“Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.”

Eastertide is a season of story-telling- of the people who are just
beginning to build the church as the Body of Christ alive and at
work in the world as heard in the Acts of the Apostles, of the post-
resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples. Last Sunday, the
second Sunday of Easter, is always about Thomas, who gets so much
flack for being a “doubter” but really longed to know Jesus in an
embodied, even an incarnational way- wanting to know the truth of
Jesus’ risen self through his physical body as Thomas had known
him in every moment of their pre-Resurrection lives together. This
week, for the Gospel writer Luke, the moment of revealing and true
seeing comes as a meal is shared together- through the taking, the
blessing, the breaking and the giving of the bread as it was done at
Jesus’ last supper with his friends. This makes sense to us, because
in Luke’s Gospel Jesus is most fully Jesus when at a table- what
seems like a series of ordinary meals are infused with deeper
meaning because the people who gather are being fed in ways that
amaze them but they do not yet understand why. It is crucial to
Luke’s story that Jesus is not made fully present to these two
travelers by his presence among them as they journey, or as he
“interprets” the scriptures to them (although with the benefit of
hindsight they realize how their hearts had been burning within
them as they walked along and listened), but around a dinner table,
as a meal is blessed and then shared.

In her book “Take this bread” author Sara Miles puts it like
this: “At the table, breaking bread, we share in the ongoing work of
making creation whole.” In the Eucharist, we recognize the fullness
of who we are and who we may yet become as God’s beloved
children and that this is the place from which all life flows- that
when we are fed, we see God more completely, we share how we
have been changed with others in our world, we come back again
and again because we will always be hungry for this true and living
Bread.

Faithfully and with Eastertide joy- Deacon Dina