I. Walking Away from Jerusalem 00:01
Lord Jesus, we pray this morning that our hearts would be set on fire as we study your word, and that we would recognize you in the breaking of the bread. Lord, we thank you that you are here. Amen.
Well, today we get to talk about a story we’ve been teasing for the past three Sundays. We could not help but bring up this story every Sunday for the past month or so, because it’s just so wonderful. I threatened Father Powell this morning, when he asked if I was ready to preach. I said, “I’m just going to read the Gospel three times. I think that’s as good as we can do.” It’s just that good of a story. But I do think God wants to open up some understanding of what he says in here. And so, humbly, like Jesus, I will seek to explain how all the Scriptures point to him. That’s my goal this morning. So we’ll see what I can do.
It’s interesting, because you can see it as a parallel to our own lives. We’re on the way. We’re walking away from Jerusalem. What is Jerusalem? It’s the city of peace, the symbol, mythologically, of the kingdom of God. And eventually we will be in that heavenly Jerusalem someday. And so you have these two disciples walking away from the kingdom of God in despair. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like you’re walking away from the kingdom of God in despair, but I’ve been there a couple of times.
But what a miraculous situation. They’ve failed the test. They’re walking away. And who shows up? Jesus. He does not scorn their unbelief, but he shows up with them in the middle of their despair. As they’re leaving the kingdom of God, Jesus shows up. Because what happens here is that the resurrection has become the great inversion of all that we once understood to be true. We knew that Jesus failed when he died on the cross. We knew he was shamed. We knew he was proven wrong. And the resurrection came to transform our understanding. And now we wear a torture device around our necks as a beautiful symbol of our hope. That’s what the resurrection does to our life. It takes that which we saw as the darkest, most despairing, most difficult thing and inverts it. It transfigures it into that which God has redeemed.
II. Jesus Himself Drew Near 02:20
So as we’re starting this story, I just want us to remember what it would have been like as we’re leaving Jerusalem, feeling the burden of despair, and then in the middle of that, someone comes along to tell us it’s all going to be okay, and more than okay. So in verse 13 we begin, and it says:
13 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, Luke 24.13
What day is this? It’s Easter Sunday. I know, for three weeks it’s been Easter Sunday. That’s the wonderful thing about the church calendar: we don’t rush past the important bits. We sit with it. We dive into it. We let it change us. And so it’s still Easter Sunday, and two of these disciples have left to go to the village of Emmaus, which is probably a fine place, but in this world we can imagine…
15 …Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. Luke 24.15–16
It’s so remarkable. You imagine their discussion was not exciting. It wasn’t good. They were talking about how awful it was, how terrible the Jewish authorities were who crucified their would-be Messiah, how evil the Roman government was, how burdened they were. I don’t know if you’ve been a part of a conversation like that, but I have. And you can feel the weight of the entire universe start to rest on your shoulders as you start talking about all the ways the world has gone to hell, and you get so discouraged. And in that moment, Jesus comes along.
III. The Knight Who Failed 04:08
Now, when you think of these two disciples: think of the great stories we tell about the knight. Medieval Arthurian legends are a great passion of mine, and they always have this story where a beautiful maiden comes along, and she hands the knight her cloak or her handkerchief or something, and she says, “Stay right here. I will be right back. Hold on to this.” And then she leaves, and days turn into weeks turn into months, and the knight is staying there.
And there are two ways the story ends. In all of these stories, they always have a dual ending. There’s one ending where the knight gives up. The knight’s been waiting for weeks and months, for years. He’s sitting there, and he’s like, “This maiden is never coming. I’ve got to go.” He hangs it on the tree next to him and starts walking away. And just at that moment the maiden arrives, and he realizes he lost everything because he wasn’t faithful. That’s one way the story goes.
And then the other way is that the knight’s faithful. He stays. He holds on to the handkerchief. The lady comes back, and his youth is restored. He marries the princess. He becomes the king of the kingdom, all of that. That’s how we like to think of our stories: the one who is faithful is rewarded with the kingdom, not the one who turns away; the one who doesn’t give up, no matter how hard it is. We want to see our heroes make it through.
But this is an inversion of that story, because all the disciples failed. Every one of them turned away from Jesus. And Jesus shows up, not to say, “You could have had the kingdom. You could have joined me on the cross. You could have been resurrected like me.” No. He says, “You have all the benefits, all the rewards that I earned. I’m going to show up in the midst of your rejection of me, and I’m going to tell you that I have saved the day, and that you get to live in my salvation.”
It’s so much better than we think, because we still go about our lives beating ourselves up every time we fail. We still go about our lives blaming all the bad things we did for everything that happens to us. The truth is, today there is nothing you have done that has separated you from the love of Christ or taken away your salvation in Christ. In fact, today you are just as loved and rewarded and blessed as the resurrected Christ, because you are in him. And all the good things God has for Jesus are freely offered to you.
IV. Why Are You Cast Down? 06:41
And in that moment, their eyes are kept from recognizing him. They’re lamenting. And Jesus comes, even in the midst of their failure. He doesn’t reject them. But they can’t see him.
Now, there does seem to be something about the resurrected Jesus that was hard to see. There’s another story, of Mary Magdalene, who thinks he’s a gardener (John 20.15). So there’s something essential that has been transformed in the resurrected body of Christ. He still bears his scars. He’s still 100% human. He’s still 100% him. But there’s something that has changed.
But there’s also the reality that their downcast eyes couldn’t look up and see that Jesus was walking right next to them. You’ve probably been there before, where you were just too hurt to recognize any goodness in that moment. You were just too broken up. You were just too despairing, just too hopeless, to see the hope in front of you. In the midst of that, everything they had ever hoped for was walking next to them, and they didn’t even recognize it. That’s how upset they were. That’s how despairing they were. It reminds me of Psalm 42:5. It says:
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation. Ps 42.5
After Jesus died, that’s the psalm verse they needed. “Why are you cast down? I shall again praise him.” Or elsewhere it says, “Even should he slay me, yet still I will trust in him” (Job 13.15). That’s the level of trust Jesus invites us into when we’re in the middle of despair and he shows up. Let me give you a little secret here. The problem with the medieval knight is that it all rests on his ability to be faithful, when the truth is that it’s Jesus’s faithfulness to us that saves us.
V. We Had Hoped 08:13
And so Jesus says to them:
17 “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Luke 24.17
It’s a very descriptive piece, which we don’t often get in Scripture. You can imagine Eeyore. He’s just sitting there: “Oh.” Even the way they drew the character Eeyore, you knew he was sad. That’s what I pictured: these two Eeyores sitting there, just looking sad.
18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” Luke 24.18
One random side note: when you are sad, you feel like the whole world should be sad with you. And you can hear them: “Why aren’t you crying?” Either way, you can feel the pathos of the moment.
19 And he said to them, “What things?” Luke 24.19
And you can imagine the kindness in Jesus’s heart, because he bears our griefs and our sorrows (Isa 53.4). “What things are you sad about?”
And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.” Luke 24.19–21
So you imagine: it happens, and they don’t even run away right away. These are the followers who stuck around with some measure of hope. But when the sun rose on Saturday, nothing better happened. It was just more bad news. And then Saturday night, nothing. Just more sorrow, more sadness. And finally their fear of the authorities, because they start hearing rumors that the authorities, the Jews, might be looking for his followers. That’s why on Sunday morning, all the followers who stayed in Jerusalem are behind a locked door. And so these guys are like, “Might as well just leave. It’s all over.”
I know there are times in our life when we feel that it’s all over, and it’s three days since it’s been all over, or whatever that time period is, where you just look back and go, “Man, not only is it despairing, but it’s so despairing that it’s three days dead and buried. It is just gone.” And then Jesus shows up. That’s all of us. That’s our whole life. “It’s three days since these things happened.”
And that line that says, “But we had hoped that he would redeem Israel.” We had hoped. It was our hope. In fact, Augustine preaches about this, and he says, “Oh, dear disciples, you had hoped, when life itself is walking next to you.” It’s this moment of “We had hoped,” and Jesus is right there.
You can imagine this sad conversation that convinced them to just leave. They say, “Remember that time when Jesus was surrounded, and everybody took up rocks to stone him, when the Jerusalem authorities were mad at him, and then he just disappeared? Why didn’t he do that?” Or “How about that time when he walked on the water, and there was a storm that was going to kill us, and he just said, ‘Be still,’ and it was still? Couldn’t he have said ‘Be still’ to the crowd that was calling out to crucify him? What happened? I mean, he could raise the dead, for crying out loud. Why did he let them kill him?”
And I know we kind of chuckle at these things, and we think about these things, and we know the answer. But do we? Because every time we encounter hardship in our life, we go, “Why, God? Didn’t you give me this thing? Didn’t you save me from that? Why can’t you save me from this?” And sometimes the answer is: because you’re joining Jesus on the cross. It’s your lucky day. He can take you down from there, but he won’t. He’s better than that. He’s going to let you join Jesus, because of the resurrection that turns it all around. Because of the resurrection that inverts the entirety of the story, all of their hopelessness is going to turn to rejoicing by the end of this passage. But they just don’t know it yet.
VI. Don't Miss God's Messengers 12:32
In fact, they are so taken with their own despair that it gets worse. They say to Jesus, “Moreover, some women of our company amazed us” (Luke 24.22). Okay, I know we trust women nowadays in a different way than they did back then, and it is wrong that they just dismissed women for being women. That is silly. They said, “Oh, they’re hysterical. They must be imagining things.” That is wrong. But you also have people in your life who, if they told you they saw something, you would not believe, because we’re still just as prejudiced today as we were back then. It just takes different forms. Maybe it’s the Democrats you don’t like, or the Republicans, or the business people, or the not-business people, the hippies or the music writers, whoever you don’t trust. Or maybe it’s just your cousin Bob. Who knows who it is that you don’t trust? But this is a rebuke to all of us: in the midst of your despair, don’t miss God’s messengers. He’s going to send people to encourage you.
And the women come, and they say, “We went to the tomb. The body wasn’t there. We saw angels, who said that he was alive.” And then “some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see” (Luke 24.24). These people are weeping on their way to Emmaus when they’ve already been told the good news. Easter Sunday’s happened. I know. How much more like us can they be? That’s my thought when I read that. How many times have I been assured of my salvation, and yet I wallow in my grief? “We had hoped.”
VII. Lament, Not Despair 14:57
We have to guard against resentment. We have to guard against cynicism. And we have to guard against regret. Those three poisons can enter our heart over time. They had experienced so much sorrow and regret and resentment and cynicism that even when they are told that Christ has risen, just as he said, they can’t see it, because their hurt had turned to resentment and doubt and cynicism.
In this life you will encounter pain and suffering and difficulty. Don’t let it turn into resentment, regret, cynicism, because God is coming. Do you understand? Everything you’ve experienced is going to be redeemed in the goodness of God. It doesn’t make the crucifixion right. It is still the most evil act perpetrated in history, where humanity nailed the Son of God to the cross torturously, taking pleasure in his pain. That is evil and wrong, and it’s not right. And yet look at what God has done with that: saving the whole world. And your pain, likewise, God cares as much about, and he will bring it to redemption. So don’t let that fester in your heart. Turn to him. Pour it out to him.
There’s a godly tradition. In fact, a lot of the psalms, 33%, I think, are lament: crying out to God with your pain. Lament is the opposite of despair. Despair takes pain and turns it inward, to hopelessness and death. Lament takes your despair and hopelessness and gives it to God and lets him take it. That’s what lament is. You turn to him with your sorrow. And then you will find him in his resurrection, because you’ve given him all of your stuff. You’ll be able to see his salvation.
VIII. O Foolish Ones 16:44
So these disciples, once again: their failure knows no bounds. They were literally told that Christ was risen from the dead, and they dismissed it. They’re leaving, and Jesus shows up. He does not reject them, but instead, with a little bit of good humor, he says to them:
25 “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” Luke 24.25
You can see that little twinkle in his eyes. He’s excited to save them. He’s not mad at them. He’s not saying, “You foolish ones, be gone from me! Get behind me, Satan!” (Matt 16.23). He’s not saying that. He’s saying, “You foolish ones. How slow. Can you believe it? I’m here. Look, let me show you.”
26 “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. Luke 24.26–27
Jesus does not have main character energy. He is the main character. Now, a lot of you are like, “What did that mean?” I think I said it right. It’s this idea of seeing yourself as the center of the world. Well, Jesus just is. And so when you talk about the knights who failed, the medieval knight I’ve been returning to, these disciples who lost the prophecy (he told them, “I will die and rise again”), and they abandoned him, even after they’re told it’s happened: they failed. It doesn’t matter, because they’re not the center of the story. Jesus succeeded. And so all our failures are washed away in his success.
Now, you do have to join him on the cross. As I mentioned, that is a part of this whole thing. You have to let him take it with you to the cross, but then you are raised to newness of life, and you are in him eternally. And each of us today is in a better position than the people on the road to Emmaus, because we’ve been baptized. We’ve already been baptized into his death and resurrection. That’s still to come for these people. We see it at Pentecost, as they receive the Holy Spirit. We have access to Jesus in a way that they don’t, even though they’re walking next to him. I’m not explaining all of that, because that can take a while.
But my point is: imagine that you have the presence of Christ within you, and we still struggle to hear the good news of Easter when we are hurt. Easter Sunday, you show up, you’re excited. But then do you face your own cross? And Jesus says, “Oh, you foolish ones, slow of heart to believe all that has been spoken. I promised you that I would be your salvation. Why are you looking to your job? Why are you looking to your spouse? Why are you looking to your relationship? Why are you looking to your bank account? I am your resurrection.” That’s the message of Jesus on the road to Emmaus. They were looking for him to do the things they expected: “We had hoped he would redeem Israel.” And instead of that, he redeemed the cosmos, in a way they couldn’t understand yet.
And so you read through all of this and you think, “How can it be so good?” If you take the resurrection seriously, that’s the question. But someday we are going to see, not in a mirror dimly like we do now (1 Cor 13.12), but we’re going to see, and we’re going to say, “Oh, it had to be so good. It could only be so good.” That’s the hope we have. So that when we show up, even to a graveside, we can still say “Alleluia,” because we have an eternal hope that all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
IX. Known in the Breaking of the Bread 20:19
Okay. So then Jesus is talking to them. Their hearts are burning within them, as we’re told later. And he’s like, “Okay, this is your stop, right? Awesome. Feel better.” And they’re like, “Wait, wait. Come on in. We have some food here.” And they make him stop. I love this, because how many times are we so present that we’re like, “Wait, hold on. Jesus is here. Let’s not let go”? Why is Jacob so blessed? Because when he was wrestling the Spirit of God, he didn’t let go (Gen 32.26). He wasn’t even that good of a wrestler. He’s the one who got injured. But he just didn’t let go. In the midst of your doubt and your despair, when Jesus shows up, don’t let go. Let him do all of his work in you.
And we get one of the greatest stories of all:
30 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. Luke 24.30–31
Incredible. I couldn’t have written it any better myself. We who do not get to see him get to see him in the breaking of the bread. That’s what that’s talking about. He was no longer visible to them in the flesh. He was visible to them in the Eucharist. And today you get to see God, Jesus. That’s why he holds up the bread and says, “Behold the Lamb of God.” It’s not a joke. It’s not a symbol. It’s reality. Jesus is here with you in the breaking of the bread.
Our whole service is modeled after the road to Emmaus. We’re out there walking, either towards the kingdom or away from the kingdom. You know how it goes. And we come into this place, and Jesus comes among us, and he makes himself known in the preaching of the word, the reading of the word, the declaration of his truth in our worship, in the word, and then in the sacrament. You’re meeting Jesus today like the disciples on the road to Emmaus. And we are just as unworthy. And Jesus cares not a whit. He’s here.
So don’t let Jesus pass you by in these moments. If your heart’s stirring within you, don’t lose track when the kids come back from Sunday school and you’re giving the peace, and then you just run through the Eucharist. No. Jesus is still being made present in every moment of this service, and he has something to encourage you with this morning. And beyond that, we don’t just see him, we partake of him. We come and we’re served his body and his blood. And then you take him with you when you leave. You are never alone.
X. The Lord Is Risen Indeed 23:14
So he disappears, and they say to one another:
32 “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” Luke 24.32
And then (I’m not going to read it all) what do they do? They run back to the kingdom of God. They run back to Jerusalem. They’re like, “We messed up. We’ve got to go.” And they jump in there, and it’s the first time we hear it. They walk in the room and they say, “Alleluia, Christ is risen!” And the people in the back say right back to them, “The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia!” That’s where we get that greeting. It’s from the disciples running back into the room. I don’t know if you saw that. They say, “Hey, we saw him,” and they say, “The Lord is risen indeed.” That’s what we’re all about.
Well, I want to read this last quote as we wrap up, from Augustine. He preached on this like five or six times, and his sermons were delightful. This is in 380 to 400 AD, so that’s almost 1,600 years ago at this point. He’s preaching to these people in the same type of scenario as this. They’re reading the story of the road to Emmaus. It’s Easter season, and Augustine, the bishop, gets up and says to them:
We’re all right, nothing to worry about—we break bread, and we recognize the Lord. It was for our sake that he didn’t want to be recognized anywhere but there, because we weren’t going to see him in the flesh, and yet we were going to eat his flesh.
The Eucharist is for us. We’re okay. We’re all right.
So if you’re a believer, any of you, if you’re not called a Christian for nothing,
I love that he’s like, “If you take this seriously, if you’re not just called a Christian, if you’re doing it for real.”
if you don’t come to church pointlessly, if you listen to the Word of God in fear and hope, you may take comfort in the breaking of bread.
And he finishes with this:
The Lord’s absence is not an absence. Have faith, and the one you cannot see is with you.
Amen.