The Walk to Emmaus
A sermon by Currie Burris
Luke 24: 13-35
April 10, 2005
Who were these two disciples walking along the road to Emmaus? They were close followers of Jesus but not any of the twelve apostles. They must have been there when the women and Peter and John returned from the empty tomb. They heard the accounts and shared the fear, the wonder, and the confusion.
We know one’s name was Cleopas. He could have been the one with a similar sounding name (Clopas) mentioned in the Gospel of John. His companion was also a disciple, who could have been a man or a woman, and might have been his wife. Some scholars have suggested that the reason Cleopas is specifically mentioned here is because he was well known by the first century church. This was his story. It happened to him; and he gave this account regularly when the church gathered. Luke ultimately heard his story and he put it in this gospel. Like minor characters in the gospel story, like Bartimeas, Rufus, Alexander, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, we know the name because the church kept the name as a witness.
Now we are told that these two are traveling to Emmaus on the “same day,” the same day that women went to the tomb, the same day they saw the angels, the same day that Jesus appeared to Mary, the same day Jesus first appeared to Peter, the same day, as we will later learn, that he appeared to a group of the disciples. That busy Sunday morning, Cleopas and the other disciple must have left the place where the disciples gathered almost immediately after the return from the tomb. Why did they leave? Where were they going in such a hurry? With all that was happening that day, why leave?
These two disciples were not
casually traveling to the next town. They were fleeing. They were running
away. Their conversation on the road that day was not idle talk to pass the
time. It was fevered exchange, struggling to understand, struggling to make
sense of all that had happened in the past week. They were in shock. They were
afraid. They were angry. They were hurt. They left
Emmaus is the place to go to escape. We also have our Emmaus, the place we go to escape from the painful events of life, the place we go when we are overwhelmed, the place we go when we need to get away, the place we go when life does not make sense.
The Presbyterian minister and
writer, Frederick Buechner, has said that Emmaus
could be “a bar, night club, a movie, the place where we throw up our hands and
say ‘Let the whole thing be hanged. It makes no difference anyway’ . . . Emmaus
may be buying some new clothes or a new car, smoking or drinking too much.
Emmaus may even be going to church. Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go
to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even
the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die, that even the noblest ideas
that [people] have—ideas about love and freedom and justice—have always in time
been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish ends.” (Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat (
The road to our escape is just where Christ meets us. Ordinary places in our lives where we go when life gets too much for us. Jesus met these disciples on their road to run away. We are told that they were kept from recognizing him. What kept them from seeing him? Was it their fear, their common sense? (This is not what we are supposed to see.) Was it self-absorption? He walked with them as they struggled. He listened and he helped to understand. Jesus talked to them. He helped them see that all that they had experienced did have a reason and a purpose. He helped them understand that they had not been abandoned in their darkest hour, that evil has not won. Death is not the victor. Jesus helped them see God’s love in all things, even the pain they had just witnessed. He helped them see that God was still with them.
As he spoke, as he taught, as open the truth of God for them, their hearts burned within them. Their hearts understood before their minds were willing to understand, the truth standing right before them. Sometimes our hearts know the truth while our minds are still blinded, still full of objections.
The disciples reach Emmaus, their place of escape, and invite this stranger to join them for the night. They shared a meal together. Jesus prayed, broke bread, and then their eyes were opened. They saw who had been with them all along. All at once they understood. Heart, mind and spirit, all together, they saw the risen Lord. And in his presence, it all made sense. His whole ministry flashed before them, his teachings, his parables, his miracles, his suffering, and his death. It all was recovered and redeemed in the living presence before them. In the presence of the living Christ, their lives were redeemed.
In the presence of the living Christ, come to meet us on the road to oblivion, our lives are redeemed. All our wanderings and all our running, all our confusion and our suffering, our escapes and our disillusionment, all our grief and our heartbreak, all our bitterness and our loss, it all is redeemed in the presence of the living Lord.
Are you on the road to Emmaus? Are you running away? Is your emptiness, your fear driving you away? Christ is here. Walking along the road with us. He shares his life with us. He shares his love. He shares it all with us. The risen Christ is with us every day, in moments ordinary and glorious, in times of joy and sorrow, in beauty and decay. The shining, resurrected Christ is among us always, always loving, always healing, always feeding, always hoping, and always singing.
The resurrected Christ is with us in words of peace and acts of love. He is with us in the prayers of the weary and the hymns of the faithful. He is with us in ordinary folks and regular people. Christ is with us in the beauty of the world, in the soaring of the hawk, in the breeching of the whale, in the springtime song of the house sparrow, in the sprouting crocus and daffodils. Christ is with us in my grandmother’s laughter and my mother’s tears, in my father’s hands, and my sister’s love. Christ is with us in our children’s exuberance and our friend’s listening ear. Christ is with us in the hand held out to the weeping, in the heart wrapped round the lonely.
Christ is here in this community of faith. That’s why we are here. We pray, we sing, we shout hallelujah, praise to God. We love each other as Christ loves us. We serve Christ’s world as he serves us. We give witness to the resurrection in loving hearts, sparkling eyes and serving hands.
The risen Christ is with us, in all things, through all things, above all things, holding all things, redeeming all things, renewing all things. The risen Christ is with us. Are not our hearts burning?