Hauerwas’ sermon on the Road to Emmaus is profound, and an observation about the power of the fellowship that I had never connected with in quite the same way before.

After Jesus had been explaining to them about “all that had happened” and “Did not the Christ have to suffer?”, they as yet had not recognized him. It was not until he was “at the table with them” when “he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. THEN THEIR EYES WERE OPENED and they recognized him”.

Prior to this, they had been speaking of Jesus as “a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since this happened.” (Luke 24:19-21)

They had not yet recognized him. He appeared, unrecognized, did some teaching, still not recognized, and then when asked to stay and at the breaking of bread, and “their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (24:31)

Jesus’ resurrection makes us agents in God’s history of reconciliation by transforming us into a commuinty of the reconciled. The good news is that we were once no people, but now we are a people of peace that stand as a sign that resurrection is the end of the new beginning for the world.

Only such a people will be capable of rightly reading the Scripture. Only such a people are capable of in fact performing the Scripture.

–Unleashing the Scriptures pp. 61-62

Awesome.