The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee



The Third Sunday of Easter, Year A, 2008, April 6, 2008, Otey Memorial Parish Sewanee

“Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him…” (Lk. 24:31).

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, the wizard Gandalf, “Gandalf the Gray”, the leader of the Fellowship of the Ring, plunges into the abyss as he struggles with the Balrog, delaying the deadly beast just long enough for his friends to escape. The other members of the Fellowship are heartbroken, assuming he’s dead; but later, Gandalf returns to them, transformed by the struggle. At first, his friends do not recognize him; they don’t expect him to be alive. As Tolkien describes the moment of recognition, “Between wonder, joy, and fear they stood and found no words to say” (The Two Towers).

The story of the encounter with Jesus on the Road to Emmaus is a story of recognition (like this one), a story of “knowing again” the Risen Lord. What makes this recognition surprising and shocking, of course, is the reality of death. Death divides human beings from each other, and it divided the disciples from Jesus. They had no context for recognition when they encountered him on the road; nothing in their experience of life and death had prepared them for this. 

What makes this episode possible is love: God’s love of the human race, and the mutual love between Christ and his disciples. When Tolkien writes of “wonder, joy, and fear”, we in this case might add to the list the awesome reality of love. It is love, prompted by the familiar Eucharistic gesture of the breaking of the bread, that allows the disciples to recognize Jesus for who he is. “They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’” (Lk. 24:32). It is their hearts that are burning, not their minds, because the reality is unimaginable; the “cognition” in this case is an authentication that is rooted in love. Death could not tear this fellowship apart; instead, death was defeated by love. It was God’s love of the human race, in its painful plight, that made Jesus Christ the firstborn of many from the dead. It was this love, incarnate in the love of the apostolic band, that made them able to recognize the Lord.

That love continues to live in the fellowship of the Church, and leads to recognitions of all sorts. “Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart” (1 Pet. 1:22). We are an Easter community because the same love that animated the disciples on the day of Resurrection animates us as well. It is God’s love for us, defeating death, that makes it possible for us to gather, and to exercise “mutual love”. Love made it possible for them to recognize the Lord; love makes it possible for us to recognize his presence in all manner of unlikely and improbable places, among all sorts and conditions of people. God loves us, and so we love one another. In the shadow of death, it is love that illuminates; love that provides the authentication and the recognition of the Church as the Body of Christ.

What a great day it is to remember this Easter truth; a great day to remember our call to “love one another deeply from the heart”. Joe Ballard begins his ministry today in this community and in the Diocese of Tennessee. Mutual love is the engine that will animate this ministry and move it forward. Mutual love is needed because the ministry is shared; ministry does not begin in this place today, but it does take a new shape and gains an added dimension. God’s love of us makes it possible for us to gather; love will make it possible for us to recognize Christ in each other and in others we have not yet met. It is love that will make our hearts burn, and allow us to recognize the Risen Christ in our midst.

The Rt. Rev’d John Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee

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