Along The Way

April 25, 1993

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Scripture: Luke 24:13-35

How prone we are to forget that Easter is a season, not simply a day. It’s still Eastertide with several weeks to go. We settle down again to the old routine so quickly, too quickly. MAYBE TO some extent it’s inevitable. So much happens on that first, glorious, triumphant resurrection morning that everything afterwar seems almost anticlimactic.

We hear the trumpets sound, we feel the force of the earthquake, we see the dazzling brilliance of new life...complete reversal of fortune, absolute turnaround...all in one explosive daybreak. It’s spectacular, unprecedented, transcendent, magnificent...but hard to maintain after the initial burst of glory.

The Sunday after Easter is known in many churches as LOW Sunday, when the letdown following the peak of Easter morning hits with a resounding thud.

We do everything we can to keep it from happening... The church calendar does everything it can to keep it from happening. It tells us to keep wearing white for victory...It reminds us that these are Sundays OF Easter, not Sundays AFTER Easter. This is more than a one-day phenomenon, this season. It stretched from Easter Sunday morning to Pentecost, which this year comes at the end of May.

So, how do we celebrate it? What is the mood of this liturgical season?

WELL, in one sense, it’s a season of slack-jawed astonishment, a season of stunned amazement. After all, what can you say in the face of an empty tomb? Better just stand in front of it in awed silence.... IN ANOTHER sense, of course, it’s a season of unparalleled JOY. He is risen, and goeth before you. THINK OF IT. What can you do in the face of news like that but shout at the top of your voice....

BOTH OF THOSE ARE APPROPRIATE EASTERTIDE MOODS.

But how do you sustain them? That’s the Eastertide problem. How do you keep it going? How do you keep those powerful, life-changing resurrection themes alive and vibrant over an extended period of time?

How do you keep the miracle and wonder of Easter from becoming stale?

Well, we’re not the first to wrestle with it. Maybe it’s helpful to remember that the early Church faced the same challenge here that we face today, the challenge of letdown, the challenge of the loss of momentum, the challenge of keeping the story bright in the face of day after day ongoingness.

I want to suggest that one way to understand today’s Scripture reading, the lectionary

reading for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, is to see it, at least in part, as addressing that very

issue. The story of the appearance of Jesus to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus...

His coming to join them along the way, and the aftermath of that, is one of the most delicately told, and carefully crafted of all the Gospel narratives.

It’s a beautiful story, so filled with meaning, so packed with a number of exquisite touches.... and it’s obviously put together after an enormous amount of reflection on all that had happened, and all that was implied by all that had happened.

In the story of Emmaus we have a record of more than just the experience of two people. WE have as well a precious record of the experience of the Church, as it dealt with Eastertide questions: NOW WHAT? Where do we go from here? How do we maintain the excitement of this completely unexpected and momentous thing that had taken place? AND HOW do we keep that excitement burning in the lives of new disciples?

Those are our questions, too, and they can help us, because they went through it first.

They knew that Easter was more than just the culmination of something. It was just as truly in a wonderful way the beginning of something.... sort of like marriage, maybe. And again, like marriage, to carry out the analogy further, something that really to thrive, requires discipline, intentionality, and commitment.

Let’s look at Luke’s Emmaus story---it had no parallel anywhere else in the New Testament. It’s not even listed in Paul’s recitation of resurrection appearances---Let’s examine it and allow at least some of the abiding truths Luke articulates with such insight get inside of us to do their work.

The story begins outside of Jerusalem as the sun is going down. The first full day

of resurrection is drawing to a close. Along the road that leads to Emmaus, a small village some 7 miles distance out to the west of Jerusalem, two men trudge sadly.

Or is it two men? How do we know that? Why do we assume the two figures in the story were both male? We usually do assume that, but only one is named. Cleopas, he’s called, clearly a man’s name, but why couldn’t the other person, the unnamed companion, have been a woman? Why not? Think of all the examples of unnamed women in the Gospels. It almost follows a pattern---the widow of Nain, the women with the flow of blood, Jairus’ daughter, the woman at the well...so many. You might almost argue that the unidentified disciple must have been a woman because she wasn’t named. They may well have been a married couple, on their way home from Jerusalem, where nearly all day they have heard rumors of strange things that supposedly have taken place on this first day of the week.

As they travel along the road, they are joined quietly by a Stranger. They have absolutely

no idea who He is, or where He came from, or how He got there.... He simply appears and begins to engage them in conversation. Luke says, “While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus Himself drew near and went with them.” Doesn’t it send shivers up your spine? The reader knows, but the disciples don’t.

THEY DIDN’T RECOGNIZE HIM. Is Luke telling us it’s possible to be so preoccupied with things, EVEN RELIGIOUS CONCERNS, that you miss the reality of the presence of Christ in your midst? THEY DIDN’T RECOGNIZE HIM. He was as near as a companion on the road, right by their side, and they didn’t know who He was.

Now notice the tact of the Stranger...so gracious, so impeccably proper. He doesn’t overwhelm them, doesn’t knock them down with revelation. This is Luke writing, not Matthew. In fact, he begins by listening to them, by asking them questions, by drawing them out. “What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?”

There is something about it so natural, so sincere, so genuinely caring. If you want a model for ministry, here’s a perfect illustration of the best kind you can have...meeting people where they are, and unpretentiously relating to them in non-judgmental identification. The two pour out to Him the sadness of their hearts. Most people can’t do that, so quickly, to a stranger.... It takes a while for trust to be laid, for confidence to be built up, for rapport to be established. But there was something about this MAN they didn’t know that made them feel they did know Him and out came the pent-up frustration over all the tragedy of the previous 48 hours.

“Are you the only one in town who doesn’t know what’s happened there?”, said Cleopas,

almost in disbelief... “How can you not know?” WHAT THEY DID TO JESUS OF NAZARETH.... He was a great prophet, mighty in word and deed, and the people loved Him, and God blessed Him.... But the chief priests and leaders wrangled to have Him condemned.... And they connived, and pushed, and worked it until they got the Romans to crucify Him. AND NOW HE’S DEAD, the best Man who ever lived. We had hoped, we had thought, we had prayed that He was the one who would redeem Israel.”

AND JESUS LISTENED....simply listened at that point, to the outpouring of them frustration, to the hurt of their disappointment, to the depth of their sadness, to the wrenching of their souls. HE LET THEM GET IT OUT OF THEIR SYSTEMS, let them express it. Why do we always feel we have to talk to help? WHAT AM I GOING TO SAY? Why do we have to say anything?

Jesus didn’t feel that compulsion. HE SIMPLY LISTENED...and waited, as Cleopas caught

his breath and went on....

“But now, something else seems to have happened that we can’t make any sense out of at all. Some of the women just this morning came and told us that they had been to the tomb where they placed His body...and it was empty. His body wasn’t there. And angels came, they said, and told them that He was alive.” The Easter announcement.

It was only then that Jesus spoke. He didn’t offer answers to questions people weren’t asking. How hard that is for preachers to learn.... He didn’t provide rationale for irrelevant inquiry. He didn’t just pick a text at random and exegete on the basis of whimsical interest.

HE TOOK THEM WHERE THEY WERE and led them through an exposition of the Scriptures to a knowledge of Himself. Would it be stretching it to say, would it be unfair to say, He used the words to reveal the WORD?

It was the Old Testament, of course, He was elucidating, what WE call the Old Testament.

There was no New Testament then, But He used the Bible the way it’s meant to be used--- not as an idol, not as a law book, not as an assemblage of proof texts, not as a compendium of rules and regulations, but certainly not as a collection of imaginative fairy tales.

He used it as a witness, as a finger, if you will, that points away from itself to the One who stands over it and gives it its true meaning. How liberating to realize that and how helpful in understanding the true nature of the Biblical record. The Bible is not our ultimate authority for Jesus; Jesus is our ultimate authority for the Bible. He’s the focal point of prophetic anticipation and apostolic recollection. The Old Testament anticipates Him and the New Testament bears witness to Him.

He explained that to them there on the road in the gathering dusk. If I could go back to Bible times just once, and choose any moment to the be present, physically there, on site, even for 15 minutes, I think maybe that’s the one instant I would choose...to listen to Him interpret the things about Himself in the Scriptures.

THAT’S WHAT PREACHING IS ALL ABOUT.

And yet...and yet... do you see, do you notice? The disciples, these 2, still didn’t get it. Not quite. Even after hearing the exposition of the Word by the embodiment of the Word, they still were not able to recognize Him. That seems astonishing to me, and yet maybe that problem of self-communication, getting through to people to show them the truth, has been God’ problem since the Garden of Eden.

They didn’t know Him when He told them... It was only when He showed them that the lights came on.

They went inside the house when they came to the village... The disciples invited Him in. Even at that point, you see the tact. He walked on ahead, Luke says, as if He were going on. But they insisted, they urged Him strongly, saying, “Stay with us. It’s almost evening. The day is nearly over.” Maybe they didn’t know Him, but they knew they didn’t want Him to go. There was something special about Him.

So they sat down at the table, at a setting which clearly takes on Communion overtones.

Jesus, though the guest, serves as Host.

And somehow, in the breaking of the bread---don’t you wonder what it was that triggered it...somehow when He took that bread and blessed it and broke it---- Maybe it was the inflection of His voice. Maybe it was the familiar words of institution... “This is my body.”

Or maybe when He passed the bread to them, they see the nail wounds in His hands....

Something about that sacramental experience opened their eyes...and they recognized Him. “It is the Lord.” It didn’t last long---flashes of insight rarely do. Epiphany moments are notoriously transient. He disappeared in as shadowy a way as He had come, trailing mystery behind Him.

But He left them with an experience, a reality, a sense of gripping truth which from that day on would make them different from what they had been before. If you’re a Methodist, raised on the story of John Wesley, it’s a Biblical Aldersgate. The parallel springs to mind at once. “Did not our hearts burn within us?” they said, “when He opened the Scriptures for us, when He opened the Bread of Life.”

It’s 7 miles from Emmaus to Jerusalem. They’d just finished walking it the other way. But you don’t keep experiences like that bottled up. They got up from the table that very hour and ran all the way back to town...to tell the others, to tell everybody the incandescent truth of resurrection.

Do we know what became of Cleopas, and the other disciple, the unnamed companion who encountered the Lord on the road to Emmaus? You wonder, don’t you? Did they become martyrs along with so many in that First Century band of believers? Did they go out after Pentecost and evangelize, win others to the Way, establish new churches?

Did they tell the story of that Sunday evening over and over? Or, did they lose their zeal and enthusiasm after a while when the emotion cooled and the fervor of Easter Day subsided?

We don’t know. There’s no further record available. Their names are never mentioned again in the New Testament. The ultimate fate of these particular people is lost to us. But I’m convinced that this precious story of Emmaus had been preserved by the Church across the centuries and treasured at least in part because the Church came to see that the essence of their experience is the way Easter Faith is kept alive and is spread. This is the Church’s calling. This is our business---to make the risen, living Christ real for all disciples in the same way Jesus did for those two---through WORD and SACRAMENT.

It’s all right there. How did they know Him? When did it hit them? When did the transforming reality of this new dimension of life break into their consciousness? WHEN HE PREACHED THE WORD TO THEM FROM THE SCRIPTURES, AND WHEN HE BROKE THE BREAD....Word and Sacrament.

The Church of Jesus Christ is many things...at least it’s many things to different people. It’s appeal hits people at different places...it offers fellowship, it offers nurture, it offers encouragement, it offers comfort, it offers quality in the arts and in music... it offers a place to leave your children for a morning or an afternoon out.

You could go on and on.... All of those have their place. All are worthwhile.

But the Church of Jesus Christ, the extension of the Incarnation, the people of God, the ecclesia of God, is more than that, bigger than that, more distinctive and more specific than that. It doesn’t even belong to us; we belong to it, by definition. It’s not OUR Church; it’s God’s Church.

It’s a community of believers under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is the redeemed and redeeming fellowship in which the Word of God is proclaimed, and the Sacraments of God are duly administered...just as at Emmaus.

The Church comes alive just as these disciples came alive when we put ourselves under

the discipline of allowing the Word to reach out and grasp us, to claim us, to change our point of view... and when we let the redemptive love symbolized by the earthly tokens of His suffering on the Cross come inside of us and mold us by faith into new creatures. WORD AND SACRAMENT HAVE THE POWER TO DO THAT. That’s what constitutes CHURCH.

You can have a lot of salutary things without them, but you can’t have CHURCH.

And I guess I might as well just say it’s hard for me to understand why more people

are not willing on a regular, systematic, thoroughgoing, and committed way to put themselves under a disciplined WORD and SACRAMENT regimen.

You don’t allow other things to get in the way of keeping that rendezvous. You give it a higher priority than recreation, or rest, or pleasure. You do this before you go to the beach, or the ball game, and you do it every week on a regular, continuing basis. To show off? No.... Because you know Word and Sacrament are the source of LIFE.

How do you keep the glory of Easter from fading? How do you combat the letdown of Eastertide and make it a season, not just a day? How do you maintain your equilibrium and your sanity when everything around you is falling apart?

You keep going back to Emmaus where the Word is proclaimed, and the Sacraments are administered.

You go expectantly, you go prayerfully, you go consistently...and you sit down at the feet of the Stranger who finds you...and you listen, and trust...until, like the two back there in the story, your heart, too, burns within.