The Third Sunday of Easter

Preached by Dean Robert Neske at Saint Mark’s Pro-Cathedral, Hastings, April 6, 2008

Last Sunday at the 10 O’clock Eucharist we sang the Hymn,”That Easter Day with Joy Was Bright.” Yet her we are three Sundays into Easter and “joy” has yet to appear. Panic, fear, confusion, anxiety, but no joy, the joy would come later.

The village of Emmaus is some ten kilometers west of the city of Jerusalem; about two hours walk at a reasonable pace. There wasn’t much to it in the First Century; it was a stopping place on the way into the Holy City, or on the way to the Roman city of Caesarea on the coast. Emmaus no longer exists except as a suburb of modern Jerusalem. It is no more now than it was then, and wouldn’t even be remembered except for one brief mention in the Gospel of Luke, which is our Gospel for the day.

This is one of those incidents where we don’t really have a lot of back-story available to us; we don’t even know both their names (we know the one was called Cleopas, the other remains unknown to us). We can assume they were among the seventy plus disciples who normally traveled with Jesus when he was in Galilee and had come up with him to Jerusalem for the Passover.

The truth is that we don’t even know that they were going to Emmaus; perhaps what they were really doing was getting the heck out of Jerusalem. Let’s face it, their time in Jerusalem had gone from absolutely wonderful on Palm Sunday to utterly horrible by Friday and now things were starting to get really, really weird, what with all this talk about empty tombs and visions of angels. Perhaps these two had decided that the best thing to do was to go back to Galilee - the long way, just to avoid any Roman troops who might be looking for Jesus’ followers.

So the two men set out late in the day, mingling with the other people who would be leaving the city to go back to their homes in the nearby towns and villages. We know they were talking about the empty tomb, when they were joined by the risen Jesus. Luke uses a curious phrase: “But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” The implication in the Greek is that this is a spiritual blindness; as the Biblical scholar Fredrick Danker notes: “what the mind does not anticipate it does not believe, and in the absence of faith the eye is blind.’ At the same time, they are very much caught up in what they think they know. Which to be honest isn’t really all that much.

Starting with the person of Jesus who they refer to as “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people;” to call him a prophet was to use a safe choice of words, meaning that Jesus was more than just one more itinerant rabbi, but not the messiah or the Christ. They betray themselves: “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” In other words, Jesus’ execution and death had put an end to their hope, so he had to have been something less – a prophet, maybe, but not the Christ.

Yet at the same time there is the empty tomb and they have no idea what to make of this. “Luke uses the dialogue and skepticism of these two men to sharpen the contrast between false expectations and apostolic teaching. Their comments also indicate that the disciples were not gullible and that the women did not make wild reports…the chief purpose of the dialogue is to prepare the reader for the understanding that Jesus himself is the key to proper comprehension of the Scripture.” (Danker)

However even as Jesus opens their eyes to the Scripture, their eyes remain closed to who it is that is teaching them. Except that as they recall later in the text: their “hearts were burning as he opened the scriptures” to them. In the Greek a burning heart implies an overwhelming feeling of love being both given and received, which is no doubt why they urged him to stay with them.  It is only when they invite Jesus to stay with them and he breaks the bread, as he did on that last night in the Upper Room, that they realize that it is Jesus, the Risen Lord, who has been with them all along.

The story of the incident on the road to Emmaus is unique to Luke, but as he so often does Luke sees in this event more than a post-resurrection appearance, what he sees is an experience of the Church in microcosm. It begins with listening to the Scriptures and realizing that in the person of Jesus the Scriptures have been fulfilled, that Jesus the Christ has overcome death and the grave and those who accept and embrace this truth will overcome death and the grave as well.

The story of the disciples encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus teaches us that Jesus meets us wherever we are on the road that is life and offers us himself; he goes with us, all the while revealing himself in his empowering love; and he waits for us to invite him to stay with us and make himself fully known to us in the breaking of bread, which is the Holy Eucharist. But then what did Cleopas and his comrade do, they returned to Jerusalem to share the good news with the other; which is our task as well.

In a very real way, every Sunday, we take the road to Emmaus. We come together and hear about Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in deed and word before God; then some fools gets into the pulpit and tries to bring light to the mystery that is God’s work and Word in His Son. In prayer, confession and absolution we are invited to stay and rest and partake; the bread – His body is broken for us; the wine – His blood poured out for us; and we know him and receive Him and return from this place to do what?

Hopefully, it is to live in such a way as to reflect the best aspects of the Christian faith and give glory to the Lord we serve. The story of Emmaus calls us into fellowship that we might not only share the Christian experience but meet the Risen Lord as well.

For here is the thing, Christ is always with us, whether we know this or not, whether we recognize him or not, he is always with us to offer his peace, his love and the joy that is ours when we feel his presence, and share his presence with those around us and those whom we meet in the world, that they to may know and share the power of his resurrection.