Before I went to seminary, I was an avid reader. I especially enjoyed reading novels by authors like Stephen King. Often I would literally devour a novel in one or two days. Then, a few weeks later, I would go back and read the same novel again at a slower pace to make sure I hadn’t missed anything the first time through.
Seminary requires a tremendous amount of reading, much of it dry as dust and about that interesting, too. Very few of the books we had to read during seminary were less than 400 pages in length. And I usually had to plod my way through them, reading 20 or 30 pages at a sitting, then re-reading the same 20 or 30 pages to see if I could make any sense out of it the second time through. Don’t get me wrong – seminary was a tremendously rewarding experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But there were many occasions when I just wanted to pull my hair out and scream, "Don’t any of these people know how to write something ordinary people like me can understand?"
Maybe that’s why I’m partial to the Gospel of Luke. The writer of Luke has a way of telling extraordinary things in a manner that makes them seem ordinary. Look at the story of the birth of Jesus as Luke tells it: ordinary parents visiting the branch office of the IRS to pay their taxes, "NO VACANCY" signs everywhere they look, so they wind up having to sleep in the parking garage. Ordinary animals are the only witnesses to the birth of the Savior of the world, oblivious to the magnitude of the event.
But at least there’s a heavenly choir singing their hearts out, and ordinary people – shepherds – who come to worship the Christ child. In other words, there is something to indicate that this is an extraordinary event we’re reading about. Not so with today’s story.
This story takes place on the road to someplace called Emmaus. Here we have two ordinary people, only one of whom is called by name, shuffling along an ordinary road. A stranger joins them along the way, intruding upon their private moments of grief and commiseration. "Would you look at this, Cleopas! Any other time we could walk up and down this road all day and never see a soul. But now, when we wanted to be alone and get away for some quiet time, here comes this stranger butting in to our conversation Doesn’t he look oddly familiar to you, though? Seems like I’ve seen him somewhere before. Oh, well – maybe not. Who cares anyway? Jesus is dead, so nothing really matters any more." Only later, when they break bread together, will they see the stranger for who he really is. Why is that? Is it a stranger who turns out to be Jesus, or Jesus who turns out to be a stranger?
Maybe Luke is telling us that their failure to recognize Jesus NOW was consistent with their failure to recognize him before the crucifixion, to really understand who he was and why he had come. And maybe Luke wants us to remember that recognition comes as a function not just of memory, but of commonality. It was only when they broke bread together, when they did something that they had done so often before, that the two disciples recognized Jesus.
Have you ever noticed the irony in the Emmaus road story? Here are these two disciples trying to tell Jesus what’s happening, when they obviously don’t have a clue!
According to the story, Cleopas and his unnamed companion were not even following directions. Were they going to Galilee to rendezvous with the Risen Christ? No! Were they staying in Jerusalem to await the gift of the Holy Spirit? No! Cleopas and his traveling partner are out for a Sunday afternoon stroll, making their getaway from the place where they witnessed the destruction of their own private little world.
You and I have been there, haven’t we? Sometimes when the hurt is so deep you just have to get away for a while. Some folks go to Florida for a little sunshine; some just take a walk around the block. Others may just go to a little out-of-the-way place like the Peaks of Otter, where they can be inconspicuous and fade into the background for a while. If it happens to be around Easter time, some folks might even go to church to see if there’s anything to this new life business after all. Sometimes life couldn’t be much worse. Sometimes you just have to get away.
You and I have been to Emmaus many times. Emmaus is the temporary hiding place, the momentary distraction, the change of scenery. Sometimes it’s the walk we take into cynicism when we discover that the noblest ideas – ideas about love and freedom and justice and even concepts of who Jesus is and what he wants for us and from us – can be twisted and destroyed by deluded, selfish people. And so often the results of that twisting of the truth lead to violence and death. Do the names Jim Jones and David Koresh ring a bell?
You and I are those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, getting away from it all, just for a little while, just walking and talking. Suddenly we hear footsteps behind us. A stranger is on OUR road, intruding into our grief. Oh, please – not now! We don’t want to talk to anybody right now! And we discover, to our utter amazement, that this stranger doesn’t even know what has happened! Has he been holed up in cave somewhere for the last week? Didn’t he see the news reports, or read the multitude of newspaper articles? How could he not know?
So we tell him. And something very strange happens next. Suddenly HE is angry at US! He says WE are the ones who don’t know what’s happening, and he starts lecturing us on the ancient prophecies of the Old Testament about the Messiah. Who does he think he is? Oh well, we’re almost there now. And since it’s a long way back to Jerusalem, we might as well invite this stranger in to have supper with us. In keeping with our custom, we pass the bread to him first. And when he breaks the bread, the strangest thing of all happens. In the blink of an eye, we recognize him! It’s Jesus! Lord, forgive us! We didn’t know it was you! And in the next instant, he’s gone – vanished!
Moments of true revelation, those sacred times when we feel the presence of God so strongly, are more often than not ordinary moments, part of that 80% of life that just involves showing up. If we look only with our eyes, or listen only with our ears, then we see only a gardener, or a stranger on the shore who thinks he knows where all the fish are, or an intruder on the road to Emmaus. But when we share a common life or a common meal, Emmaus moments happen again and again.
I’ve heard people say that they are jealous of those who had the opportunity to see Jesus in the flesh, to walk with him and talk with him while he was still alive. The fact is Jesus is still here. Jesus is alive whenever we hear that still small voice within us – the voice you hear in your heart, not your head – that voice that assures us that no matter how dark things may seem right now, whatever trials and tribulations we may have to endure today, whether we under- stand the tragedies of life or not, through all our fears and all our doubts, though all our indifference and insensitivity, right up to the moment when suddenly we know for certain that everything really IS in God’s hands, Jesus has been right there with us through it all.
The Emmaus story is the story of a God who will not leave us alone, even when we are hurt and disappointed, even when it seems that the brightest and best in life has been destroyed. The death of Jesus could no more stop God from loving us than the night can keep the sun from coming up in the morning. Every time the love of God is alive in us, Jesus is alive in us. And God’s love cannot be destroyed by all the cruelty and hate and prejudice in the world. God loves, because God is love.
Now if someone should ask you to prove that this story really happened, don’t even try it. Many theologians today think that the Emmaus story never happened. There are three different villages in the Holy Land that claim to be the ancient village of Emmaus. But there is no record of any village called Emmaus in any ancient source. The only place in the New Testament where we hear about Emmaus is here in Luke’s gospel. One theologian says, "Emmaus is nowhere, and Emmaus is everywhere." No teacher, no preacher, no book, not even the Bible, can prove that this story actually happened. It defies logic and reason, and it breaks the laws of nature as we understand them. No one can come back from the dead, and no one can just vanish into thin air. If we are to believe that Jesus lives, with everything that implies, then we have to believe without the benefit of proof, for true faith can only exist in the absence of proof. That’s the only way it could be. If something can be proven, then you have no choice but to believe. You don’t need faith for that.
Besides, our proof is in our witness. We have the witness of our lives, when in the breaking of bread we see, just for an instant, something more than just the breaking of bread. We see instead something being broken for us – a source of life.
In our Emmaus experiences, something just seems to click into place in the breaking of bread, and we find ourselves in the midst of a sacramental moment. And every once in a while, when the broken bread is placed in our hands, we know – really know – that God understands. We know that God understands our tiredness, our sorrow, our deep depression. In those moments, in sighs too deep for words, we commune with the Risen Christ.
Once in a great while, when the poured-out wine is being placed in our trembling hands, we are actually able to hear the voice of Jesus. Perhaps faintly at first, but eventually more clearly we hear the one who knows what really happened on Good Friday and Easter Sunday and the days in between saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as drink it, in remembrance of me."
In moments when we least expect it, the sounds of soft footsteps come up behind us. We turn around, wondering who can it be, and then hope no one caught us looking foolish. In those times when we’re not necessarily trying to be religious, we feel his presence at the table. Like the two disciples who tried to get away from it all in Emmaus, Jesus comes, unexpected and uninvited, and vanishes as quickly as He came, because Jesus cannot be held down or possessed, any more than he could be confined to a tomb.
I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly glad that Jesus’ being alive today doesn’t depend on my ability to understand how the Resurrection took place. We keep right on misunderstanding who Jesus is and what he’s about just like those first disciples did. We keep right on loving the wrong things, chasing the wrong dreams, being taken in by all the false messiahs of the world. And God just keeps right on loving us in spite of ourselves.
William Willimon has said that the Resurrection has a way of penetrating deep into our lives, enabling us see the world, not as a place of ultimate death and defeat, but as the place that is waiting for God’s ultimate victory. Willimon says, "Easter is the experience of the power of God, the recognition that life is stronger than death and love is stronger than hate."
Jesus is made known to us, in humility and love, in the breaking of bread and the sharing of the cup. And in that sacrificial moment, in the presence of the Risen Christ, we are assured that God has not forsaken us, that we are forgiven, redeemed and refreshed by the living water of God’s grace.
Emmaus moments will come in our lives. Emmaus is wherever in your life journey – at church, at home, at a nursing home, at the family dinner table – where you meet the Risen Christ and Easter is so real you can taste it.
AMEN