Of all the stories in the Easter Narrative collection it is perhaps the St. Luke inclusion of the Journey to Emmaus, with its famous supper details that capture the popular imagination most of all.
Beyond the context, the text, and the story itself, perhaps the most memorable reminder of the Supper at Emmaus is the set of ‘Suppers’ painted by the outstanding Italian Renaissance artist Caravaggio. There are two painting that I am aware of. Art historians among you will be able inform us if there are more.
I am passing around a postcard of the more famous Caravaggio Supper just to remind you, or in case you have never experienced Carravaggio’s art.
There are two lines from St. Luke’s narrative that I would like to focus on today.
The first is ‘Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.’
Secondly ‘Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.’
It is a very common feature in Anglican Church life to have parish bible studies. The purpose of such bible studies is to look at a book from scripture, or a set of themed texts, and study them more closely, not just so that we can apply some textual criticism to them, but so that our reading of such texts brings a more life-enriching understanding of scripture.
Of course we have to be careful how we understand the word ‘criticism’ in our modern context, because usually we associate criticism as a negative activity. In our sense it is about getting into and under the text – trying to see a particular passage or story in its wider context, so that we can be informed by what is written; formed by how the understanding of scripture shapes us and our lives; transformed by how the scripture is a ‘light to our path and a lantern to our feet’. Informed, formed, and transformed.
In a good bible study we learn not just from a leader or teacher of scripture, but also from sharing ideas, experiences, and interpretations of the text, so it is not a ‘bookish exercise’ but one way of building each other up in the faith, and helping us to bind together as the Body of Christ – especially as the scriptures are the possession of Christ’s Church and they are best heard, studied and applied as a corporate activity, working against individualized and ec-centric understandings of the Christian experience
In our time together we have studied – largely through ‘online’ methods – St. Mark’s gospel, Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, the 1st Letter of Peter, various passages in the Book of Revelation, Prophecies of the coming Messiah in the Book of Isaiah, among other things. These have always been profitable times, albeit virtually. I hope participants would agree.
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