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When Jesus broke bread at what we traditionally call The Last Supper, he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” In other words, “If you want to remember the truth about me, then break and eat bread, pour and drink wine in my name, and you will remember me. If you try to remember me without breaking bread or drinking wine in my name, you won’t remember me.” If we don’t remember Jesus, we will be forced to create a substitute. If we were honest with ourselves, each of us would have to admit that our self-constructed image of Jesus and the Jesus who reveals the truth of himself have very little in common. But that’s OK. As we grow in our faith, hopefully our images of Jesus and of God also grow and mature and brings us gradually to the truth of who Jesus was, of who Jesus is, and who Jesus still wants to be for us.  

So, we have two despondent disciples traveling on the road to some place called Emmaus. What we know about them is that they are sad and that they do not recognize the Risen Jesus who walks alongside them. We don’t know why they are sad, and we don’t know why they do not recognize the Lord in their midst. By the end of the story, Luke will have to tell us why they are sad and why they don’t recognize Jesus.  

I am no expert, but I’ve had the privilege of being in the Holy Land twice. Of the millions of pilgrims who have made their way to Israel, the Holy Land, not one tour guide has ever been able to take a single person to Emmaus. The reason is that Biblical archeologists can’t find the place. They keep digging 11 km all around Jerusalem, just like the Gospel of Luke tells us, but they can’t find Emmaus. It doesn’t actually exist. From a storyteller’s point of view, if you are going to Emmaus, you are on road that leads nowhere; you’re going to a place that doesn’t exist. You’re going to an imaginary place.

When painful memories become too much, as they must have been for the disciples who were mourning Jesus’ death, I think we go into an imaginary place in our minds as a temporary escape from the pain until we can deal with it more fully. 

Recall the one- and only-way Jesus ask his disciples to remember him. He asked them to break and eat bread as well as to pour and drink wine. Now recall how the disciples on the road to Emmaus chose to remember Jesus. Notice their self-constructed image of Jesus. He was a prophet mighty in word and deed. That was Jesus’ reputation, that he was a prophet mighty in word and deed. So, they remembered him as a reputation. Our chief priest and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. They remembered him as a victim of corrupt religious and political leaders. We had hoped he would be the one who would redeem Israel. Obviously, in their minds, he did not redeem Israel. So they remembered him as a failure because he did not live up to their expectations. Lastly, some women went to the tomb early this morning, but they did not find his body there.They were looking for a dead body. So they remembered him as a dead person. Putting it all together, these disciples remembered Jesus as a reputation, a victim, a failure, and a dead man. Jesus calls their memory foolishness. “Oh, how foolish you are.” He tells them they are fools if they remember Jesus that way, because he was never any of that. It’s like he was saying, “I was never a reputation. I was never a victim. I was never a failure. And, I was certainly never a dead man. But, that’s the way you chose to remember me. No wonder your sad.”

How do we choose to remember people who have passed on? If you read most obituaries, we don’t do any better of a job remembering our loved ones as the disciples on the road to Emmaus did in remembering Jesus 2000 years ago. What do we find in our obituaries? Reputations and victims all over again. She taught at Moncton High School for 31 years, please donate to the Cancer Society. Your reputation was that you were a teacher, and you were a victim of cancer. If you remember your loved ones, who have passed on, as reputations and victim, you’ll get really sad. 

Now we know the answer to the first question, why the disciples were sad. They were sad because of the false way they remembered Jesus. Remembering people as reputations, victims, failure and dead, will always make you sad. And now we know the answer to the second question, why they didn’t recognize Jesus even as he walked alongside them. They didn’t recognize Jesus because they were looking for a reputation, a victim, a failure and a dead man. That’s not who was walking with them. Jesus was never a victim. Victims have their lives taken from them. Jesus, on one level, had his life taken from him, but on another level, that’s not true at all. He already told us, “The Son of Man does not have his life take from him but lays it down freely of his own accord.” So before the soldiers could take his life, he had already given it away out of love for you and me. That is not the actions of a victim. In all four gospels they make the unconscionable mistake of looking for a dead man in a cemetery only to find an angel who says, “What are you doing here? Why do you look for the living among the dead?” He already told you he is the Resurrection and the life, so why do you choose to remember him as a dead man?”  

So, if Jesus is not a reputation, a victim, a failure, and a dead man, just who is he? And just who are all the loved ones we have said good-bye to in death?

When he was at table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. The disciples did a U-turn. They let go of their image of who they thought Jesus was—just long enough–and allowed Jesus to reveal his true self. The deepest truth about Jesus is that he is food for the world. At his birth he was laid in a manger, a food trough for the animals, to tell us one thing: I came to be nourishment for your life. All I ever wanted to do was get in the way of your mouth. Why our mouths? Because our minds are so closed. Our minds only see reputations, victims, failures and dead men. We see what we want to see, and we are blind to everything else. So, if he can’t get into our minds, and the only way he can get in is through our mouths, we’ll have to eat our way into the truth about who Jesus is. If the truth about Jesus is that he is food for the world, it’s also the truth about every one of us here. 

In the course of our lives, we took others into us and grew strong on them. We physically and biologically took our mother’s life into ourselves and grew strong on her. We have all eaten people’s bodies, and we have all drank their blood. And low and behold, without you knowing it, people have eaten your body and drank your blood as well. 

Each time we come to Eucharist, it’s the Emmaus story all over again. Why do we have to keep coming to Eucharist? Because letting go of who we think Jesus is and allowing him permission to reveal his true self is a slow, life-long project. We don’t make U-turns very quickly. These disciples made two U-turn. First, they let go of their “foolish” notions of Jesus and allowed the Lord to reveal himself as food. And secondly, they did make another U-turn by going away from Emmaus and returning to Jerusalem, the place of truth. So, we don’t sink our fangs into each other’s necks, nor do we chew on each other’s arms. But, we do eat and drink of each other.  And, we do it, because the One who walks in our midst first did it and said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” 

Fr. Phil Mulligan