Sunday 26th April 2020

The Third Sunday of Easter

You can find all of our latest information, Edith's reflection for this Sunday, our Thursday "Worship for all Generations" and much more by clicking on the following link to our facebook page - Leesfield Parish

Today is the 3rd Sunday of Easter, and our isolation continues. I hope you are managing to cope. I know many are doing vital work in keeping in touch with others, checking up on each other. In a very difficult time, real community is still there. Our churches remain closed, and we long to gather and celebrate Easter. Not being able to share in the Eucharist is a real sadness, but this will pass. Meantime I hope you are finding enough resources to strengthen your faith, whether that is material from our churches (paper or electronic), from other churches, or on TV or radio. Please continue to hold this community in your prayers. In today’s reading Jesus appeared to two of the disciples, and they did not at first recognise Him. Perhaps, in the quietness of the lock down, you will catch sight in some way of our risen Lord.  

Edith

Here are two of the disciples already leaving Jerusalem and making for home – and it is still the afternoon of the day of resurrection. It seems the community is already breaking up.

Yet they are talking animatedly…And the risen Jesus meets them on their journey. 

Cleopas and his companion do not recognise him though. They don’t recognise him until he is inside their home, at their table. And doing something so simple. In the breaking of the bread they realise who he is. And in that moment of recognition he vanishes from their sight. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Looking back they can see that they were beginning to know him during the journey.

“Were not our hearts on fire” they say to one another “as he spoke with us on the road, when he opened the scriptures to us” Now they can identify two ways the risen Jesus revealed himself to them –his reinterpreting scripture and his breaking of the bread.

But it wasn’t his discourses on the scriptures that revealed him to them, it was their personal contact with him – which then led them back to scripture. This story is important – vitally important- it does after all tell us the central message of our faith – Jesus is risen, he is alive. It is important too on a personal level.

We know the scriptures are important. But just as Cleopas and his companion did not recognise the risen Jesus when he expounded the scriptures to them – it is unlikely that scripture alone will bring us to know Jesus for ourselves. What does bring us close to Jesus is something much more human – we meet him in all sorts of places. 

The two on the Emmaus road saw him in the breaking of the bread but they only got a fleeting glimpse, in that instant of recognition he vanished from their sight.

That glimpse was enough to send the two rushing back to Jerusalem to be with the other disciples again – it was enough to reunite the group. Fleeting glimpses are all we are likely to get, and that has to be enough. And there will be times in our lives when we can look back and realise he was with us and we did not know it. And those glimpses must be enough for us too!
Alleluia, Christ is risen!

Here is a traditional hymn for you to join in with - 

And a Taize hymn by a virtual choir from around the world -