Wonder on the Road to Emmaus

I want to start by sharing that for most of this week, I had an entirely different sermon planned. You’ll know this to be true because of the printed out labyrinths in your bulletin today. I was planning to invite you to use them as I preached on the road to Emmaus being like a labyrinth—full of twists and turns, with an ability to see the center, not a maze but not always a clear path—and how we could see this in the story from Luke today. And that is still likely true and you are welcome to use these labyrinths during the sermon, or take them with you when you go. But late last night, in my attempts to edit that sermon, this message felt too contrived, too much like I was forcing a connection when there was maybe something truer and simpler to try to say.

There are a few thins about this Luke passage, the walk to Emmaus, that stand out to me. One, I really like, really value this story. Two, there is so much good stuff happening here. And perhaps and most valuable for today, there is so much in this story that feels relatable and familiar. Not every passage in scripture gives us this much richness all at once. There are so many direction we could go. So instead of trying to do everything, today I’d like to offer a few invitations to wonder about some of the moments that make up this rich passage, humbly offer the ways that I have seen this story reflected in this community.

We begin in Luke’s telling of the same day we hear about in John last week— the evening of the resurrection morning. Luke has cast the narrative eye on two disciples who are making the journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus. I think it matters that these are not disciples we have heard named before. They are not one of the twelve, they are more anonymous than that. There are scholars who share the possibility that they are a husband and wife, followers of Jesus who were perhaps more on the outskirts, on the margins of the group of followers.

As this duo is walking, they are talking about all the things that have happened. This is so ordinary. They are walking and processing. Checking in with each other, attempting to make sense of what they have witnessed in the last week: Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, his guidance to wash feet, his arrest and trial, his death, and now stories of visions of angels and a missing body from his tomb, and the rumor, the possibility that he is alive. And as they walk, a stranger comes near and goes along with them.

As readers or hearers, we know this stranger to be Jesus, but these two are kept from recognizing him. They don’t see their teacher, the one for whom they grieve and mourn.

I’m struck this time exploring this text by the fact that Luke zeros in on these two people we have not yet heard of or from in his Gospel. Where other gospel accounts of these moments following the morning of resurrection become places where named characters deepen their story—Mary and her carrying of the word as the disciple to the disciples, Peter and the silly foot race to the tomb, Thomas and his doubts—Luke selects two people we’ve never heard of, and places them in this somewhat epic story of recognition and understanding. And yet, we hear this as the story of where they are, the road to Emmaus, not who they are—not many of us remember that great post resurrection story with Cleopas…

I think this says something to us about who God reveals God’s self to. We talked last week a bit about being able to step into Thomas’ shoes, to experience the risen Christ for ourselves through his story. And I think Luke is doing something similar here: We don’t have to be in the inner circle for Jesus to make a staggering appearance to us. Even within his own followers, much of them marginalized in someway, he still travels to the margins to proclaim his good news.

Another thoroughly relatable piece of this story comes in the inability to recognize Jesus standing in front of them, walking and talking with them. I wonder how many of us have failed to recognize Jesus in the person standing in front of us? How many of us have been too preoccupied with our own grief or anger or confusion or trauma to notice that presence walking alongside us?

A somewhat amusing part of this story is that even when Jesus makes all the scriptural connections, from Moses onward, these two still don’t recognize who he is. BUT when it comes time to stop, they ask him to stay. They invite this stranger to be with them in their confusion, in their imperfection, in their grief. And he stays. I wonder how many of us have extended invitation to the stranger?

When they come inside, they sit down to what is a very ordinary meal. At the table, this stranger takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to them. It is in this moment, this moment that is now so familiar to us, they finally recognize him as Jesus. They didn’t recognize him on the road, they didn’t recognize him when they retold the story of their last week, they didn’t recognize him when he interpreted all the things about himself in scripture. They recognized him in the breaking of bread. The breaking of something ordinary, the breaking of something communal and shared.

I think we sometimes miss how powerful it is that these two people, and us in their wake, recognize Jesus in brokenness. Because we can recognize Jesus in the breaking, we are invited to see any brokenness in the world and seek Jesus there. This can be our own brokenness, our neighbors’, the brokenness in the systems of our world. If this grief or brokenness is something shared—even ordinary— we might be able to recognize this as a moment where the ordinary pain, trauma, hurt, is breaking open to reveal the relief of recognition and joy. We may notice that our world is filled to the brim with the brokenness of grief and trauma and hurt. But if we can recognize Jesus in those places— not that the brokenness itself is good, but that Jesus meets us there—then our world is also filled in those places with the hope of resurrection.

Once this recognition occurs, the pace of this passage really picks up: Jesus disappears as swiftly as he appeared, the two reflect back to notice that something was happening, their hearts were burning within them when they were speaking to Jesus on the road, and they race back to Jerusalem, back to the grief of that community, that moment, only to share stories of their experiences of resurrection breaking through their brokenness.

The reason this passage is so impactful is because it is so relevant, so relatable. Even just this week, I have seen and experienced around this place the welcoming of the stranger, the vulnerability of allowing hope and joy to break through grief and pain, the ways Jesus works in and through our ordinary, holy lives, to call us forth to transformation and resurrection. It has been there in quiet conversations, in the ways that you have shown up for one another, in grief and joy that have been shared. I have been humbled to witness it and to be a part of it.

This is likely not the most profound piece of preaching you have ever heard. But I hope you might see in this story the ordinary holiness that radiates from it, and be able to recognize how Jesus, in all his resurrected glory, affirms that each of us in our own ordinary, holy brokenness, are a reflection of this story. That he doesn’t just appear to some inner circle of followers, but to all his beloveds. That Jesus is present with us on our journey, even in the times that we don’t recognize him. That inviting the stranger in is a powerful move towards dwelling in community. And that our ordinary brokenness, and the vulnerability to live in that brokenness together, allows us to open our eyes, to be aware of the ways that resurrection hope is breaking in all around us. Amen.