Preached July 22 at Rennie Memorial Presbyterian Church in Amelia, VA
Text: Luke 24:13-35
I imagine our Gospel Lesson today is a familiar text for many of us. The story of the Road to Emmaus has many times been called a paradigm of Christian worship: Bread is broken, the Word is proclaimed, our Lord Jesus Christ is present. Some have even called it a paradigm of Christian mission, of the whole Christian life. We proclaim the Gospel, we engage in table fellowship, and again, our Lord Jesus Christ is present.
I've been wondering, though, as I've studied this text this week, is this story, in fact, too familiar? Are we so focused on the ending that we know will come that we hardly pay attention to what happens as the story progresses? Do we know it so well that we can hear it and say "This is the Word of the Lord, thanks be to God," and completely miss the miracle?
Yes, I believe a miracle takes place in this text, an everyday miracle that we just might miss if we blink too long, or if we let our minds wander for a minute, because we know how the story will end. But the real, fundamental miracle of this text isn't perhaps the miracle we expect, and doesn't occur where we might think. So where is it? What is the miracle that takes place on the road to Emmaus?
My first inclination, and maybe yours, too, is to locate the miracle in verse 31 - when, after Jesus has blessed and broken the bread and given it to his disciples, their eyes are opened, and they recognize him.
This is truly a miracle, no doubt, when we come to know Jesus Christ in the breaking of the bread. We will do this today, in just a few minutes, as we take part in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. We will break bread together. We will all partake of the same bread and the same cup, from the same table. And somehow, miraculously, we will receive the hospitality and experience the gracious presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. We will be in a holy fellowship, in divine communion with our triune God and with those who have gone before us and will come after us in the faith. We will experience a foretaste of the very Kingdom of Heaven. This is undoubtedly a miracle. But I don't think it's the fundamental miracle in this text.
Perhaps then, we'll turn to verse 32, after Jesus' disciples have recognized him, and he has vanished from their sight. For it is at this moment that the disciples reflect together, and they say to one another, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" It is here, through that sacred practice of memory, of recalling the stories of the past and seeking to discern what they mean for us today, that the disciples retrospectively recognize Jesus in the way he proclaimed the Word of God to them.
This, too, is a miracle, isn't it? When we read Scripture, or hear Scripture, or memorize it and recite it to ourselves, and our hearts burn within us, and we know God is present. When, in the midst of illness or family crisis, of poverty or of hunger, we hear God's word, and we are changed. We have no reason to fear anymore because perfect love drives out fear; we can no longer sit in our sorrow because in our encounter with the Word, we have found cause for joy, our weeping has been turned to dancing. Certainly this does not happen every time we open the Bible, every time we look for God's Word. Often we are just like those disciples on the road to Emmaus. They knew their Scripture, but they had not yet had their eyes opened to the Resurrected Christ. We, too, can scour the Word of God and come back with nothing. Sometimes our eyes are closed, and just like these two disciples, we are kept from recognizing Jesus. But then as we reflect, as we remember, our hearts burn within us, and in the midst of the many words of our lives and our generation, we hear God's one unchangeable Word speaking directly to our hearts.
Encountering God in the Word - this too is a miracle. But I don't think it's the central miracle of this passage, either. No, you see, because in order to encounter Christ in the breaking of the bread, or to experience God's presence in the proclamation of the Word, something else has to happen in our story, something essential to everything else that unfolds.
You see, this story, this encounter on the Road to Emmaus, could have ended very differently. In verse 28, we are told that Jesus and the two travelers came near to the village that was the disciples' destination, and Jesus walked ahead, as if he were going on. And the disciples could have just let him go on his way. He'd been a good travelling companion for awhile, sure - the conversation had been entertaining, to say the least - but they were home now, and after such a difficult past couple of days and a seven-mile journey back home, they were tired. They needed a break, some time to sit, to decompress, to mourn their loss.
The disciples could have let Jesus go walking on his way. They could have said, "Go in peace," and returned home to eat dinner, just the two of them, and get a good night's sleep. They could have continued to grieve the death of the one they had hoped would be the Messiah, the one who would redeem Israel. They could have continued to hear the women's reports of an empty tomb as idle tales, the wishful thinking of those who are delirious with grief. And the story could have ended. And if it had, we might not be sitting here today.
But, thanks be to God, that's not what the disciples did. Verse 29 tells us that, as Jesus is walking on as if to leave the city, they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." And Jesus went in to stay with them.
And it is only when they invite Jesus into their home, only because he sits with them in table fellowship, as the recipient of their hospitality, that they are able to recognize him in the breaking of the bread, and to remember the way their hearts burned within them as he proclaimed God's Word. And if I understand the text, that is where the fundamental miracle lies. Jesus' disciples, discouraged as they are by the death of their Lord only two days before, open their home and their hearts to a to complete and total stranger.
A stranger. There's the punch. That's the essential part. Remember, at this point, they don't know that it is Jesus they're inviting into their home. If they hadn't extended their hospitality to the stranger on the road, if that hadn't set down to engage in conversation and in table fellowship with this man, they never would have recognized their Risen Lord.
Why, then, did they do this? Why did these two disciples offer the hospitality of home and table to their strange new travelling companion? We can't know for sure, but I am inclined to believe that it is precisely because they were disciples of Jesus Christ. They'd heard him teach about feeding the hungry and welcoming the stranger, about how just as they fed, and clothed, and welcomed one of the least of these, they fed and clothed and welcomed Jesus. They'd seen him feed five thousand people because of his deep compassion for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd. They'd seen him in table fellowship with prostitutes and tax collectors and sinners of every kind, and they'd heard his instruction that when they throw a banquet, they ought not invite their friends or relatives or rich neighbors, who could one day return the favor, but rather to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And on that Resurrection Day, on the road to Emmaus, they saw a stranger who needed shelter for the night, and they heeded their Lord's instructions.
Because these two disciples followed Jesus and responded faithfully to what he taught them during his life, they are now able to recognize their Risen Lord in the glory of his Resurrection.
We, too, encounter the embodied presence of Christ in one another. When we share the Word, when we break bread together, and when we offer hospitality to the stranger in our midst. We are Christ's witnesses and Christ's body; he has no hands and feet in this world but our hands and our feet. Jesus has given us the same instructions that he gave those two disciples he encountered on the road to Emmaus. Will we be so faithful in living out the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ?
In a few minutes, we will gather at Christ's table to celebrate the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, to receive God's hospitality and be nourished in body and spirit. How then will we respond to such gracious hospitality? How will we, today and in the days to come, open our homes, our tables, our arms, and our hearts, to the strangers in our midst?
And when we extend our hands to one another and to the strangers around us, will we have the faith to recognize the presence of our Risen Lord? For he will be there, whether we recognize him or not.
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