Day 12 – Broken

 

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. (Luke 24: 30-35)

In only one other meal in the Bible are ‘eyes opened’ – at the first meal in Scripture, in Genesis, when Adam and Eve take food they have been forbidden to touch. Their eyes are opened, but not to life or joy. Catastrophic loss follows and they are condemned to wander for ever in exile from creation and from God. Here, on the far side of death, that wandering comes to an end. Eyes are opened but this time to joyful recognition. In this meal creation is renewed and the broken story of humankind begins again.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

Prayer

Lord, make yourself known among those I pray for today, whose lives contain broken things, who feel lost and far from home.

Remember today

Those people and places which feel broken and displaced – those familiar to you and those you hear about in the news.

Broken - high altar Nikolaikirche Stralsund (KB)
(This altarpiece has a story. It was a valuable 14th century carved altar which had been stored for safety during the war when the town was bombed. Afterwards there was the Soviet occupation and huge hardship, and the cross and some of the wooden figures at the top were removed and used as toys for the children who had nothing. When the church was restored about 20 years ago they decided not to try to restore the original but keep the memory of how the altarpiece had given some happiness in a hard time. The new cross is deliberately modern.)