can see all the facts, but they just don’t add up to anything like what you had hoped for. They’ve done everything right but they still can’t see the truth of it all. That’s the person who’s on the road. That’s the person who sees, but hasn’t yet perceived. That’s the person who had hoped, but was disappointed.
But our Lord is merciful. He doesn’t wait for us to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. He doesn’t have a certain threshold of understanding before He comes and gives us the final clue. He comes to you before you’re ready. He tells you exactly where to find Him. And that’s what He does for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. He calls them foolish and slow of heart—sharp words, but sharp like a scalpel that’s needed to begin the spiritual surgery. He tells them they were looking in the wrong places: in the glory of worldly pomp and victory, in the hopes of a political salvation. “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophet have spoken! Look at what the Lord’s prophets have written down, silly disciples! Read what they wrote and none of this will be a surprise. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And then Jesus begins Bible study.
Jesus interprets the Scriptures for them—Moses, those first five books that make the Torah; all the prophets; all the sacred texts handed down from the beginning. And the Messiah is the key to understand it all. What is that’s learned? That this was necessary. The death of the Christ was not an accident. It wasn’t a tragedy or the result of shady political maneuvering. This was not God’s Plan B that left Him scrambling for a way to make right. This death on the cross was the plan. It had to unfold this way. It was necessary. The God who was holding back their eyes from seeing Jesus for who He is, for what He accomplished, was the very same God working through all of human history, directing events and decisions, even apart from what mortals could understand, and instructing the prophets what to record.
And as Jesus was explaining all of this to them, their hearts began to burn. At this point in the account they don’t even recognize what’s going on. They just know that something is happening. “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures?” And again, that may be someone you know. It may be you. The Word of God is already doing what it does, revealing Jesus, but the realization of it isn’t quite there yet. The burning may already be there, but it’s still unnamed. It’s still on the road, on the way.
This burning in their hearts leads them to ask Jesus to stay with them. They reach their destination for the evening, but Jesus acts as though He’s going further. They speak words that the Church has seen fit to echo in the evening for two thousand years ever since: “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” They know they can’t let Him go. The Word, with Christ at the center, has created a gravity, a pulling, a desire that they can’t quite name yet. And so Jesus, merciful as ever, abides with them.
Once they retire indoors for the evening, it’s at the table that Jesus goes through a very familiar scene—and intentionally so. “When He was at table with them, He took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them.” When you hear those words here in this sanctuary, you know what’s about to happen. When Jesus’ disciples heard those words at the table that evening, the same recognition broke into their minds. Their eyes were open and they recognized Him. And then, mysteriously and meaningfully, He vanished from their sight. From now on, this is how He will be seen and recognized by His Church; not in a physical body walking on the roads outside Jerusalem, but in His Holy Supper. He’ll be present there in His body and blood, just as surely as He was present with them on road, but now He will be unseen. The same Jesus who at first held back their eyes from recognizing Him as they walked beside Him now gives them eyes to see Him even though His body is hidden under bread and wine.
It’s only after they’re given to see Him here in the Supper that they can look back and realize what was happening. They can name it: “Did not our hearts burn within us?” They could explain to the Eleven Apostles that they had seen Jesus alive and was made known to them in the breaking of the bread. The realization of who Jesus is and what He has done moved them and gave them the understanding that only faith can have.
But we should return a moment to the fact that these two disciples did something remarkable. They returned to Jerusalem that very hour in order to find the Apostles. They got up and hustled seven miles through the dark in order to be with the other believers. They returned to the community of believers, who, when they told them “Jesus is risen!” they were met with the reply, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” They greet each other in the joy of Jesus’ resurrection—not just because that’s the refrain you’re supposed to say when someone says “Christ is risen,” but because that’s the most important thing now. It’s the foundation of our life together, and so ever since that first evening after Jesus’ resurrection, the Church has greeted one another in that good news.
The Church on earth is a place where these accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, and what it means for us accumulate. Your testimony of the life you have in Jesus joins with others. And that’s good, because there will be times when the burning in your heart gets a little lower, a little quieter; and then someone else’s account—whether it’s the Apostles or a fellow believer here—helps steady you and adds some fuel to the fire. And you likewise have helped others who are in need of building up and banking the flame of faith in their own hearts—probably without even realizing that’s what you’re doing. But that’s OK—if there’s one thing we learn from the Gospel reading today, it’s that God works wonders even when we humans aren’t recognizing what’s going on.
There’s a beautiful rhythm to this account, especially as we see our own lives of faith in it: Jesus comes to you, even before you’re ready. He instructs you in the Word, showing you all the places and promises He’s found in. He makes Himself known to you in the Lord’s Supper. And with those things—the Word, the Sacraments—you find yourself in the community of saints, the company of believers. If you would see Jesus and recognize Him, look for Him in these places where He makes Himself known. Rejoice with your fellow redeemed at how He goes with you on the road and reveals Himself in the breaking of this bread. In the name of Jesus, the Living One, Amen.
