Abstract
It is all too easy after the high point and celebration of Easter Day, to miss the significance of the following weeks. Choose Easter hymns this month as a reminder that the Resurrection was not a ‘one off’ event but a present reality.
This month the readings help us to reflect and ponder; what difference then does Easter make to our lives? Where is Jesus now? What does it mean as followers of the Risen Christ to live in the light of the Resurrection?
4th May- 3rd Sunday of Easter
This week lends itself to a dramatic reading and visual aids to help illustrate and highlight some important aspects of this narrative.
The worship space will need to be set. You will need 4 readers with props and symbols (long brown cloth (approx 5 mtrs in length) for the road, bread & cup, a candle, a table, Bible/ scriptures).
The Narrator stands at the front of your designated place to the side. In the middle will stand a plain table. As the story unfolds the cloth (road) will also unfold and the table will be set.
The narrator stands to the side holding the brown cloth and rolls out about a quarter of the cloth touching the floor and reaching the base of the table (about 1.5 metres) symbolizing the road to the table. The two readers then stand on the cloth (between the narrator and the table).
It is late in the afternoon, the midday sun has passed and the shadows of early evening have begun to appear. The morning had been full of anxiety, excitement and confusion… an empty tomb. Cleopas and another disciple had left the city and were on the road, heading towards the village of Emmaus. They were leaving Jerusalem, a place of danger and all too close a reminder of their grief and sense of failure. They were leaving the city but taking the pain of loss with them on the road.
As they talked together about all the things that had happened Jesus himself came near and went with them… they didn’t recognize him, even when he spoke. He said to them;
What are you talking about as you walk along?
They stopped and stood still. Looking sad they said;
Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard what’s happened during the last few days?
What has happened?
The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene. He was a man of God, mighty in word and deed- blessed by both God and people. The chief priests handed him over to be sentenced to death and they crucified him.
We had hopes that he was the one! The one who would deliver Israel. And, it is now the third day since all of these things took place.
As well as this some women in our group have completely confused us. Early this morning they went to the tomb but couldn’t find his body. They came back to us with stories of seeing visions of angels who said that he was alive.
Some of our friends went off to the tomb to check and they also found it empty, just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.
So thick-headed! So slow of heart! Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets said? Can’t you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and then enter his glory?
Then he started at the beginning with the Book of Moses and went through all of the prophets pointing out everything in the scriptures that referred to him.
The narrator rolls out a further section of the cloth (further 1.5 metres) to cover the table extending over the table and touching the floor. [the characters move to the centre of space/stage and stand behind the table- placing the Bible/book on the table]
They came to the edge of the village which was their destination. The road has led to this place. They were determined to provide hospitality to this unknown visitor. Jesus seemed to be heading on his way but the two pressed him to stay… they would not take No for an answer.
Stay and have supper with us.
It’s nearly evening; the day is done.
So Jesus went in with them. And here is what happened.
[Disciples place bread, cup & unlit candle on table]
Jesus sat down with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke it and gave it to them [pause].
The narrator lights the candle and says;
At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him.
And then he disappeared. (Jesus steps aside)
[pause]
Backwards and forwards they talked.
Didn’t our hearts burn within us like fire as he talked with us on the road?
… as he opened the Scriptures to us.
[Narrator unfolds the rest of the cloth forming the road. The characters move from behind the table to stand on the opposite side of the performing space… standing on the road (cloth)]
But the disciples do not stay in this place of awe and wonder… they leave and go back out into the darkness of the night- no longer afraid. The road leads them back into the world to the same city that previously held fears and danger. They didn’t waste a minute; they got up and returned to Jerusalem, to share their experience with others. They found the eleven and their friends gathered together.
‘The Lord is Risen’ they said. Then the two went over everything that had happened on the road and how they had recognized Jesus, when he broke the bread.
(pause)
They had been transformed and empowered to leave the safety of the presence of the risen Lord and to go back into the thick of the suffering, to share their experience- not only with the other disciples but with the world.
What is the significance for us as individuals and for this community, in the journey to Emmaus, the table and the road back out into the world?
Where is the presence of Jesus on your journey?
What is the table? And who is welcome at it?
Where does the road from the table lead? To somewhere safe or somewhere dangerous?
We celebrate because this journey is the creation of faith. For we know that the risen Christ walks with us from the table and meets us in the joys and sorrows on our road.
Order and Chaos as Biblical Backstory
Gregory Mobley, The Return of the Chaos Monsters - And Other Backstories of the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2012. $16.00/£10.99. pp. xii + 155. ISBN: 978-0-8028-3746-2).
Going back at least as far as Walter Eichrodt’s covenantal Mitte, many scholars have tried to organize the OT around one central idea. Aware of this history of scholarship and its procrustean tendencies, Mobley assures us from the first page that his version is only one way to tell the story of the Bible.’ Yet, it is precisely this focus on story and backstory that sets apart his approach from those who force the diversity of the OT into one single theme. Instead, Mobley directs his readers to the conceptual background that underlies the text, which can be summed up in the single and all-encompassing backstory of the ‘dynamic interplay of order and chaos’ (p. 9).
The book opens with a brief account of the character, function, and significance of story and storytelling. From this methodological starting point, Mobley moves via seven backstories full circle from creation to apocalyptic literature. In each of these seven chapters, the central backstory of order and chaos is portrayed through the lens of a different genre: in creation, God brings order into chaos; in the Torah, God issues instructions for human co-management of chaos; in the Psalms, humans praise or lament God’s management of chaos; in wisdom literature, the divine design for chaos management dominates the discussion.
Tracing this backstory in its different manifestations throughout the canon has the advantage that it relies directly on the tight connection between cosmology and the domains of religion, thought, and practice in the ancient world. If, as in the Israelite worldview, creation was understood as the continuous struggle between deity and chaos, is it not self-evident that we find this backstory throughout Israel’s writing about God, self, society, and history? Since Mobley’s work focuses on these foundational dynamics on which themes such as covenant and kingship rest, his approach is both fascinating and convincing. At the same time, it must be said that the Chaoskampf-motif is not equally represented in all parts of the canon. While interesting on its own terms, Mobley’s treatment of the Former Prophets is probably the most problematic one in this regard. Overall, this is a very accessible book authored by a highly attentive and joyful reader of the biblical text. Saturated with his personable and prosaic wit, Mobley’s work is a refreshing read and a colorful introduction to the cosmic dimensions of the OT.
Samuel Hildebrandt
School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh