3 Easter, Yr A (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
3 Easter, Yr A (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Luke 24:13-35 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
In the name of the one, holy, and living God:
who was, and is, and is to come. Amen.
The Road to Emmaus…
What an extraordinary story!
This story takes place on the first day of the week…
the same day that the women had discovered the empty tomb…
the day that Jesus, by all human account, should have lain lifeless in the tomb
but by some miracle had disappeared…
had risen, in fact,
just as he said he would.
On this first day of the week,
Jesus himself shows up and walks alongside the disciples:
not as a ghost…
but as a human being,
resurrected from the dead.
Now, in my world, that’s extraordinary!
And yet,
if we read the story another way,
we can see that it is also filled with the ordinary.
The story begins:
“Now on that day two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village called Emmaus.”
Two folks are simply walking down the road, going on a short journey.
We don’t really know much about these two disciples.
One was named Cleopas, but we don’t have any other stories about him.
The other disciple isn’t even named.
Perhaps she was a woman!
Now, we know that these two disciples certainly weren’t part of Jesus’ inner circle:
not a part of the twelve (or at this point the eleven)
because later in the story we hear that these two returned to Jerusalem and
“found the eleven and their companions gathered together.”
So, these are two ordinary folks who happen to have been following Jesus in some way in their lives.
Maybe they had heard him teach in the synagogue,
or had heard him on the hillside one day talking to the crowds,
or had even witnessed him heal someone.
In whatever ways they had engaged with Jesus,
he had certainly captured their hearts--
and their hopes.
So, after Jesus’ death, these two disciples walk together down the road,
talking about the horror of the last week
when Jesus had been unjustly arrested and accused and scourged and killed.
AND then, of course, this morning the women had seen his tomb empty.
What in the world had happened?!
Now, in the midst of their recounting their story along the road,
some stranger comes up and starts to walk with them.
Hey folks, what are you talking about?
Seriously?!
You are coming from Jerusalem and you haven’t heard?!
What rock have you been under? (that was a joke)
Everyone knows Jesus of Nazareth -
a prophet mighty in deed and word
was handed over to be condemned to death and was crucified!
Everyone knows this!
Where have you been?
Even though you should know this information, what you may not know
is that some women went this morning and found the tomb empty
and saw a vision of angels who said that Jesus is alive.
Now we find that just too good to be true!
We pinned all our hopes on Jesus once.
We just don’t know that we can do that again.
I mean, this week has been quite the roller-coaster:
life and death and maybe life again…
We’re just trying to wrap our heads around all this.
Then Jesus,
being quite familiar with the story after all,
begins with Moses and all the prophets
and interprets everything in the Scripture about himself to them.
But they still don’t get it.
They still don’t see him.
They can’t.
They are wrapped in a shroud of trauma,
and disappointment and confusion,
and everything is cloudy.
Everything is fuzzy and disorienting.
It was not until Jesus physically broke bread with them that their eyes were opened.
Then they saw clearly.
Jesus had come home.
So… today we hear a story of two ordinary people walking down an ordinary road,
struggling with the reality of their lives.
Jesus then joins them on their journey and invites them to share their story:
their sorrow,
their pain,
what it was that they had hoped for,
their confusion,
their disorientation.
And then he told them a story.
He re-narrated salvation history beginning with Moses and all the prophets.
He took their story of pain and sorrow
and then showed them how life comes in the midst of death.
In Jesus’ resurrection, he embodied that death is not the end of the story.
Fear and pain and disorientation are not the end of the story.
Jesus has been raised from the dead:
Love overcomes fear,
and life overcomes death!
Did you notice that Jesus does not negate the disciples’ dashed hopes or their pain?
He shows them another way of seeing and being.
Has anyone ever done that for you?
Helped you to see beyond the frustration or fear or pain or disappointment?
Sometimes we get swallowed up by these feelings,
and we need someone to help us reinterpret our story…
Someone who can point out where healing is already occuring
or where there is cause for hope.
Sometimes we need someone to shine a light into our darkness.
That is what Jesus did for these disciples.
When he sat at table with them
and broke the bread,
their eyes were opened.
Realizing the new life that sat among them,
that same hour they returned to Jerusalem,
to the eleven and their companions,
and they all rejoiced together:
“The Lord has risen indeed!”
My friends, it strikes me that we are just as ordinary as these two disciples,
and it is entirely possible that Jesus will show up when we least expect.
And, as disciples of Jesus, we are called to be his presence in the lives of others as well.
We are called to come alongside one another:
people we know and people we don’t.
We are called to come alongside one another and listen…
to let others share with us their pain and fear and disorientation –
in every day of our earthly lives.
We are called to stand with others,
not negating their difficulties,
but perhaps shining a light in their darkness.
Death is not the final say.
There is life beyond the fear and pain and even life beyond death itself!
The disciples truly saw Jesus when he engaged in a physical act:
the act of breaking bread.
I wonder if it is in our physical acts that God becomes most visible to us.
While I was on my “staycation,” I spent many hours in our yard digging in the dirt,
planting new flowers and bushes,
rearranging plants and even planting a new tree!
I find a deeper connection to the God of Creation in each new bloom
and in the sound of twittering birds building their nests.
How else might we find deeper connection to God through our physical acts?
Packing bags of food for the weekends for some of Canton’s children,
serving a meal at the Community Kitchen (that’s tomorrow by the way),
taking friends to a doctor’s appointment,
sending a card to someone who needs an encouraging word,
breaking bread here together on Sunday morning?
In each of these instances we are witnessing and bearing the Light of Christ at work in the world and in our own lives.
As the disciples came near the village,
they invited Jesus to stay with them.
So he went in to stay with them.
When he was at the table with them,
he took bread,
blessed and broke it,
and gave it to them.
Then their eyes were opened,
and they recognized him;
and he vanished from their sight.
His work was done.
The Light had shined in the darkness.
The Light still shines in the darkness…
through him…
through us.
Alleluia! Alleluia! The Lord is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Amen.
