The Broken Bread

The Broken Bread

Luke 24: 13-35

There was once an amusing story in the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR.

It was about a young woman in New York who had been seeing a great deal of a young man.  One day he called to say he had something special on his mind.  He would pick her up in his car, a memorable antique jalopy, and they would drive to the country for a picnic.

They drove to Long Island.  The young man seemed preoccupied.  They drove along in silence.  Then they headed back to New York.

Back in the city, the young man broke his silence.  He spoke solemnly of the great and significant event that was  about to occur.  Central Park, he said, would be the appropriate place for it to happen.  They drove through the park on that beautiful spring day; the

young woman's expectations soared.

Finally the young man announced that the great moment was at hand.  He slowed the car down, headed for a shady enclave.

This was it, he said, the moment had arrived.  He was sure that she would feel the same excitement as himself.  The car, in short, had at that carefully timed juncture, reached the 100,000 mile mark.  The figures on the speedometer were turning slowly over as the

car came to a halt.

"Everything is back to zero," said the young man, caught up in the rapture of the moment.

"Yes," said the young woman to herself, "Everything is back to  zero."

Have you ever felt like this young woman?  You get your hopes up for something big that turns out to be a whole lot of nothing?  In today's scripture from Luke we meet two disciples on the road to Emmaus just after Jesus' crucifixion.  They know that feeling.  Jesus is dead, they think.  Everything is back to zero.

The good news is that Jesus loves these disciples too much to leave them in this condition.  Let’s look at this in our text for today:  Luke 24: 13-35

When You Can't See Jesus

When You Don't Understand

You Need The Fellowship of The Broken Bread

1. Body
1. When You Can't See Jesus  (vv. 13-24)
1. Current events have saddened them
1. Have you ever noticed that some of the saddest words in our language begin with the letter D?   For example, disappointment, doubt, disillusionment, defeat, discouragement, despondency, depression, despair and death.  
2. Disappointment, doubt, disillusionment, defeat, discouragement, despair and death - all of these words sum up how Cleopas and his companion were feeling as they trudged up the road toward Emmaus.   
3. They had left the downhearted and confused band of disciples who were afraid and bewildered over what had happened to Jesus on Good Friday.
4. "... the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him.”
2. Disappointment have blinded them
1. The band of Jesus’ followers was leaderless and was falling apart, with two of them already on their way home. The reports that Christ’s tomb was empty did nothing to alter their thinking; it only confused them. Their entire world had come apart. The two despondent disciples summed up the situation very neatly, "we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.”
2. Human hope is a fragile thing, and when it withers it’s difficult to revive. As many have discovered over this past year, hopelessness as a disease of the human spirit is desperately hard to cure. When you see someone you love and care for overtaken by illness, which goes on, and on, despair sets in. It almost becomes impossible to hope for recovery, to be even afraid to hope because of not being able to cope with another letdown.
3. The Emmaus two had erected a wall of hopelessness around them, and they were trapped in their misery. "We had hoped ..." What they were saying is "We don’t expect it now, but once we did. We had it, this thing called hope, but now it’s gone." I wonder if this is something that we can identify with? Has something or someone come between your relationship with God? If so, listen to the Emmaus story because the heartbreaking experience is only its beginning!Fellowship When You Don't Understand  (vv. 25-29)
3. Moving on in our passage, Jesus hinted at their problem, why they were downcast.
1. Thick-headedness leaves them slow to understand
2. Hardheartedness  leaves them unable to "connect the dots”
3. "Jesus fills in the picture for them, but they still don't see it.
1. They were slow to believe all the promises of the Scriptures. Belief in who the Bible says Jesus is was their problem, and it might be ours too. I’m convinced that heartbreak happens this way: we think God will do something, based on our faulty knowledge of His Word and His ways. He doesn’t do it in the way we wanted. We get discouraged and think that God let us down, that He disappointed us, that Jesus failed us. But the problem is not with Jesus. The problem is that we set up God to do something He never said He’d do. Boom. Heartbreak.
2. But in our lives and in our story, God had another plan. Jesus led them past their limited understanding, past what their eyes could see, and He led them to a deeper understanding of His plans. V27.
4. Jesus must have given these Emmaus travelers the greatest Old Testament lesson in history. He would have made sense of all the twists and turns in Jewish history. He would have reminded them that right back at the Fall of Mankind the apparently victorious Satan, in the form of the serpent, was told that the seed, the offspring of the woman "will crush your head, and you will strike his heel" (Gen 3:15).
1. And so was foretold the story of the cosmic struggle between death and life, of the pattern of death and resurrection in the Old Testament revelation. It’s clearly visible in the life of Abraham, sacrificing his dear and only son Isaac and getting him back again; of Joseph, preserved to become the benefactor of his brothers who tried to destroy him; of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt after having been saved from the angel of death through the sign of the blood of the Passover lamb.
2. Jesus would have recalled his own teaching of how the Israelites escaped physical death in the wilderness from a plague of serpents when they looked trustingly to a great bronze serpent which Moses raised on a pole, pointing out that he too would be lifted up on the Cross, "that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life in him" (John 3:15). Jesus would surely have taken the now speechless disciples through the Suffering Servant of Jehovah passages in Isaiah. He would have recounted how the nation of Israel, taken into exile and brought back again to rebuild Jerusalem, was a symbol of the greater redemption through personal salvation through faith in him.
3. Here was proof that Jesus had fulfilled that which had been prophesied over the centuries; that these Old Testament anticipation's of his passion and triumph of life over death, proved that he was indeed the Messiah. The two disciples couldn’t have expected that sharing their problem with the stranger on the Emmaus road brought them towards a solution. But there was more to it than that. Christ wasn’t there beside them simply to help them to find solutions - he was in the problem itself. Jesus told his two listeners, "Did not the Christ have to suffer these things…"
5. Listen, Jesus knows all your doubts and concerns. He sees your heartbreak, and He wants to point you to the answer. He doesn’t want to leave you high and dry. He wants to take you further in your faith, past pat answers and easy alibis. He wants to meet with you. He wants not to be a stranger in your life. Even for Christians, Jesus is sometimes a stranger. He’s out there, somewhere, but He’s not close.
6. Why don't you do like these disciples did and invite Him in?You Need The Fellowship of The Broken Bread  (vv. 30-35)
7. Jesus takes charge at the dinner
8. This is not a communion service -- this is how God works in ordinary life
9. He Takes 
1. that which is ordinary and imperfect
2. draws it to Himself
10. He Blesses
1. giving thanks to the Father for providing what is needed
2. setting this apart for service
11. He Breaks
1. In Jesus' hands the loaf becomes more than it once was
2. The single loaf becomes a meal for many
12. He Gives
1. what is needed
2. to the needy
2. Conclusion 
1. Woody Allen once said the following: "Our civilization stands at the crossroads. Down one road is despondency and despair. Down the other road is total annihilation. I hope we'll take the right road." Woody Allen was obviously trying to be funny, but his statement  reminds us that, at times, we are all on the Emmaus road of pessimism and despair.
2. God's solution to those times when you can't see Jesus -- when despite all of your Bible knowledge, you still don't understand -- is to fill in the big picture for us through the fellowship of broken bread.  God wants to remind you this morning about being taken, blessed, broken and given.
3. Taken - we are taken by God for God's work; chosen. Do you believe yourself to be chosen? What a presumptuous thing to think. But we are. To reject ourselves, to consider ourselves not good enough to be chosen is to deny what Jesus promises us- to deny we are God's children. To deny that we are made in God's image. To say -no, I'm not chosen- not precious- not unique, is to deny God. A lot of war, anger, violence and hatred come from people not feeling, not knowing they are chosen. Believe it. We are the precious children of God. Chosen. Much of our ministry to other people is to help them feel that they are chosen. And to accept your own- to rest at peace in God's love- will communicate to others that they too are chosen, special. We are chosen - taken by God.
4. Blessed. As the beloved children of God we are blessed. Benediction means to say good things about people. This is what it means to bless someone. Not just to say compliments about someone- but to say to them that they are beloved by God- that they are chosen and special. Parents need to bless their children. We need to bless each other all the time, to speak good things in the name of God. As we bless our bread or our food- to lift it up to God and thank God- so we must do for each human being that comes our way. God blesses us; God takes care of us. Part of our work is to bless others.
   
   
5. Broken. This is easy. This is the thing we are most conscious of- our brokenness- our pain. We are broken people with broken hearts. Christian author, Henri Nouwen says that our brokenness is us. It is as unique as we are. It is the underside of our gifts- the other side of our beauty. We should embrace it; claim it. Your pain is enough for you. Don't belittle the pain and grief you live with. In the Spiritual world there is no joy without sadness. At the moment of our greatest joy- there is pain and at the moment of our greatest pain- there is joy. When we take up our brokenness- our pain and embrace it- make it our own- then we can carry it. That is your cross- and it is not too heavy for you. I read one author who wrote about living in the city of Chicago.  He wrote,  I used to hate the amount of broken glass everywhere. People throw bottles out of cars, drop them on the street, they overflow from garbage and shatter from windows. It came to symbolize the danger and fragility of life in the city. And then one day I was out jogging at sunset and as I turned toward home and toward the setting sun, suddenly the whole running path where I was running was ablaze with diamonds could hardly see the path. And as I ran along and examined this phenomena, I discovered that what was blazing like diamonds were millions of tiny fragments of broken glass- on the path, on the sidewalk and along the streets. Danger and pain transformed by the setting sun into radiant beauty.
6. And finally, we are Given. Chosen, Blessed, Broken and Given to the world. We are not called to be successful or productive- we are called to give ourselves away- to be fruitful. Jesus gave himself away. Eat me; drink me, poured out for you. It is good for you, he said, that I go on ahead. In this giving of ourselves we will find fulfillment. Nouwen says that each person who comes to you for friendship, or for help- for any reason- they come into your life for your conversion. They become a way for you to learn more about God- to give more to God- to be converted, transformed. We are given.
7. Taken, Blessed, Broken and Given.  When you consider these aspects of the Emmaus meal, you are remembering what happened to Christ.  And you are seeing what He is asking of you.  Will you answer Him today?  Will you be taken, blessed, broken and given?