PREACHING IN ISOLATION: 2nd SUNDAY AFTER EASTER - The Road to Emmaus

Luke 24:13-35
Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.

He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

“What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
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This is, of course, the story we call “The Road to Emmaus.”  In the days following Jesus’ death, two disciples, devastated by what has just happened to Jesus and the collapse of all their plans, are getting clear away from the whole mess — leaving Jerusalem.  The death of the leader they had found to follow with their lives is simply more than they can begin to process.

We are currently in the midst of a pandemic that has turned our lives upside down.  It came so fast, so abruptly, that we haven’t yet had time to process what has happened to us, even though we are into our second month now, and we are still trying to feel our way through this change that has come into our lives.  Imagine how mind-boggling the death and reported rising again of Jesus must have felt to the two travelers, and they’ve only had a few days to try and make sense of it.  Their minds cannot wrap around what has happened.  They don’t know who or what to  believe.  They just want to bolt and head out of the whole confusing mess.

But as they walk they are joined by a third person who astounds them with his wisdom and understanding.  It is not, however, until they share an evening meal in a wayside inn, that what has been right in front of them all along breaks through what their minds are so sure they know, and — in the breaking of the bread — they can see that it has been Jesus all along.

What do you think you might find, what may suddenly become clear to you, out of the chaos of our current situation?  Where might you look and realize that it is Jesus who has been walking with you all along?  In the words of writer Kathryn Matthews: What are stories from your own life, when your eyes and your heart and your mind were opened because someone welcomed you, or because you opened your own heart, your door, your life, to a stranger, someone you never expected to be a blessing to you?

This is a time of learning for us — learning to care for strangers, caring for the earth, sharing what we have — and looking for the Christ in the stranger next to us.  Thanks be to God.