No one understands. Though everything has been plainly revealed, no one can get his mind wrapped around just what it means for Jesus to be the Christ. Throughout the Gospel of Luke, it is clear that those we might think would understand don’t.
Joseph and Mary, though given specific and dramatic revelation from angels, don’t understand. When finding Jesus in the Temple after having lost him for three days, they don’t understand that it is necessary for Jesus to be about “the things of his Father.” (Lk 2.49-50) This lack of understanding plagues Jesus’ disciples throughout. Even though Peter confesses that Jesus is “the Christ of God,” he doesn’t know what being “the Christ” entails. When Jesus tells his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, be killed, and on the third day be raised, they don’t understand. (Lk 9.21-22) Even when he tells them, “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men,” they did not understand what he was saying. (Lk 9.44-45) Even toward the end of his ministry, when he told them again that he was about to die, they didn’t understand. (Lk 18.31-34) After his death, his disciples still don’t understand. Two disciples on the Road to Emmaus speak to the Christ who is hidden from their eyes, telling him all about “Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,” and how the chief priests and rulers “delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him.” They had “hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” (Lk 24.19-21)
What was the problem? The word had been clearly spoken to them. They were all faithful followers of Jesus. However, none of them understood.
Some of it may have been stubbornness on their part; an unwillingness to think in different categories about the promised Christ than what they grew up being taught. Though it is all quite clear to us now, for many of them to imagine David’s great Son conquering through death was a category mistake.
Maybe there is a deeper theological answer dealing with the Spirit’s work in the life of these disciples. Perhaps all can be explained by the fact that the Spirit waited, for his own reasons, to reveal things until a later date. Perhaps. But Jesus, on occasion, expects that they should have understood. They couldn’t blame it on the lack of the Spirit’s revelation.
Whatever the answer, Jesus is parabolic to them; an enigma, a dark saying that can’t be understood … until he sits down and breaks the bread with them. At the end of the journey on the Road to Emmaus, Jesus assumes the position of the host of the house, breaks bread, and, immediately, their eyes are opened to see who he is. (Lk 24.31) After this they told the eleven how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread (Lk 24.35).
Now they understand. Now they can see. Everything that Jesus taught them and everything that Jesus did becomes clear in the breaking of the bread.
It is at the Table that we see Jesus and understand what it means for him to be “the Christ.” All of the revelation up to this point becomes clear so that we comprehend. At the Table, we understand that it was “necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory.” (Lk 24.26) At the Table, we see that the suffering and death of Christ was necessary so that he himself could be the Bread of Peace that would join us in life-giving communion with the Father and with the one another.
As we come to the Feast each week, after hearing the Scripture read and taught, we come to eat and drink, participating in the death and life of Christ himself. In telling us who he is, he tells us who we are: those who deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow him. At the Table, because we see him, we see who we are supposed to be.
