Easter 3A Reflection (Luke 24:13-35)

On the road to Emmaus, two disciples of Jesus encountered the risen Christ. For some reason, they were not able to recognize him at all until the bread was taken, blessed, broken, and given to them. In receiving this bread, their eyes were finally open to see the risen Christ. St Luke doesn’t specify and name this sacred action of taking the bread, blessing, breaking, and giving it though we know what it is. It is the Eucharist. 

We have not been able to receive for the past seven weeks since the Second Sunday in Lent due to the pandemic. This unprecedented situation challenges us to rethink about the Eucharist. Some of you might have heard about whether virtual Eucharist is possible, meaning whether bread and wine, placed before a computer screen or a smartphone, would be consecrated by a priest presiding at a service on line. I wouldn’t drag all of us into this debate when we have a greater concern in our community. While people are fighting for their lives, I find this debate a bit off putting. Yet, it is crucial to ask ourselves what it means for us to fast from the Eucharist during this time and what the Eucharist is to us. 

The Eucharist (i.e. sacraments=outward signs of God’s grace in general) does two things: 1) to point to the reality of Christ’s presence and 2) embody that reality to which the Eucharist refers. The Eucharist points to the new reality of the resurrection, which is the new creation, and embodies this new reality as the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine. In receiving this sacrament of the Eucharist, we are pointed to the new reality and embodied in the body and blood of Christ as one body of Christ. 

Now, before theologizing the Eucharist any further, I would like us to reflect on what Jesus actually said in his sacred act of taking the bread, blessing, breaking, and giving. That is, the Word of Institution that Saint Agnes Church says together during the Eucharistic prayer in our Sunday Eucharist. “Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me...Drink this, all of you: This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

In the Word of Institution, Jesus points to the bread and the wine and identifies himself with the bread and wine as his body and blood. What he does in this simple action is that this bread and his body are not two, that this wine and his blood are not two. They are not separate but one. There is no duality of this and that or subject and object but wholly (and thus holy) oneness. Let’s mimic Jesus. Grab a loaf of bread and say, “This is my bread.” What you are actually doing in that simple action as Jesus does is that “this bread” and you are one, that creation and you are one in God. Therefore, God and us as well as all creation are one. 

This eternal oneness of God with us in Christ is what is celebrated in the Eucharist. When a priest consecrates the bread and wine, s/he does not do any magic but confirms the unity of God and creation in Christ and affirms what’s already holy. And in our sacred action of partaking in the Eucharist, eating the Body of Christ and drinking his blood, our spiritual eyes are open to confirm our communal oneness in Christ that you and I are one, which enables us to love others as ourselves. St Paul thus says, “...so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” (Romans 12:5) 

Every time we receive the Eucharist, this eternal oneness is what we affirm and confirm. When the eyes of Jesus’s two disciples were open, they saw the unity of God and creation in Christ. Seeing Christ is seeing God’s unity with us as well as our unity with others. While we are not able to receive the Eucharist, we can still live out the Eucharistic life in which we exercise this oneness with others, sharing ourselves with (or being broken and shed for) those in need more so than ever. Perhaps, what we have been missing is not the Eucharist itself but the Eucharistic life after all. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 
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