Year A
Luke 24:13-35
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
Burning Hearts of Resurrection Faith
Today, we are now three weeks into the Church’s great fifty-day celebration of Easter and we hear one of the greatest stories ever told; a story of two very sad disciples walking down a dusty road to the village of Emmaus in the evening of that first Easter day. It is a story that is well known and beloved in the church; a story of faith reborn and hope restored for those with broken dreams. As the story unfolds, the disciples start with tragedy and discover grace. It is a story that continues to be our story today because it that reminds us that Easter’s dawn is a journey of faith. A journey that begins the moment our eyes are opened to invite Jesus to stay and break bread with us.
The Easter day is ending with Cleopas and the other disciple. Some have suggested that the unidentified disciple may have been the wife of Cleopas, that she and her husband actually lived in Emmaus and it was into their own home that they invited Jesus. As they make their way to the village of Emmaus, back to the routine of their lives they must have felt they had bet their lives on the wrong savior. They thought they knew everything there was to know about Jesus of Nazareth-he gave them hope, the hope for freedom but now he is dead. While they were discussing these events, Jesus himself came near and went with them but they were not yet able to recognize him. We are not told the source of their blindness but who among us has not felt blindsided in times of distress or grief and wondered if God saw what was happening in our lives?
And so Jesus patiently listens to them with undoubtedly his nail-scared hands buried deep within his robe. We imagine their words of grief and sadness did touch his heart with their pain of dashed hopes. And he was quick to respond, Jesus says to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Jesus then explained the Scriptures to them and quite likely, as they heard once again the words of the prophets, they heard them in a new way. They heard them in relation to Jesus’ own suffering and death.
So that when they arrived at the village of Emmaus, with their hearts burning inside them from the scriptures being opened to them, Cleopas and his companion wanted more so they urged Jesus to stay with them. Then at the table, Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and in that moment their eyes were opened to recognize who he was! Everything was still the same yet everything was different. For in hearing the words of scripture again and breaking bread with Jesus they could finally put all the pieces together. The empty tomb meant that Jesus had risen! They could hope again in Jesus as their redeemer! Their crucified Lord was living and present with them. Jesus had won the victory over sin and death. Instead of shock and sadness over all that had happened, instead of confusion, the disciples could rejoice!
They were now so excited that they hurried back to Jerusalem. This news couldn’t wait until morning. They had to tell the others. The good news of Jesus’ resurrection and living presence was not just a personal, inner belief. It was meant to be lived out. It was meant to be shared. So they hurried to Jerusalem and when they arrived, they found the other disciples just as excited about the good news, for while they were on the road to Emmaus, the risen Lord had also appeared to Peter. It was confirmed in the testimony of the women who had seen the angel at the tomb and in the witness of Peter and John, and in their own experience. Their faith was reborn and their hope restored and their witness of the risen Christ is still being told to this day.
Yet, there are those without a resurrection faith, those who have not yet heard or believed the good news of Jesus’ resurrection, for those who do not believe the good news of Easter, death is a terrible thing. For it puts to an end our hopes for the future. Without a living faith in the risen Christ, like those disciples on the Road to Emmaus until their eyes were opened, we are left to trudge our way along the dusty, dark roads of life. But it need not be that way. Because as those who know the rest of the story and have met the risen Christ in our lives, we know that death is not the end. We know that there is an eternal hope that is ours through faith in the living Christ. As people of God, our faith rests on our relationship with the crucified and risen Lord who says to us, “I am the resurrection and the life: if anyone believes in me, even though they die, they will live.” This is the too good to be true news that has to be shared.
If we take this familiar story from Luke seriously, we are given a blueprint for celebrating the Christian life as an Easter people. Cleopas and his companion went for a walk. The journey they took was far more than the merely physical. They engaged in the journey of faith. And it began for them in the throes of hurt and disappointment. It was not until the Risen Christ interpreted for them through the scriptures the meaning of death, that they could see what it meant to live their lives within the context of a saving faith. Yet, they still needed to see and it was in the breaking of the bread, they came to faith in the risen Christ.
As Christians we must take the same journey as the disciples. A journey of faith that is not a guarantee our lives will be exempt from the rocks and dust that are part and parcel of simply being human. Yet, it is important that we walk the road if the word is truly to set the world on fire. And in walking the road, we must risk and allow the living Lord to walk with us and help us to understand. There is an invitation from God to surrender our lack of understanding into the hands of Christ who is always there to help and console. Finally, we remember who it is that walks with us in our daily labors. Jesus took on our fear of death and the frailty of our human nature to understand our broken dreams and disappointments so that he can be with us as we walk and give us a new purpose and a meaning to our lives.
And when we have taken our walk with a God who, in Christ walks with us in this life, we then are sat down at table and there we break bread to satisfy our hungers. Our eyes are open to a whole new world and our lives will never be the same. Such is the nature of faith. Such is our resurrection hope, a faith and trust that those two disciples discovered on the Road to Emmaus that day. Because he lives, we shall live also—and he will walk and guide and comfort us through life. “Did not our hearts burn this morning as the scriptures were opened to us”?