Readings
Acts 2:14a,36-41
Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35
Sometimes it feels as if the world we live in is heading in the wrong direction. We live in a world where an honor roll student is twice shot after ringing the wrong doorbell. A young woman is shot and killed after mistakenly driving down the wrong driveway. Mass shootings occur at an alarming frequency. Antisemitism is on the rise. Christian nationalism is distorting the Christian faith and also encouraging chauvinism and racist ideology. Political polarization seems to be at an all-time high and at times it feels as if the fabric of our society is fraying beyond repair.
As people of faith, we turn to God hoping beyond hope that God will intercede and right the wrongs. Or, at the very least, will give us the means to do so ourselves. But much like Cleopas and his friend who were walking to Emmaus, it can feel as if our best hopes are pointless, and that the world is as dark as we feared.
Today’s Gospel passage paints a picture of two friends walking on the road to Emmaus after the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, trying to figure out what it all means. Despite a report of seeing the risen Jesus, they are understandably stricken given the facts on the ground: a horrible death for their teacher and leader and a possible grave robbing on top of it. Even if they are to believe the women who claim to have seen Jesus risen, what does it all mean since they were hoping for someone to deliver Israel from the Romans and restore the kingdom of David. We can imagine, how for them it felt as if the world they were living in was heading in the wrong direction. That, for them, their hope had been in vain, and all was lost.
It is into this reality and discussion that Jesus interjects himself. Fully transformed they don’t recognize him. He is a stranger to them. But he calls them to a different understanding of who he is and uses the witness of scripture to show them the deeper meaning of his mission and message. We can imagine that he draws them from the literal restoration of the physical kingdom of Israel into a deeper understanding of the Kingdom of God that he proclaimed.
So moved by his words and not wanting their time together to end, they invite him to stay with them as the day is ending. He accepts their invitation and joins them for dinner. At dinner he takes bread, blesses it, and gives it to them, and we are told that their “eyes were opened.” At that moment they see him for who he is, but before they can do anything about it the scripture says that he “vanished from their sight.” Excited and moved by the whole experience they rush back to Jerusalem to share the news that they too had seen the Lord.
But perhaps that’s not all they shared. Perhaps they also shared that their sense of dread and fear had been lifted from them. Perhaps they shared how their sense of the world had changed because of the encounter. Perhaps, just perhaps, their despair had been lifted and their hope had been restored.
That is a common thread throughout these stories that occur post-resurrection. In many, if not all cases, we have people who are struggling with fear, doubt, uncertainty, dread, and/or despair. And, in each case their encounter with the risen Lord changes that. They come away from the experience transformed themselves. They come away from the experience with their fears quelled, their doubts diminished, their uncertainty erased, their dread converted, and their despair replaced by joy.
But I ask you, what changed?
Was the world in which they lived any different than it was before their encounter? Were the social and political dynamics that led to Jesus’ execution miraculously eliminated? Was Israel restored and the Romans defeated?
No, the change was in the disciples themselves and not in the world. The change came not because the world was different, but because of their experience of the risen Christ.
And let’s be clear about that experience. They didn’t experience the Jesus they had known for years, although there was clearly something of him in the experience. No, they experienced the risen Christ who transcends the historical person of Jesus. They came to know Jesus in a new and different way. They came to understand that life is not ended, it is transformed.
So, let’s be clear, it is possible that the man they encountered on the road to Emmaus was someone who embodied the risen Christ. It is possible that this person was truly a stranger to them in the physical or literal sense. And yet, through his teaching and fellowship they once again experienced Jesus himself. And when he broke the bread at dinner that evening their eyes were opened and they realized what they had experienced. And Jesus vanishing before them was a recognition that this man was simultaneously both the risen Lord and the stranger they had met on the road.
Now does that deny the resurrection of Jesus? I don’t think so. Jesus comes to us in multiple and myriad ways. That is part of the mystery of God’s creation. We experience the love of God in the love of one another. We experience the resurrection in every new birth and in every new beginning. The transformation promised in Christ’s resurrection points to the new life we experience over and over again throughout our mortal lives. It is because of this pattern that we know that even when our bodies die we will live in the Lord.
But, those disciples, walking on the road to Emmaus, came to know the risen Lord not simply because Jesus made himself present. No, the disciples also came to know him because they made themselves open to him and invited him into their fellowship. It wasn’t until they invited him to stay with them that their eyes were opened.
We too are called to not only recognize that Christ is with us, but to open our lives up to him. We are being called to live in relationship to God in a way that affects our transformation. Remember, the disciples’ world didn’t change. They did. And it was the change in them that gave them the courage to reach out into the world in love and affect the transformation of the world. With each encounter of the risen Lord their transformation deepened and they became a resurrection people.
We too can be a resurrection people. We too can bring hope and transformation to a hopeless world. But we need to recognize that the risen Christ is not the resuscitated Jesus. We need to not look for miraculous appearances but recognize that Jesus is beside us in the stranger who brings us closer to Christ’s vision of humanity and the kingdom of God. We need to recognize that in seeking to serve Christ in all persons and loving our neighbor as ourselves we will encounter the raised Lord and the deeper truth of resurrection.
If we have but the courage to do that. Then the various roads to Emmaus on which we journey will be moments of encounter and transformation as well. Each of us will know the joy, hope, and peace that comes not in the circumstances of this world, but in the hope of the resurrection.
May we find that hope in the Jesus who waits patiently beside us. And may we, as a resurrection people, be that hope for the world.