Our Walk to Emmaus – Luke 24:13-35

The event described in this passage from Luke’s gospel is meant to remind us to open our eyes and see what God desires to share with us – even at times when we find it most difficult to imagine what could be beyond today? The days following the events of what have come to know as Good Friday and Easter were uncertain for any of Jesus’ followers.

Yet here we find two people – who are obviously followers of Jesus -  willing to allow a stranger to join them on their walk to their village called Emmaus.  They begin to share the news of the day concerning the prophet Jesus and the events that had occurred.

Jesus pretends that he has not heard about these events and asks them what they are talking about.  They are amazed that he could have been in Jerusalem and yet remained unaware of all the events that occurred.

They then begin to relate to him the events of Jesus’ life – a great prophet who was delivered up by the leaders of the people to be condemned to death.  They share their hope that he would be the one to redeem the people.  They also tell him that this Jesus had predicted his resurrection from the dead but when the women went to the tomb they found it empty with no sign of a body.

It is at this point that Jesus opened to them the Scriptures from the prophets and explained to them the plan of God for the redemption of the people.  Still they were not able to see that he was the risen Jesus.

As they drew near to Emmaus, they saw that he was intending to go further.  But as the day was drawing to a close, they invited this stranger who had shared such wonderful teaching with them to come in and stay with them.  Tomorrow would be a new day and the stranger could continue his journey then

Then Jesus did something uncharacteristic of a stranger at someone else’s table.  He took the bread, blessed, and broke it and gave it to them. No words were spoken except the words of blessing but they recognized that the one who had journeyed with them that day was the Lord himself.  At that moment, he vanished from their sight.  He did not need to say another word.  He had spoken all the words they needed to hear while walking with them on the road.

As they reflected on the experience of that walk, they remembered that the words he spoke had touched their hearts and spirits in a way like the times they had heard Jesus speak during his earthly ministry.  They knew at that moment that the prediction of his resurrection from the dead was true.  Immediately they returned to Jerusalem to share with the inner circle of disciples what they experienced.

At each appearance of Jesus, there are different signs given by Jesus to reassure the disciples of the truth of his resurrection.  We have the appearance to Mary in the garden, a touching personal moment between Jesus and the woman whom history tells us loved him more than any other; we have the appearance to Thomas whose boldness in wanting to touch the risen Christ is granted by Jesus in order that Thomas and others should not believe him to be a ghostly apparition; Jesus prepares a fire and waits for the disciples to come on shore and shares a meal of fish with them and in the passage that follows our lesson today, Jesus asks for a piece of fish to eat so that it may never be said that he was a fake.

All together these witnesses give us a picture of a God who broke back into history after the crucifixion in ways that would touch the hearts of people and reassure them not only that he was truly alive but that every word spoken by Jesus was true. They could go forward on the mission he would give them because he was prepared to walk and talk with them just as he had before the events in Jerusalem.  Eventually he would stop appearing to them and they would receive the Holy Spirit in order to continue to draw people back to God to receive God’s grace, love, strength and wisdom for this life and assurance of a life eternal for no longer could anything separate God and the people.

Today people speak of the walk to Emmaus as a metaphor for their spiritual journey and often as a renewal or deepening of their faith. It is a walk that begins as a journey to faith in God and culminates with the assurance that comes to us through the Holy Spirit.  It is a walk that we symbolically make every day of our lives.  Whenever we spend time in prayer with God, whenever we take the time to read Scripture, whenever we take time to be in a place where God can meet us, we are journeying to Emmaus

Each of us begins that journey in a different place and each of us will take that journey at a different pace; but one thing we can be assured of – the Lord will come and take that walk with us.

AMEN