The Uniform Series text for Sunday, April 1 is Luke 24:1-12 and 30-35, which is Luke’s account of the discovery of the empty tomb, and the conclusion of the narrative of the “walk to Emmaus.” Here are some questions that we might (or might not) want to consider for or in class:
We might notice that the account in vv1-11 puts the reader in the position of the women who experience the empty tomb and the apostles’ disbelief; the story of the “walk to Emmaus” puts the reader in a position outside the story (vv15-16 give us information the “two of them” don’t have). Does that difference in position mean something, do we think? Does it create any difference(s) in the way we experience these stories? What difference, and why is that?
In v5, the two unearthly men ask the women “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Are there ways that we, ourselves, “look for the living among the dead”? What? Do we look for the living among the living? How? What might that mean for us in everyday terms?
In v11, the apostles treat the women’s testimony as “nonsense” (roughly the same idea as when someone today says “they forgot to take their medication …”). Why?
In v18, Cleopas addresses the person who meets them on the road, whom readers know is Jesus, as a “stranger” or “visitor” or “foreigner” – literally, someone who is living in a country that is not their home. Why, do we think? Is this ironic? Why? Cleopas also uses the term “only” – implying there are other such people. Who might the others be? (More personal) Are we meant to see ourselves as among those others, do we think? Why? Can we relate to that description? Why, or why not?
Would we describe the women’s experience in vvv1-11 as “an experience of the resurrection”? What about the two people’s experience in vv13-35? What seems to characterize that experience? (e.g., fear, joy, bewilderment, other?) (More personal) Would we say we, ourselves, have had “an experience of the resurrection”? How does our experience of the resurrection compare or contrast with these?
How are the stories told in vv1-11 and in 13-35 related? Could we read this chapter of Luke as a paradigm or model of the Christian experience? Or, a vital component of Christian experience? Or, the starting point of Christian experience? Other? How, and why?
Matters of Interpretation 