Led by His Word to the Body of Jesus

There is the truth of the matter, in accordance with all the Holy Scriptures, that by His Cross and Passion, by His holy, precious Blood, and by His innocent suffering and death, the Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed you from sin, death, the devil, and hell forever and forevermore.

And yet, for this present time, there is also what you see and feel and experience in the world, in your body and life on earth, which is often full of sadness, disappointment, sickness, and suffering of various kinds, the pervasiveness of sin, and the constant press of death upon your mortal flesh.

All around you, everywhere you look, bombarding your senses from the internet and elsewhere, and right up in your face, what you perceive is only the Cross and not the Resurrection. You have heard about the empty tomb, which is intriguing and perplexing, but the risen Jesus you do not see.

The Body of Jesus is missing. In the Gospel According to St. Luke the risen Lord Jesus makes no immediate appearance on Easter Sunday morning. You’re left wondering and waiting instead.

He has vanished from your sight, and your eyes are prevented from seeing Him. Even when He is standing right in front of you or walking right alongside of you, He is hidden from your eyes and unrecognizable. Your intellect and knowledge are unable to fathom the mystery of His presence.

He has acted as though He were moving on and leaving you behind. All the good news of Easter notwithstanding, it seems that your day in the sun is over and done; that the night must be at hand, as the darkness of death settles upon you and threatens to drag you down into its deep despair.

But, O foolish one, so slow of heart to believe the Word that God has spoken to you by His Son!

The Cross and suffering are not your defeat, but the Victory of God in Christ and the exercise of His divine Glory for your salvation from sin, death, and hell. He has redeemed you by His Cross!

Not only that, but in the speaking of His Gospel — in the Word of His Cross, and in the promise of His Resurrection — the crucified and risen Lord Jesus is close at hand. For by His Word and with His Holy Spirit He draws near to walk the hard road with you, and to abide with you here.

So, repent of your despair and unbelief. Believe the Gospel, and receive the gifts of Christ Jesus.

Learn to pray as He has taught you, with all boldness and confidence in Him. Not only when it all seems rosy, right, and good, but all the more so when it does not. Heed not your senses, nor trust your own experience, knowledge, and wisdom, but hear and believe the Word of the Lord Jesus.

Call upon Him in every trouble. Pray, praise, and give thanks to His Name, even before you have seen the evidence of His rescue and redemption. It is sure and certain that, not only will He hear and answer your prayer, but that He is already aware of your need and is already acting to shine the light of His mercy upon you, to give you life instead of death, and to raise you up in Himself.

Only bear in mind that He enters into His Glory by the way of the Cross, and that He brings you into Glory with Himself by the fruits and benefits of His Cross. He works repentance in you by His Cross and Passion, and He brings you from unbelief to faith by the forgiveness of His Cross.

Although He comes to you by this way and means — and as scary as the Cross truly is when you hear that your fellow Christians in the world, in these gray and latter days, are being shot, cut down, and put to death for bearing that same fair Name which you also bear as a disciple of Christ Jesus — nevertheless, pray that He would remain with you here in His Church under the Cross.

Pray, not with doubts and fears, but in the faith and confidence of His Resurrection from the dead. Despite appearances and experiences to the contrary, He is a very present help in time of trouble. He is here with His Cross, not to make things worse, but to save you. Not to hurt, but to heal you.

We follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before us on the Road to Emmaus. We have invited the Lord Jesus to come and be our guest, to enter this house that our mothers and fathers in the faith have built, which we now care for and support with our dollars, time, and efforts. We call on the Name of the Lord and ask Him to abide with us here on the corner of Milton & Dale.

Yet, here we find ourselves in His House, as guests at His Table, and that He is our gracious Host, our divine Waiter, and the Banquet itself, which He has prepared and spreads before us in love.

Here is where Jesus is found. Here is His Body, missing from the empty tomb but given in the Breaking of the Bread. This is where the disciples of Jesus are gathered by His Word and Spirit from all the highways and byways of the world — with all their sins and griefs and sorrows, with all their baggage, quirks, and idiosyncracies — to recline at His Table, to be served by His hand.

This is where and how He reveals and gives Himself to you. Not yet to your eyes, but to your heart and mind and mouth, so that you should here behold Him at His Altar by faith and not by sight.

He is not playing tricks on you or teasing you. This is not cat-and-mouse or hide-and-go-seek. He strengthens your faith and feeds you by His Cross, in order to give you Life in both body and soul by His own Resurrection. So do you enter by His grace into the Glory of God in Christ Jesus.

His Word declares the Truth, and by His Word and Spirit He opens your ears and eyes, your heart and mind, your lips and tongue to receive it, to believe it, and to confess it in this hostile world.

This Blood which He pours out for you to drink has redeemed you from all wickedness and evil; and this Body which He gives you to eat has conquered death and the devil. See here how He loves you, and rejoice in His Salvation. As He is risen indeed, so do you also live forever in Him.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Word of Christ Brings You Home to His Body

Disciples of Emmaus, you know the things that have happened in these days, the things concerning Jesus Christ of Nazareth, His Cross and Passion and His Resurrection from the dead. By His Cross He has redeemed you, forgiven all your sins, and conquered the power that death held over you. And in His Resurrection He has opened up heaven and eternal Life to you and to all who believe in Him, for which He has poured out His Spirit generously upon your body and your soul.

How is it, then, that you are still so often sad? Why should you be so angry or afraid of anything, discouraged or depressed, when Christ your Lord, the Son of God, has suffered these things for you and entered into His Glory? Knowing and confessing all that the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles have told you, why are you so foolish and slow of heart to believe the Gospel?

Here and now, in this body and life, you are making your way and muddling forward without a clear sense of where you really are or where you’re going. The days and hours fly by, seemingly relentless, but you are living in a time between, restless and uncertain on a journey to your true Home, which you can’t yet see or perceive. Your heart, mind, and spirit are tossed about by the turmoil of this perishing world, and you are torn between death and life, between sin and faith, and between what you can and cannot see with your eyes. You are caught between earth and heaven.

Here your senses too easily trick you and fool you, so that earthly things seem powerful, glorious, and heavenly, whereas heavenly things seem ghostly, ghastly, and hard to comprehend or bear.

You live by faith and not by sight along the way, and as such, your only real recourse is the Word of God: The Holy Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles; the Holy Gospel of your Lord Jesus Christ, as written by His Holy Evangelists; and the Word of Christ Himself, the Word made Flesh.

Avail yourself of that Word. Speak it to your neighbor, and ask that it be spoken to you. Confess it and pray it as you go about your days, as you rise up in the morning, and as you go to bed again each night. In particular, give attention to the preaching of the Gospel, the forgiveness of your sins.

I realize that it can seem pointless and useless to “talk about Jesus” in the face of all the hurts and disappointments that wear you out and weigh you down. If that sounds impious to say, or even blasphemous, still, you know that it can feel that way, and that you often live as though it were so.

Consider how easily you are caught up in the maelstrom of this world with all of its anxieties and countless distractions. Think about your daily routines, and how the duties and demands of your job, your classes, your house and home, your family, and all your neighbors roundabout, consume your attention and your energies, so that you end up living and acting as though the Resurrection never happened or did not matter — even now, when Holy Week has ushered you into Easter!

There are those days when you can barely keep yourself going, one foot in front of the other, and you may not feel like talking anymore, and you really don’t want to hear it, not even about Jesus. That’s one of the main reasons that you dare not go it alone, lest you spiral into a silence of the Word of God and give yourself over to the constant buzz, nauseating static, and deadly white noise of your own inner dialogue, which does not believe but doubts and denies the Word of the Lord.

In spite of your nagging and persistent sadness, and no matter what you may be thinking or feeling at any given point, it is in the speaking of His Word — in the conversation about Jesus — that the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Himself draws near and travels right along with you. In and with His Word, by and with His Holy Spirit, He is actively present and opens the Scriptures to you.

He opens up your ears to hear, and He opens up your heart and mind to comprehend and believe the Holy Gospel — to hear and receive the forgiveness of all your sins, which is the solution to all your doubts and fears, the remedy to every infirmity of your heart and mind, body, soul, and spirit.

What is more, it is by and with His Word of the Gospel that He brings you Home, that is, to your true Home, which is the household and family of God, the Body of Christ. On the surface it may appear that He is coming to be your guest, but then it quickly turns about that He is actually the Host who takes you in, and cares for you, and serves you at His Table with His own hand.

With His Word and Holy Spirit, in His own Body of flesh and blood, He comes to make His home with you here — in order to make a Home for you with Him — already now in His Church on earth, and so also in the resurrection of your body to the Life everlasting in the Kingdom of God.

Here then, at His Altar in His House, is the lavish Table at which He tenderly invites you to recline and take your rest, to receive and feast upon the Meal that He has prepared for you and for the many. He takes the bread, He gives thanks, and He gives to you what everyone is looking for and needs: Not the empty tomb, and not only the news and information of the Resurrection, but His own crucified and risen Body in the Breaking of the Bread, the Holy Communion of His Supper.

That is where the whole Christian Church on earth recognizes, receives, and worships her dear Lord Jesus Christ. And that is where you also are at home and at rest: In the Body of Christ Jesus.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

On the Way of the Cross to and from Emmaus with Christ Jesus

Every one of you knows what it’s like to get your hopes up, to anticipate good things, only to have your hopes and expectations dashed.  Whether it be at work, at home, or at school, with family and friends, in sports or politics, or in your plans for the future, you have known disappointments.

In any and all of those circumstances, at ground level your hopes are either in the Lord Jesus Christ or the idols of this world.  That is to say, whatever you rely upon, whatever you are counting on, and whatever you are living for, that is your god — and it will either be the one true God, Christ Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead, or one of any number of alternative false gods.

The tragic irony is that, whereas your idols may actually seem to be working just fine — up until the point when they can’t and won’t, when they are exposed for the empty and perishing posers they are — the Lord Jesus, hidden under the Cross in this fallen world, appears to be so helpless and hopeless and utterly useless, a huge disappointment, despite the potential He once showed.

So, then, what do you have to go on?  How shall you keep your bearings and chart your course?  You’ve heard the Word and promises of God, and you know the Story of Jesus.  So, now what?

Knowing what you know, and having heard what you have heard, you should understand and believe that the Glory of the Christ comes by the way of His Cross and suffering.  And that’s not just ancient history.  It is also your story as a disciple of Christ Jesus.  You also enter into the Glory of God in Christ — you share His Resurrection and His Life — by the way of His Cross and suffering.  Has He not told you ahead of time that it must be so, and what the outcome will be?

That’s not just wishful thinking or hoping for the best.  It is the faithfulness of the Lord your God, who loves you, and it is His redemption of your life and the whole world from sin, death, and hell.

It is the story of the Gospel, which you hear and receive in a variety of ways because the Lord is exceedingly rich in His grace toward you.  And it is the story that you have been taught to confess with the whole Church in the Creed — the story of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, which is also the story of your Baptism in His Name and your daily dying and rising with Him.

Why, then, are you surprised by the Cross and suffering, and why do you act as though something strange were happening to you, and as though the story has come to a very sad and tragic ending?

How is it, after the events of the past few days, that you would now return to your home and family and resume your job and normal routines, living and acting as though the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified for nothing, and as though He were not risen from the dead?  Everything has happened just as He said, in fulfillment of the Holy Scriptures, which always have been all about Him.

In truth, your disappointment and discouragement also belong to the Cross that is laid upon you for the sake of putting the old Adam in you to death.  Not that you should despair, but that the Lord might raise you up from your sin and death to forgiveness, faith, and life in Him by His Word of the Gospel.   He thereby calls you to repentance and teaches you to fix your hopes on Him, to find Him and rely on Him in the fruits of His Sacrifice.  And so it is that, by the ways and means of His Cross, He raises you up from the dust of the earth to share in the Glory of His Resurrection.

The Cross is not a last-minute gamble or a last-ditch effort; it’s not even a change in the game plan.  It is the very thing that God the Lord determined from the beginning, and even from before the foundation of the world.  He created all things in love, and He created Man in His Image and Likeness, fully aware that He would accomplish His purposes by the Cross and Passion of Christ.

It is not for you to ferret out the unrevealed mysteries of God, nor to comprehend the mysteries of time and eternity in the mind of God.  You are given simply to hear and believe, to comprehend and confess the revealed Mysteries of God in Christ Jesus, in the Holy Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles.  For all things are fulfilled in Him for the forgiveness of your sins, for the comforting of your conscience, for the strengthening of your faith, and for the raising of your body at the last unto the Life everlasting of your body and soul in fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So, consider for now the story of Moses, whom the Lord called, ordained, and sent to redeem His people Israel from Egypt.  He also suffered with and for the people, not coincidentally, but as a participation in the sufferings of the Christ who was to come, the promised Seed of Abraham.

With Moses, too, there was so much promise, so much hope at first, only to be met with a series of disappointments and setbacks.  The oppression of Pharaoh and the sufferings of the people actually increased and got worse instead of better.  There were ups and downs, and back and forth, first a “yes,” then yet another “no.”  Until the final Plague seemed so decisive.  But even then, what did that require?  The death of the firstborn son, or the sacrifice of the Lamb in place of the son!  Always the Lord is preaching that the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, would be the sacrificial Lamb.

As the people do come out of Egypt, so excited to be on their way to freedom, there is yet again another setback, as Pharaoh and his army, his chariots and horsemen begin to chase them down.

Then Israel is caught between the Egyptians and the Red Sea, with seemingly no way out — that they might learn to fear, love, and trust in God, to call upon His Name, and thus to find true Peace and Sabbath Rest in Him alone.  So, too, when you are caught between a rock and a hard place in your Exodus from death into life, the Lord calls you to live and rest in the Liturgy of Christ Jesus.

As you have heard over these past few days, the Lord God brought His Israel safely through the waters of the Red Sea, and He utterly drowned and defeated the entire Egyptian army in the same waters.  And as surely as He rescued His people then and brought them out of slavery into freedom, so has He brought you through the waters of your Holy Baptism into His Holy Christian Church.

But of course, Israel winds up in a desert wilderness, with no water to drink and no food to eat, and they would sooner go back to slavery in Egypt than to waste away and die out there in the wild.  Back and forth the pendulum swings, getting their hopes up, then dashing them into the ground.

But it never is out of the Lord’s hands.  He is always calling them to repentance and faith, always pointing them to Christ.  Despite their grumbling complaints, He sustains them with miraculous water from the Rock and with miraculous Bread from heaven, anticipating the One who was to come, who would give Himself over to death and give His Body to eat and His Blood to drink.

And so it goes.  Mt. Sinai is threatening, even deadly, and frightening.  And after God seals His Covenant with Israel through Moses — by way of more sacrifice and more blood — the Prophet disappears into the thunder and lightning, fire and smoke at the top of the Mountain for forty days and forty nights.  So the people once more give up hope, and make a golden idol for themselves, and party themselves into utter debauchery.  Over and over again, they are tested and tried; they fall short and fail; they are disciplined unto repentance; they call upon the Lord and are saved; and before long they rebel against the Lord and against His servant Moses.  On and on and on it goes.

Was it not necessary, then, for the Christ to suffer all these things, and thus to enter into His Glory through suffering?  Indeed, He suffers with and for His people, bearing their burdens and the assaults and accusations of their enemies.  And so does He also suffer their contempt and idolatry and their sins against Him.  He takes it all upon Himself and willingly suffers for their redemption.

He is both the Firstborn Son and the Passover Lamb who is given and sacrificed in place of all the other firstborn sons.  He is the Servant of the Lord who opens the way through the deadly waters by the wood of His Cross.  He is the Rock who is pierced to pour out living water and cleansing blood from His side for the cleansing and refreshment of His people.  He is the true Manna from heaven, the Bread of immortality, who feeds His people with Himself from the Tree of the Cross.  He is the holy Sacrifice whose Blood is the New Covenant of God with His people.  And He is the One who ascends the Mountain of God by way of His Cross and Passion, suffering the judgment of the Law against your sins, but also keeping and fulfilling the entire Law for your salvation.

All of this — and the entire Old Testament — the Lord Jesus Christ has fulfilled in the very events that His Church has remembered with thanksgiving and celebrated in solemn faith over these past eight days — by the atoning Sacrifice of His Cross and in His mighty Resurrection from the dead.

And it might seem easy enough, in retrospect, to affirm, to believe, and to confess all of that now, so far as He is concerned.  He has risen, just as He said.  He is not dead but alive forevermore.

Which is fine and good for Him.  But it is still so hard, if not impossible, for you to see and believe the promise of His Resurrection in yourself, in your own family, and in the desert wilderness of your life on earth.  Here it seems that all your hopes are routinely being dashed on a daily basis.  And even though you do “know better,” your foolish and sinful heart still doubts and is so sad.

That is how it is with you.  And yet, your dear Lord Jesus is so patient and so kind, and even as He gently chides you — as He calls you to repentance and faith — He is already acting to help you.

It is important to note that your conversation and discussion of the Holy Gospel is not pointless or empty, even when you’re still at such a loss and don’t really know or understand what you’re talking about.  For in that speaking of His Story, Christ Jesus Himself draws near and goes with you; and then He also takes that Story into His own hands, and He leads you home by His Word.

He opens the Scriptures to you.  And He opens, not only your ears to hear, but also your mind and your heart to comprehend and to believe the Scriptures and all that His Prophets and Apostles have written.  He does so by the forgiveness of all your sins and by all that goes with His forgiveness.

He does use the Cross, for that is the very heart of His Story.  So it is that your eyes are prevented from seeing Him, and He even acts as though He were going to continue on His way without you.

But remember that the Cross is a means of repentance, which not only crucifies the old Adam in you, but also raises you up as a New Creation in Christ Jesus — alive by faith and living in love.

The Cross of Christ that is laid upon you teaches you to acknowledge and confess your sins, but it also teaches you to hope in His mercy and to pray.  It teaches you to ask the Lord Jesus to come and stay with you, which is of course the very thing that He has come to do for you in love.

You bring Him home with you, and you bring Him into your home and family, by the ongoing catechesis and confession of His Word.  And that journey of catechesis not only takes Jesus home with you, but it also brings you back “home” with Him.

It is by His Word, therefore, that you live to and from Emmaus with Jesus.  And not only that, but you live to and from Jerusalem, as did those first disciples of Emmaus who returned that very night to the city they had left behind.  All of which is to say that you live as a disciple of Christ Jesus from His Church and always back to His Church, to the gathering of disciples around the Apostolic doctrine and fellowship.  Not unlike St. Mary and St. Joseph, who returned to Jerusalem to find the Boy Jesus when they had left Him behind, as St. Luke records at the beginning of the Story.

Where, then, shall you find Him?  Have you not heard?  The One who is the true Passover, the true Manna, and the New Covenant, gives Himself to you, to eat and to drink, in the “Breaking of the Bread,” that is to say, in the Holy Communion.  You still can’t see Him with your eyes, but He reveals Himself and you recognize Him here in this Holy Supper at His Altar in His Church.

It is here that you find and receive His Body.  Not in the tomb, which is empty, but here at His Table in His House, where He is not your Guest, but you are His, and He is your gracious Host.  More than that, He is your Meat and Drink indeed, by whom you live both now and forever.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Catechesis of the Cross of Christ

They are grown men, disciples of Jesus and associates of the Apostles; and they were evidently catechized, for they know the facts of His Life, His Cross and Passion, and even the report of His Resurrection from the dead.  They give a fair and accurate summary of the Gospel to this point, a decent early Creed, as it were.  And yet, they have given up hope.  They have failed to believe the Holy Scriptures and the Word concerning Jesus of Nazareth.  They do not comprehend what they already know.  Instead, they are simply foolish and sad.

So it is for you, as well.  Left to your own intelligence and ingenuity, with all the information you posses, you still don’t know where Jesus is, nor can you find Him or figure Him out on your own.  You’ve read the Book and seen the Movie, but you still seem to have lost the plot, and you’re not at all sure of the ending, whether the story is actually over, or if the sequel is just getting started.

Everyone deals with it differently.  We heard that last week, too, in the case of Thomas.  Some hide themselves away, and others go off wandering.  You’ve got your own personality; which isn’t the answer, either, no more than academic achievement, artistic ability, or athletic accomplishment.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert.  You won’t “get” Jesus on your own.

Maybe you’re restless and frantic, always searching for some answers to your endless questions.  Or maybe you’re at a standstill, stuck with what you’ve got and where you’re at, and paralyzed by a sadness that you just can’t seem to shake.  Either way — whether you presume to know where you’re going, or you know yourself to be lost and confused — your sinful heart and stubborn head are thick and slow, foolish and hard, and your eyes are not able to perceive or recognize the Truth.

Even the Holy Scriptures would be and remain a closed book to you, an indecipherable mystery, if not for the preaching of the Gospel of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus.  And as it is, until He opens up those sacred Scriptures to you, Him you cannot see, and His Body you can’t find.

But now, thanks be to God, your dear Lord Jesus Christ does not leave you alone or on your own.

To begin with, He provides companions for your journey, who may be just as lost and foolish, just as confused and sad as you are, but who engage you in discussion of Christ Jesus.  And do not underestimate the power of sharing those stories of Jesus — of arguing, debating, rehearsing, and reveling in those things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, even when they seem so hard and strange.  Already in speaking aloud those things — His mighty Word and deeds, His Cross and Passion, and the news of His Resurrection — even before you are able to comprehend or believe any of it — He has drawn near and joined Himself to you, and He shares the journey with you, in those words.

And though you may suppose yourself to know better, and to be headed home by some familiar well-worn path, it is the same Lord Jesus Christ who takes you and your companions and your conversation into hand, who leads you and guides you to the Place that He has prepared for you.

Then again, you might wonder, in light of this Holy Gospel, is it catechesis or “cat-and-mouse” that the Lord Jesus engages with you?  After all, He seems a bit sneaky and kind of tricky in some of His words and actions on the road to Emmaus.  And so it is that, now as then, you don’t even realize what’s going on until, in retrospect, you recognize what He’s been doing all along.

The fact of the matter is that He opens up the Scriptures to you by the Way of the Cross.

It’s not that He’s being deliberately “mysterious” or trying to be difficult, as though to make fun of you, to tease you or trick you.  But the Mystery of His Cross as the Way of divine Glory cannot be learned or understood, except by putting you to death and raising you up with Christ Jesus.

It is not by intelligence or information, but solely by His Cross and Resurrection, by repentance and faith in His forgiveness of your sins, that you enter the Kingdom of God with the Lord Jesus.

Which is to say that you also enter into His Glory through suffering.

You suffer disappointment, hurt, and loss, the shattering of your hopes and aspirations, the death of your false gods.  You are confronted with your own foolishness and failings, with the tragedy of your faithless unbelief and the deadly consequences of your sin, with the frail mortality of your fallen flesh, and with the fact that you cannot rescue or redeem yourself from death and the grave.

Then, when you have been cut to the quick, and your hard heart and thick head have been pierced by the condemnation of your sin and the conviction of death — when your self-chosen journey has been halted, and you’ve been stopped in your sad tracks — the Lord Jesus raises you up and leads you forward in His Resurrection from the dead, on His journey back to God the Father in heaven.

He brings you to the portal that leads to bliss untold.  But the Way into such grace and glory of God in Christ is still not by sight, but by faith in His Word of the Cross.

That is why He often seems to be going farther, to be moving on without you, and to be leaving you behind, so that it feels like you’re right back to being on your own again.

This, too, is the Cross, which puts your pride and your self to death and teaches you to pray, to call upon the Name of the Lord, to cling to Him by faith, and to open up your heart and home to Him.

Even such invitations are not your own work but the consequence and outcome of His work in you.

You often don’t even know what you’re really asking when you ask Him in to stay with you, because you’re simply feeling your way forward by faith in His Word, living under the Cross and loving your neighbor on the Way, as the Lord your God has taught you to do by His love for you.

It is another Mystery of the Cross, and of faith in the Cross, that your fumbling efforts, your choices and decisions in the waning light of day, in the darkness on the edge of town, and even your feeble cries for help from out of the depths, are all taken up into the mercies of Christ Jesus and turned into the working out of His own gracious purposes for you and for your neighbors.

Thus, when you suppose that you have invited Him to be your guest, and that you will serve and care for Him — as you actually should do for one another, living as brothers and sisters in the unity of Christ Jesus and the harmony of His Love — suddenly you find that He is your Host; that you are His guest, living in His House and reclining at His Table; and that He is here serving you by His grace with the rich fruits of His own Cross and Passion.

Here, then, is where you see Him: in the Breaking of the Bread.  Here is where His Body is found, no longer dead and buried, but crucified and risen, living and life-giving.  The mysterious Stranger vanishes from sight, but He is not gone.  He is recognized and known, received with thanksgiving, and loved — as He first loves you — in the Holy Communion of His Body and His Blood.

Here, therefore, is where your sadness vanishes and the joy of the Cross is realized.

For this Jesus who was crucified, He is the Redeemer of Israel whom God the Father has raised from the dead and made both Lord and Christ.

He has redeemed you also from sin and death, and from the futile path and patterns of life that you inherited from your mortal parents; not with perishable coins or commodities, but with His own holy and precious Blood, by His innocent suffering and death upon the Cross.

It is the Body and Blood of this Lamb of God which are given and poured out for you here at His Table in His House: For you and for the many, for the forgiveness of all your sins, and for eternal life and everlasting salvation with Him as a member of His Body.  Nothing could be more clear from this Emmaus Gospel than the central importance and definitive significance of this Holy Communion, wherein you enter into the Glory of Christ Jesus by the way and means of His Cross.

But do take note, all of you disciples of Emmaus, that recognizing and receiving the crucified and risen Lord Jesus — here at His Altar in His Church — does not result in holing up inside, circling the wagons around you, and hiding yourself away from the world within this house and home.

No, although the day is far spent and evening is at hand, it is yet this very Hour that you are raised up and returned to the doctrine and fellowship of the Holy Apostles, to the Holy Communion of all saints in Christ Jesus, to the true Jerusalem of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

Which is to say that, while it is still day, even at this late hour, until that night comes when no one can work, you seek out your fellow Christians, and you serve them as you are able with your words and deeds of peace and joy, of faith, hope, and love — even as they also serve you as companions on the Way with their mutual confession and ongoing discussion of Christ Jesus.

As you have communion with one another in the one Body of Christ, in the New Testament of His Blood, so also share that fellowship in your life together.  For the Lord your God has called you to Himself, even from far away — both you and your children — to find a new life, a new home and family, with one God and Father in Christ Jesus.

You are baptized into Him, anointed and filled by His Holy Spirit.  So are you one Body in Him, and you are the Body of Christ for one another.  As you see Him and receive Him in the Breaking of the Bread, so do you see and receive Him in each other, by His grace, in mercy and in peace.

Lift up your head and rejoice, dear friends of God, beloved of the Lord!  For He is here with you, and you are with Him on the Way; not only to and from Emmaus, but unto the Resurrection of the Body and the Life everlasting in the midst of His Jerusalem: on earth even now, as it is in heaven.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Now You See Him Where You Don't

The path that you are set upon may be a lonely one.  All the more so if it is a way that you have chosen for yourself.  But you are not alone.  The Lord has not lost sight of you, even if you are not able to see Him.  For one thing, you have companions on the journey to share the story of Jesus with you.  And by and with this very Word, Christ Jesus Himself draws near and goes with you.

He is the One who, by His Word and Spirit, opens the Scriptures to you; who opens your mind to comprehend and your heart to believe His Gospel; who opens Himself to you in His Supper, and opens you to Himself, to recognize and receive Him to yourself in the Breaking of the Bread.

He brings you into His Glory by the way and means of His Cross and Passion.  Not only by the facts of the matter, but by the catechesis of the Cross itself, which crucifies and buries you with Christ Jesus, in order to raise you up with Him in His own Resurrection from the dead.

This catechesis of the Cross continues all the way, even for those who already “know it all,” who already confess the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth.  It is an ongoing journey with this same Jesus who was crucified.  And it puts you to death each day, not for destruction, but for repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins, and for newness of life in Him who is not dead but living.

So does it lead you and bring you to the Place that Christ has prepared and made ready for you.

Well, that sure sounds good, doesn’t it?  But be forewarned, and bear in mind that on this Way of Life your eyes are prevented from recognizing Him.  For even in the Resurrection, His Glory is that of the Crucified One.  He is the One whom God has raised from the dead and made both Lord and Christ.  Indeed, He has entered into this divine Glory through His suffering of all these things.

But you do not perceive or recognize Him in your difficult and needy neighbor, for example.  Nor do you see Him in your own suffering, hurt, and pain, because you are not able to see the Glory of His Cross even as it is now revealed in the preaching of His Resurrection.  Instead, you suffer disappointments and sadness, the crushing of your hopes and expectations.  In this way the Cross of Christ brings to light your foolish ignorance, and it exposes your stubborn slowness of heart.

So it is that your perceptions, interpretations, and conclusions are all challenged, contradicted, crucified, put to death, and buried.

After all, the Lord Jesus acts as though He were going farther.  He plays a bit of cat-and-mouse, or so it seems at least.  His presence and His providence are elusive, especially as the Cross is constantly calling a halt to your progress and to all of your grand plans.  Just when it seems that the answer is finally within reach, your goals in sight, the prize at hand, it all slips away from you.

He’s actually not teasing you, not really.  He’s teaching you to live by faith, and teaching you to pray, to call upon His Name.  He’s also training you to exercise love for your neighbor, rather than focusing on your own hurts and needs and sorrows; that you should love and serve Christ Jesus, precisely under the Cross, with Glory not earthly but divine, by loving and serving and caring for the widows and orphans and strangers set upon your path, and for the Lazarus laid at your gate; that you should do so in the confidence of the Resurrection of the Body and the Life everlasting.

In the meantime, though, He vanishes from your sight.  For it is not yet with your eyes that you are given to see and know Him.  It is rather in the darkness that you “see” Him by faith, by the Light of His Word, hidden in the Breaking of the Bread, in the distribution of His Body and His Blood.

Now you see Him where you don’t, that is, in the Gospel of His Cross, in the Fruits of His Passion.  At the Font and at the Altar, at His Table in His House, in the Holy Communion of His Church on earth.  Not by the simple knowledge of the facts, but by faith and trust in the Word and promises of this Lord Jesus Christ.  Not simply news and information, but the Body of Jesus, crucified and risen, given and poured out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  For Life.

He is with you in these ways and means of His Gospel, not simply as a companion on your journey, but as your Redeemer, who brings you with Himself into the Resurrection of the Body and the Life everlasting.  He brings you to the portal that leads to bliss untold, that is, to the portal of His Cross.

Take heart, therefore.  At this very Hour, in the Breaking of the Bread, you have communion with Him who loves you, and so also with each other in Him.  Here and now you belong to His Body, the Church, even as He gives to you His own Body to eat.  Here resides your fellowship in Christ, whereby you live both to and from His Altar into all times and places, wherever you may roam.

Thus and thereby do you rise with Him and enter into the Glory of His true Jerusalem, already in His Church on earth, as surely as it is established for you in the heavenly places.  Not in spite of the Cross, but in, with, and under the Cross, by the Word of the Cross, in the Fruits of the Cross.

His crucified and risen Body and His holy, precious Blood are the Firstfruits of the Resurrection and of the New Creation, your spiritual Food for the journey, and the Meat and Drink indeed of the Feast which has no end.  The promise is for you and for your children, and for all whom the Lord Jesus will call to Himself, even from the farthest ends of the earth, unto the close of the age.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Body of the Crucified and Risen Jesus in the Breaking of the Bread

You’re making your way — but where are you going?

You’ve got your home and your job — but what are your hopes and dreams? What are you working for? What life do you live? How and why do you live it?

Maybe a home and a job are the very things that you long for.

But whatever the case may be, whatever your particular circumstances, are you spinning your wheels and getting nowhere? Or, are you spending your life, your time and energy, even your self, on that which will not last and cannot save you?

What is it that you would give to your children? What will you teach them? What is it that you want them know and believe and pass on to your grandchildren?

The most important things, the most essential, the things that neither you nor your children can live without, are the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth: His Cross and Passion, and His Resurrection from the dead; the preaching of the Gospel and the Breaking of the Bread; and not only that, but the stories of the Old Testament, too, which really are all about Jesus.

Your children need to hear these things from you, and you need to hear and discuss these things for yourself.

Not that you will save yourself by your knowledge. You can know all the stories and know all the facts, and still not get "it," but miss the point entirely. You can know it all forwards and backwards, but still walk along dejected and despairing, or stopped dead in your tracks with your countenance fallen down around your ankles.

Thus, although you know and confess that Christ has died and risen in the flesh for you, how often do you live and work as though it were not so? As though none of it had ever happened or made any difference or even mattered to you and your life.

Christians do have this strong advantage in knowing the stories of the Scriptures and continuing to discuss and share them, even when they do not comprehend or rejoice in them. Because the Word of Christ and the stories of Him, which the Scriptures tell, are far from impotent or empty.

The Holy Scriptures are full to overflowing with Jesus and the Glory of His Cross. Thus, in the discussing and sharing of these things, Christ Jesus Himself and His Spirit accompany you, even when your eyes may be prevented from seeing Him.

For that reason, too, disciple of Christ Jesus, for your own sake and that of your family, and for the benefit of your friends (whether Christian or otherwise), don’t ever stop talking about Jesus! Day and night, in the morning and at bedtime, at work and play, at home or in the car, and ever on the way to and fro. Don’t stop.

For the Word of Christ Jesus is the foremost antidote for sadness, depression and despair, for hopelessness, melancholy and fear. Therefore, keep on talking about Jesus, and listen to His Word; even and especially when you are sad. And if your family or friends are sad, then, above all else, speak Christ’s Gospel to them.

Because, again, it is Christ and His Spirit who accompany His Word and are actively present and at work in and through the speaking of His Word.

The Gospel is not only what Jesus has done (once upon a time), but what He continues to do, by His grace: preaching peace through the forgiveness of sins. That is the authority and the judgment of righteousness that He has received from His Father by His Cross, and now manifests in His Resurrection from the dead.

Everything has been accomplished by His death, and that everything is worked out for you, and for all, by and through the preaching of His Cross and Passion.

Thus, in and through and with His Word, Christ Jesus accompanies you on your journey. So, too, even before you have recognized Him and His salvation, He is graciously at work to raise you up with Himself; to raise your heart and mind, your countenance, and finally your body, also, in the Resurrection.

He is an excellent Teacher, and He brings you along from foolish unbelief and sadness to heartfelt faith and hope and joy. He does it by the way of repentance and the forgiveness of your sins. Thus, He chides your slowness of heart to believe, but even this He does with gentleness and ready assistance. He does not leave you in despair, but forgives you, and with His forgiveness He opens your ears, heart and mind to His Word.

He may sometimes hide Himself from you, or act as though He were going on without you; not that He would tease you or toy with you, but that you would cling to Him by faith and call upon His Name in fervent prayer. Not that you should have to twist His arm, but precisely because He would be your Guest and come and make His dwelling with you.

It is not by sight, not yet; but to say it is by faith in His Word (which it is) is not to say that it is unreal, impersonal or intangible. Not so. But that which has been missing is revealed to you by His Word and given to you at the Lord’s Table in His Breaking of the Bread for you; that is to say, in the Holy Communion.

Not the empty tomb, nor simply the great good news and information of the Resurrection, but Him, and His crucified and risen Body, and His holy, precious Blood, poured out for you, which is the Redemption of His Israel and the New Testament of God.

That is where He would have you "see" Him and find Him and receive Him, because that is where He reveals and gives Himself to you. It is to His Table that His Word leads you, in faith and hope and confidence, in joy and peace.

He has come into the house of His disciples, but here He is the Host, the Waiter and the Meal; that serving you here with His own Body, your body shall be raised from the dust of the earth, as He is raised, to live with God in heaven forever.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.