 In this Easter season we celebrate God's raising of Jesus from the dead as we see it explained and expounded in the New Testament Scriptures. Luke 24 verses 28-35. They drew near to the village where they were heading. Jesus gave the impression that he was going further but they urged him strongly not to. Stay with us, they said. It's nearly evening. The day is almost gone and he went in to stay with them. As he was sitting at table with them, he took the bread and gave thanks. He broke it and gave it to them. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they recognized him and he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, don't you remember how our hearts were burning inside us as he talked to us on the road, as he opened up the Bible for us and they got up then and there and went back to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven gathered together and the people with them. They were saying, the Lord really has been raised. He's appeared to Simon. Then they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. That is the matchless extraordinary conclusion of the story which Luke tells of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. It's the evening of the first Easter day. These are people who have followed Jesus probably from Galilee and they've been waiting for Jesus to launch God's kingdom on earth as in heaven as we see in Luke 19. The crowds and presumably the disciples really think this is the time when Jesus is going to do all the things we thought he would do. And then, of course, he was arrested, he was tried, he was crucified and their world fell apart. And then on the first Easter day all sorts of extraordinary things happened and these two who are part of that band of disciples are going back to Emmaus where they seem to be staying, whether it was the home of one of them we don't know and as they are going Jesus comes and walks with them and they don't recognize him. It's a feature of several of the Easter stories that people don't always get it straight off. As C.S. Lewis points out in his book Miracles one of the most defining features of these stories is that if you'd been making them up 50 years ago to show that, oh yes, people met the risen Jesus you would at least have them recognizing him, this person who they've been with all this time. But he seems to be just a little bit different and Luke is hinting that there may be more to it than that as well, that their eyes are restrained, they can't see, something is held back from them. Perhaps God simply doesn't want them to understand who this is yet, even though, of course, it's incomprehensible anyway. And so they say to him, don't you know what's been going on? And he says, what things? And they explain about Jesus of Nazareth and we thought he was the one to redeem Israel but they crucified him and then Jesus says, foolish ones, slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had said. And then we kick in the bit that I just read. They are on their way back to Emmaus and they say, please stay with us. And so he does and they go into the house and he takes the bread and breaks it. Suddenly, suddenly, they, perhaps it's because they recognize the action, this is the sort of thing that Jesus did or perhaps it's because and certainly the way Luke tells it, this is how Jesus is to be known. From now on, he is the one who we recognize in the breaking of the bread. Luke undoubtedly has in mind the life of the early church in which they are defined by sharing the apostles teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers. This is how again and again, Jesus makes himself known and it begins right here in this meal with just the three of them in the little house at Emmaus. And there's a hint there as well of something extraordinary going on because Luke says the eyes of them both were opened and they knew him and in the Greek which Luke is writing there's a verbal echo there of the Greek version of Genesis chapter 3 when Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit and the eyes of them both are opened and they know that they're naked and they realize that everything has gone horribly wrong and it's as though Luke is saying now at last here is this other pair of people and they are meeting Jesus and in this very different meal of the broken bread rather than the forbidden fruit the eyes of them both are opened. This is a moment of cosmic healing this is when the great story has turned on its hinge and now it's moving off in the new direction and so they dash back to Jerusalem and as they go they say, don't you realize of course our hearts were burning within us as he was expounding the Bible to us because Jesus had been explaining all the way through all the things in the Scriptures from Moses and the prophets and the Psalms about how what had happened in his own death and resurrection was what the Scriptures had said all along and so this is Luke's blueprint for the life of the church this is how it was at the beginning but from then on the church is to be the people whose hearts are warmed by the unfolding of the Scriptures and whose eyes are opened to recognize him in the breaking of the bread