Year A
Luke 24:13-35
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
The Walk of Love
Through the years there have been several stories in the scriptures that have touched my heart, my soul, my life in ways that not only changed me but gave me a glimpse of the God I love and serve. The Good Samaritan, the woman at the well and today’s gospel, the Walk to Emmaus, they are all stories that can feed the hunger of our souls; they are stories for the church that help us meet Jesus. This is important to us because there are thousands of souls out there in the world, which include all of us who are hungering not just for information about Jesus but for an encounter with the real, living, resurrected Christ. As theologian and author Marcus Borg puts it, they want to meet him again for the first time.
They want him to impact their lives in a real, concrete, visible, undeniable, compelling way to give meaning and direction to their lives. They are like the two disciples in the gospel story today, who seem empty, disappointed, burned out, and looking for something not just to believe but to believe in. This has been my story at various times in my life. One of those times was when I was 33 years old. My father had just died at 58 years old a tragic death due to alcoholism. He left my grandmother, his mother, alone. She was in her 80’s and could not live alone so I brought her from Utica, NY to Port Charlotte, FL to take care of her. She flew on a plane for the very first time. Her death less than two years after my father’s left me raw, feeling empty and searching.
At the urging of my mother who had just attended a Walk to Emmaus retreat weekend which is an ecumenical Cursillo, I attended an Episcopal Cursillo weekend. It wasn’t necessarily on the weekend that I met Jesus, I certainly saw Jesus. It was after I had come home and had the opportunity to reflect on that weekend and then serve as a team member to other searching women at a Walk to Emmaus weekend that I began to know Jesus. You see I was on that road like those two disciples who were at loose ends and looking for direction when my eyes were opened in the breaking of the bread to recognize that the Lord had been walking with me all along, just like he had been with those disciples as they walked to Emmaus.
No one really knows where the town of Emmaus was located, but biblical scholars have made some informed guesses-and the most popular theory is that it is where modern-day Moza sits, about seven miles outside Jerusalem. Cleopas and the other disciple, downcast by the death of Jesus who they thought would save them from the Roman rule and confused by reports that his body was missing, are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, the evening of that first Easter day. Perhaps they are returning home or they are taking the news of Jesus’ death to other followers of Jesus when they encounter a stranger who listens to their concerns, then gives them a scripture lesson that makes their “hearts burn within them.”
As they later shared the evening meal, he breaks bread and they recognize him. They come to realize who he is when he does something that he has done with them before. As he did with the 5,000 and as he did with them on the night before his arrest, and as he had probably done hundreds of times with them, he breaks bread and shares it with them. But by then the risen Christ has disappeared from their sight and they immediately hurry back to Jerusalem to tell the others of their experience. Their report is almost pre-empted with the announcement that greets them: “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” The two disciples are examples for us of faithful Easter people, who not only meet Jesus in the scriptures and in the breaking of the bread, but also witness their experience to all who will hear.
Of course it is obvious to us now that it’s the resurrected Jesus who is walking with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. We can’t un-see Jesus once we’ve hear the story which should assure us that the risen Lord is in our midst, walking with us in all seasons of our lives. We now can see him in every page of scripture, in the breaking of bread and we may well spot him in those who are persecuted, in prison, hungry, thirsty, sick or unclothed. And for those without a resurrection faith, those who have not yet heard and believed the good news of Easter, they are like those disciples on the road to Emmaus, without hope. But it need not be that way.
Because as those who know the rest of the story until today, as those who have been to the empty tomb and have met the risen Christ, we know that there is a hope that is ours through faith in the living Christ. And we know this is where the church comes in. It is our job, our calling to provide opportunities where people can have an up close and personal experience of Jesus Christ. We know what people are looking for because it is what each one of us is looking for, and through our example and witness perhaps as we continue to seek Jesus, one day they will see and meet the resurrected and living Lord. This is what Peter and the rest of the disciples spent the rest of their lives doing.
We hear this today in both the Acts reading, Peter’s first sermon on Pentecost and in his first letter to the early Christians where he writes to encourage and call them to holy living. The heart of Peter’s long speech in the Book of Act’s is to affirm that the resurrection proves Jesus’ identity as Messiah and Luke says that 3,000 came to faith that day and were baptized. But to be able to continue to know that Jesus walked with them they needed instructions as to how to find meaning and purpose in life. Peter says, the life of faith that leads one to God is the key. Christ makes a life of hope in God that is reliable, trustworthy, and worth the risks. This life enables us to love from the heart, an Imperishable love.
A kind of love that needs to be shared; what Cleopas and the other disciple had experienced must be shared. Their return to Jerusalem begins the outward spiral of the gospel. God sends the Risen One. At God’s word, the Word comes. “Go to the distressed, go to the faithless. Don’t assume their faith is always strong. Go to them and walk with them.” And as we go out to walk with others, Jesus comes and he walks with us. Christ’s church has been making diligent use of his given means of grace since the evening of the first day of the week, in hopes that, on the way home, perhaps some may even say to each other, “Did not our hearts burn this morning as the scriptures were opened to us!” We’re not our eyes opened so that we might come to know him in the breaking of the bread! Yes, we have met the risen Lord. He walks with us, our lives have been changed and now we must offer witness to others that they too might come to know him on the road, in the scriptures and in the breaking of the bread.