“Finding Christ in the Familiar”
Third Sunday of Easter – B
For some unexplained reason, the disciples had difficulty recognizing Jesus after his resurrection. He appeared to them on several occasions; and almost without exception, they did not know who he was. You may remember that Mary Magdalene saw him and talked with him just outside the empty tomb. She thought he was the gardener who kept the cemetery. Recognition came when she heard his voice speaking her name. The first time he appeared to the apostles as a group, hey thought e was a ghost. Recognition came when he showed them the nail scars in his hands and feet.
Today’s gospel tells about two disciples who walked and talked with him for some time, without ever suspecting his identity. Their experience took place in the evening of the first Easter Sunday. They were filled with despair and discouraged. They walked for miles with this stranger not even questioning him about his identity or where he came from. They simply shared how Jesus had once brought hope into their lives – now was gone.
It was not until they all sat around the table, as they were accustomed to doing, that the stranger in their midst took bread, said the blessing, then broke the bread and shared with them, like he always did, that they recognized him. That was the moment of truth.
“They had come to know Jesus in the breaking of bread.”
This is an extraordinary story, because it deals with such ordinary things – a walk down a country road, a visit with a stranger, a discussion of the Scripture, and an evening meal. These two disciples had done this many times before. However, this was the setting in which they found the Christ, whom they thought they had lost forever.
This story is sealed in the memory of the church because it indicates the two primary ways that Christ makes himself known to his disciples and to us. One is through Sacred Scripture, and the other is though Sacrament. No doubt, this is the message that John intended to convey. We cannot miss that implication. But what strikes me is the simplicity and the familiarity of the entire event. We need to consider that aspect of the story, because our tendency is to look for Christ in the spectacular and the unusual. We have never seen him, of course. But we are quite certain that if we ever did, it would not be in a place so familiar as our dinner table or in our parish church or in a person of color or in an event so ordinary as the breaking of bread around a table with strangers or the homeless or the outcasts of our society.
I wonder if we know the vital role that familiar things, and places, and people play in our lives. Familiarity, we are told, breeds contempt. That adage has always seemed a bit cynical to me. It suggests that the better we get to know people, the less we will appreciate them. Perhaps that is partly true. But it is also true that familiarity can be our very salvation. In times of despair, what we need is something or someone familiar. That is why so many people have been diagnosed with depression during this pandemic – they could not be near the familiar: family, friends, church.
That is exactly where these two disciples found themselves. It was one of the darkest days of their lives. Jesus had died, and it was as if the sun had fallen from the sky. They spoke of hope in the past tense. They were two utterly defeated people. The single act that renewed their hopes and turned their lives around was a familiar gesture – something about the way that stranger broke the bread. He was not a stranger at all. He was not even a new friend. He was the old friend that they had known and loved and trusted.
Where do we go when our hearts are breaking? Where do we go when we have lost our best friend, our parents, our jobs, our self-respect, our dignity? I cannot answer that for anyone specifically, but for myself I go to someone or something familiar. Someone or someplace I have been many times.
Jesus clearly understood the importance of this. He recognized the need for stability and permanence. So, he provided his church (us) with a few things that would never change, that would remain the same throughout time.
He gave us a model prayer that is often called “The Lord’s Prayer.” The translations may change, it may be written in different languages, set to music and even have different tunes, but the prayer remains the same. Our Father . . . Jesus knew the value of a familiar word.
He left his church something else that would never change. It has stood at the center of Christian worship from the beginning and will do so to the end. Christ assured that place of permanence when said: “Do this in remembrance of me.” It is the most familiar and ancient rite in all of Christendom. On that first Easter Sunday, two disciples recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, something so very familiar.
We are here today, like millions of others across the centuries, will we find Christ in the familiar?