Meal Sunday (Eastertide, 3): Recognizing the Bread of Life

The celebration continues with the Great Fifty Days called Eastertide. Stay tuned for a variety of celebratory posts here on the blog!

Supper at Emmaus by Maximino Cerezo Barredo (sources: here and here)Inscription, in Catalan: “El reconegueren quan partia el pa” (They recognized him when he broke the bread).

Supper at Emmaus by Maximino Cerezo Barredo (sources: here and here)

Inscription, in Catalan: “El reconegueren quan partia el pa” (They recognized him when he broke the bread).

 
No, He is too quick. We never
got to say thanks. He was there
closer breath than our mourning prayer.
Remembering
backward, we can not imagine how
we did not recall His voice.

Even if we heard back then
those three years (plus seven miles) of teaching
how would we retell the new-breathed meaning His
words made Word raised upward in the air
with all His strong bones executing
every law letter? or the strange
bright tales sprouting
through crusted-over faith
like just-activated beads of yeast? Who could
preach the words into man’s heart
as the Spirit comes close enough to raise
to life the decaying rot inside? Who will
diagram the hermaneutic
of redemption, the cadence of re-birth?
or digestively analyze rhetoric
made flesh? or chew through
propositions as they moisten in the cup
passed ‘round? Will anyone sit beside
the broken loaf? and stir the bloody
grapey liquid? and explain
the symbol or substance
telling truth that no sermon made us recognize?

Enough. Refrain.
Digest a finished work. Repeat.
Today — another wordless sermon — the ingested
doctrines of our faith made plain
the Christ we need to know.
— "Recognizing the Bread of Life" (which I adapt from work by Luci Shaw)

Today's readings: Acts 2:14a, 36-41, Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19, 1 Peter 1:17-23, Luke 24:13-35

Listen to my Eastertide playlist on Spotify:  Resurrection

The Collect for the Second Sunday of Easter:

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
— Book of Common Prayer