May 1, 2022 “Host” – Luke 24:13-35

Luke 24:13-35
“Host”
May 1, 2022 – Third Sunday in Easter

One of the very sad aspects of retiring for Beth and me is that because of COVID-19 we have had almost of none of you to our home for over two years. We look back with nostalgia to our last, which we didn’t know would be the last, church open house at the beginning of 2020. That January many of you crowded our living room, kitchen, and family room and joined us for meatballs, chocolate chip cookies, and eggnog.

Yet here the two of us are, still skittish of the coronavirus and turning down invitations to dine in other people’s homes, even from my sister. So this sermon is a promissory note to Beth and myself as much as it is anything else. It’s a story of welcoming a stranger in one’s home and being totally surprised by the outcome.

They welcomed Jesus on the road. Though, as verse 16 shows, God kept them from recognizing Him. It was late afternoon of the first Easter and these two disciples were headed home after the disturbing events of Passover in Jerusalem. Though bandits were a concern, non-threatening walking companions were usually welcome in those days. It helped pass the time to enter into conversation like you might do, at least pre-pandemic, with the person seated next to you on a plane.

They found Jesus a good companion, a good listener, as in verse 17 He wants to hear what they are discussing. In verse 18 we learn Cleopas’s name and hear his astonishment that the man alongside them doesn’t know the things that have happened. Verse 19 displays Jesus as the best sort of guest, the attentive conversation partner who wants to hear your mind, rather than talk about his own concerns. “‘What things?’ he asked.”

In verses 20-24, Jesus listened patiently as the two poured out their story of the last few days. They explained the hope and promise they saw in Jesus and now their disappointment that He had been crucified. Their weariness and frustration comes through in verses 23 and 24 as they tell what they clearly think is a silly story from the women that Jesus is alive. They clearly don’t believe it or they wouldn’t be headed home.

With verse 25, Jesus switched from listener to speaker. He began to explain to them what happened. He used their Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament, to show how it all fit together, how Jesus was the Messiah. They might have expected all this, given what the Torah, the Writings and the Prophets said. By their arrival at Emmaus in verse 29, they’re hooked. Their guest on the road is fascinating. So they ask Him to become their house guest too. Though they don’t know it, though they’re not ready, they host Jesus.

This Scripture bridges our homes and that humble house in a first century village, connects us to all the places Jesus actually ate and drank and slept. You can’t go and see the Jesus version of the Lincoln bedroom or any place we may confidently say, “Jesus slept here.” We are distant from Martha and Mary, from Peter and Andrew, from Cleopas and his wife. Yes, I like to think the second person was Mrs. Cleopas. They got to cook for Jesus, put a plate on a table for Him, make up His bed, draw water so He could wash up. They had the blessed and happy privilege of hosting the Lord in the most literal sense. You and I don’t have that. We don’t know quite where Jesus stayed. It was all a long time ago.

Luke wrote down this story—he was the only one—so you and I may still host Jesus. He wrote thirty years later, a generation. Christians already felt as we do, a sense that Jesus was long gone, distant both in time and place. As wonderful as He might have been, we in the church no longer find Him present in the same tangible way in our midst. So Luke told us this little sidebar story about Easter. Jesus appeared to two almost unknown disciples. Only one of them is even named. Luke wrote it because it showed then and now that Christ is still present, that you and I may still host the Lord.

We host Jesus, we welcome Him in the same way two ways Cleopas and his companion did there west of Jerusalem. We welcome Him in His Word and at the Table. Ever since the road to Emmaus, Christians have said we recognize our Lord, as those two did, in Scripture and in the breaking of bread. Word and Sacrament are the true marks of the Church, because it is there that we know, as they knew, that Jesus is with us.

Jesus went in Cleopas’ house, pulled up a chair and sat down. It was a humble meal: wine, bread, olive oil, a little milk or cheese, maybe figs or raisins or some other vegetable or fruit. That was it, a simple little supper. But Jesus transformed it.

Verse 30 says, “he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.” Read the account of the Last Supper in Matthew, Mark or Luke, or over in I Corinthians 11, and you find the same four key words, “bread,” “blessed” or “gave thanks,” “broke,” and “gave.” They are also much the same words which describe the miracle of feeding thousands by the sea. In the breaking of bread just as they’d seen Him do before, verse 31 says their eyes were opened and they recognized Him. Then He vanished.

Why? Jesus appeared as a mysterious stranger, walked seven miles with them, taught them Scripture, accepted their invitation, never identifying Himself. Then, at the crucial time, just when they finally see who they’ve been hosting, He’s gone! Why did He not stay and offer more teaching, comfort, encouragement for days ahead? Why the vanishing act?

Jesus disappeared then for you and me. He vanished for all disciples and believers who come after those two. He left then in order to say: “This is how I will be with you now. I’m gone from sight, but you will see me in what I gave you, the broken loaf sitting on your table. That’s where I will be.” Emmaus teaches us that we still meet Jesus right here, at this Table set before us today.

This passage also teaches us what we’re about as a church. The first bullet point of our mission statement says we are here to meet the Lord in worship. This is how it happens. We hear the Word and eat at this Table. Our eyes are opened and we welcome Jesus as surely as they did a few hours and a few miles after He had risen. This is where you and I host Jesus Christ, where He becomes our honored guest.

Yet we also understand that, if Jesus is truly our guest, He is not the only guest. This Table where we meet Jesus is a gathering. We don’t know who walked with Cleopas, but he was not alone. A community met Jesus in Emmaus, even if it was only two people. When we host Jesus, we gather together. It’s not just you and Jesus in some intimate, private moment. It’s all of us together, getting our eyes opened together, meeting Jesus as a people. Community is the second point of our mission.

We meet Jesus and we meet each other. As they did on the road, we find Him in His Word. So our third mission focus is study, study together. Finally, our last aim as a church is outreach. If we’re going to host Jesus, we have to remember that He calls us to host the world. If we welcome our Lord, we will welcome everyone else as well.

“Host” is a strange word. It comes from roots which first meant not the one doing the entertaining, but the one receiving it. It meant “guest.” It also meant “stranger,” and it could mean “enemy.” That’s why it’s part of the word, “hostile.” King James Bible language referred to great armies as “hosts.” Welcoming Jesus means welcoming all sorts of people, even people we don’t like, who don’t like us.

In an old Saturday Night Live sketch, John Belushi is a guest in the home of a couple played by Jane Curtin and Bill Murray. Belushi paws their record collection, gobbles up all the food and drink in sight, and shows no sign of departing no matter how many subtle and unsubtle hints his hosts give him that it’s time to go. Curtain delivers piercing horror movie screams and a dripping title flashes, “The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave.”

Not all guests are good guests. It takes time, money, trouble and maybe pain. Last year some of you did your best to welcome a person to our outdoor worship services who ended up saying and doing hurtful things. Yet in Matthew 25, Jesus said that kindness shown to “the least of these” is kindness shown to Him. We host Jesus by hosting others.

Being good hosts is our mission. We host the Lord and because of Him we host others. To evaluate how well our church is doing, ask how welcome a child feels, a pregnant or addicted teenager, a divorced woman, a poor man, a person of color, a Republican, a Democrat, a former prisoner, a homeless person, a laborer, a professor. We worry about what people see and feel when we host them in our homes. What do people experience when we try to host them in our church? What do they see? Are they comfortable? Do they feel welcome? Those are questions to consider in days to come.

It’s difficult to be a good host, whether at home or here at church. As much as we try, we may fail to make someone feel welcome. It’s hard. It’s hard to keep your house ready for guests to show up at any time. It’s hard to keep a church ready and welcoming for anyone who walks in. We don’t always do well at it.

We don’t even do that well, it seems, at welcoming our Guest of Honor. As we listen to His Word, as the Scriptures are read, our minds are elsewhere—at work, at a sports event, at the coast, in front of the television. Our bodies are playing host, but we’re not paying attention to our guest. The same can be true at His Table. We come forward, we eat, we drink, but the eyes of our hearts are looking elsewhere and they don’t open to recognize Jesus as the bread is broken. We are often not such good hosts for Jesus.

The word “host” has another meaning. In some churches, the bread or wafer on the Table, the bread in which we recognize Jesus our guest, is called “the Host.” That’s because in Latin a hostis could mean a victim, a sacrifice. Jesus is the victim in the sacrifice which brings salvation to us and to the world. As we struggle with being good hosts to Jesus, as we gather and serve at this Table, there is a marvelous reversal in remembering that the bread in which see the Lord’s body is “the host.” Jesus is the real Host here.

That same reversal happened in Emmaus. It was the host’s role to bless the meal and break and give bread to the guests. Maybe it should still be that way. In my years as a pastor I cannot count the number of times I have been asked to say the table blessing in someone else’s home. I am honored and privileged to do so, but sometimes, if I know my host well, I may quote Robert Farrar Capon. He wrote, “A host is the priest of [their] house. Even if an ordained [minister] is at the table, it is the householder… who should say the blessing. No one else has proper jurisdiction.”[1]

At that table long ago, Jesus took over hosting jurisdiction from Cleopas and his wife. He blessed and broke the bread and gave it to them, revealing Himself not just as their guest but as their true Host, their everlasting Lord.

When we come to this Table, when we gather as Jesus’ people, He is Master of the house. This is His Table. Some of us prepare the bread and the cups. Some of us serve. We act like hosts. But as we do our little bits to set the Table and serve, our Guest arrives to receive these gifts from our hands and bless and give them back to us. The One we thought was our Guest is really our Host. In receiving His bread and cup, we become the guests.

Jesus Christ welcomes us with all the love and grace and comfort with which we may fail to welcome each other or even to welcome Him. He is the Good Host and we may be the bad guests, horrible things which just won’t leave our sins and pride behind. Yet our Lord always has a place for us at His Table. He never tires of us. He never wants us to leave.

So we come today to be a church, hosting each other, hosting all who seek a place at His Table. Ultimately, though, we host the perfect Host who is Jesus Christ. He’s here in the Word He has spoken and in the Bread He has broken. May He open our eyes to recognize Him as our gracious Host this morning. Amen.

[1] The Supper of the Lamb (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1969), p. 179.