Notes from a Sojourn
April 26, 2020
A Heart Full of Love
Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter, Year A (Luke 24. 13-35)
About sixteen hundred years ago, probably around this time of year, an African Christian named Augustine preached a sermon on this Gospel story – about the encounter between the Risen Jesus, Cleopas, and his companion walking the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus.
In that sermon, Augustine presents a rhetorical question: why does Jesus ask these two disciples to tell him about what has happened in Jerusalem? The two disciples are stunned when the yet-to-be-recognized stranger asks why they look sad and disheartened: “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place?” Cleopas asks.
The truth is, of course Jesus knows – he is the subject of everything that just happened in Jerusalem. So what’s Jesus doing? Is he just toying with them, stringing them along for fun? Augustine offers the following answer to his question, writing, “Although [Jesus] knew everything already, he asked this question about himself because he wished to enter their hearts and minds." [1]
But why?
Because the Resurrected Life that Jesus now stands in is not grasped by ordinary eyesight. It can only be grasped within the realm of faith, and faith is the domain of the human heart.
The walk to Emmaus is not a story about seeing the Risen Jesus - Jesus is seen from the moment he approaches the disciples to the end of the story. Rather, it is a story about recognizing the Risen Jesus – and, more specifically, about how we come to recognize him in our midst. [2]
Augustine knows this. And he, perhaps more than any other early Church teacher, understood that the vision we need to recognize the Risen Jesus comes to us only when we invite Christ into our hearts.
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As a child I was taught that in order to be “saved” I needed to ask Jesus into my heart. Although I’ve spent most of my life searching to understand what being “saved” really means – a search that has itself been saving because it has challenged, pruned, and reshaped my trust in God’s love – that lesson has proved to be one of truest things I know. Asking Jesus into my heart all those years ago began an honest, lifelong conversation with God that has been saving me ever since.
But why the heart?
In spiritual and emotional terms the ‘heart’ does not refer to the organ circulating blood through our bodies (although the more physiologically minded among us might offer some sound scientific explanations for why this ancient and intuitive connection exists). The ‘heart’ refers to the centre of our will and motivations. It refers to the complex sphere of desires that make us who we are and drive us to satisfy our profound longings for belonging, meaning, and purpose.
So, asking another 'into your heart' is giving another access to all of that: your greatest hopes and fears, your strengths and wounds. It’s a risky thing to do because that kind of access can be misused to hurt us rather than to heal us. This is why we guard access to our hearts: in order to let someone in, there must be trust - and we all know that any trust worth the name is always preceded and grounded in love.
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When two people are "in love" with each other they let each other into their hearts. And people who are “in love” with one another can see things that others can’t. Sometimes it’s said that love makes us blind. That’s not quite true. What we probably mean is that lovers are so enamoured with each other they seem unaware and even neglectful of other people and circumstances around them. But that isn't because they’re blind. It’s because they are seeing something profound: they are beholding the fullness of another person in a way that cannot be perceived apart from love. They hold the fullness of the beloved “in their heart,” so to speak.
That’s why Jesus wants in.
The Risen Jesus wants Cleopas and his companion to behold the fullness of who he is, a fullness that cannot be perceived apart from love. He wants inside to heal their broken hearts – but he can’t force his way in anymore than you or I can force ourselves into someone else’s heart. He has to be invited.
And he is.
The two disciples reply to his question and begin telling the yet-to-be-recognized stranger “the things about Jesus of Nazareth,” about how he taught, and healed, and was betrayed and crucified. They let him into their hearts when they tell him their greatest hope:
“We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel…”
They let him in more when they share their greatest fear:
“Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him…”
And as they let Jesus in more and more, he reveals more and more of himself:
“Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures…”
As Jesus enters their hearts they are drawn into his. And he not only shares words that stoke the diminished fire of their hope, he gives them a sign they will understand: bread blessed, broken, and given to them. It is this sign that opens the eyes of their burning hearts and gifts them the vision they need to recognize him: “The Lord has risen indeed,” they cry out to their friends. Alleluia!
Will you ask Jesus into your heart this Easter Season?
Today’s Gospel tells us that when we do, we too will be fed by the Source and Goal of all our desires: with that Word which heals our broken hope and with signs that gift us vision to recognize the Risen Jesus in our presence.
Colin+
Painting: Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio (1571 - 1610)
[1] St. Augustine, Sermon 234 in Celebrating Sundays: Reflections from the Early Church on the Sunday Gospels, Compiled and Introduced by Stephen Mark Holmes (London: Canterbury Press, 2012), 141.
[2] Luke, the evangelist writing this Gospel, makes this very clear when Jesus’ identity is revealed to Cleopas and his friend by using the Greek word for “recognize” and not the word for “seeing.”
