On the Road to Emmaus

"Two disciples were were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles outside Jerusalem, and talking about all these things that had happened.  While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him...As they came near the village to which the were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on.  But they urged him strongly, saying, 'Stay with us.'  So he went in and stayed with them.  When he was at table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.  They their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.  They said to each other, 'Were not our hearts burning with us while he was talking to us on the road?'"

--Luke 24: 13-15, 28-32a

I once walked to Emmaus.  Well, sorta.  In the summer of 2011 I spent three weeks with a group in the Holy Land, and on our last day we did our own Emmaus walk, hoping to experience the risen Christ on the road.  Sort of. 

I say sort of because no one actually knows where Emmaus is, or was.  There is no town with that name anywhere near Jerusalem.  Luke tells us it was the equivalent of about 7 miles outside the city, but some ancient manuscripts say otherwise.  Through the years four different towns lay claim to being the modern-day Emmaus, so we walked the road to one of them and then had Eucharist at another, that way hedged out bets!

Walking to Emmaus, Summer of 2011

But trying to figure out where modern-day Emmaus is located is really not the point.  This story—found only in Luke—is not concerned with facts, even though some of us in the group wondered whether we on the “real road to Emmaus.”  What the story is concerned with is truth, and there’s a big difference between the two.  Facts are about details like whether or not that was the real road.  But truth is about the deeper meaning of the story, and the truth of Emmaus is that Jesus is alive, and if that is the case then the risen Jesus still walks beside us, usually unrecognized, and is still revealed in the most ordinary of actions, like breaking bread.  For that reason, I’d say this story, more than any other post-Resurrection account, sums of our modern-day Christian experience.  As Marcus Borg put it, Emmaus is happening all around us. The story of the two disciples meeting Jesus on the road then is our own post-Resurrection story now.

Those two are interesting, aren’t they?  One gets a name—Cleopas—but that name never appears anywhere else in Scripture, and the other doesn’t get a name at all.  I like that!  This story reminds us that Jesus comes to us all—both the well-known and totally unknown—and more often than not, we don’t recognize him,.  We, like them, are so pre-occupied with what’s going on in the world around us that we can’t see him.  After the fact we realize he was there the whole time, but then we, like them we are left to wonder, "Now what?!" and go to reveal the Good News to others, as they revealed what they had seen to the Eleven. This is Gospel Truth, even if the facts are kinda wonky. Jesus is still walking with us. Listening to us.  Teaching us. Revealing himself in the mundane moments, like during a meal. Still, I wish I didn't have to wait until after the fact to realize he was there!  It would be so much simpler that way! I’m sure Cleopas and that other guy wished that they had  been able to recognize him on the road, too.  Yet that’s what it means to live in an Easter reality!  Christ is risen.  Alleluia!  But like Mary at the tomb, or the apostles on the seashore, or Cleopas and the other guy, we don’t notice him.  At least, not until after the fact. 

Can you recall a time when you looked back at an interaction with someone and said, “Wow!  I think Jesus was in that!”  That’s an Emmaus moment.   Maybe it was a day later, or a month, or a few years, but I betcha most everyone here has had those moments that you have looked upon after the fact and realized it was Jesus all along.  I once picked up a hitchhiker while driving between Pound, Virginia and Pikeville, Kentucky.  He was a heavy-set fella, who was trying to get to West Virginia, and he didn’t look like he was making much progress.  So I picked him up and drove him as far as I could.  He told me about his family, his siblings who were ill and children who were going through various struggles, and when I dropped him off, and I met my friend for lunch in Pikeville, I told him what had happened, and he said—in that Free Will Baptist tone of his—“Well, brother, ya never know!  That fella might have been Jesus!”  The thought had not even occurred to me until I was sitting at a meal with my friend (go figure!).  As I look back on that Emmaus moment of mine I know that I met Jesus on US 23 between Pound and Pikeville.  I know I helped Jesus get to West Virginia.  And I know that Jesus used that moment to shape the way I would interact with every stranger I'd meet from that day forward.  Because Emmaus moments aren't just nostalgic opportunities for us to look back and see Jesus, but they set our hearts ablaze--as they did Cleopas and the other guy--and they change our lives from that day onward.  

I wonder:  what have been your Emmaus moments?  How have those moments shaped you?  Where does Jesus walk now, unrecognized, in your life? Y’all may not know it, but the risen Jesus is still walking with you.  He’s sitting right next to you as you read this blog.  You meet him anytime you break bread and share that same meal he shared with his friends. He’ll be in the checkout line at the store.  He’ll be in the warm embrace of a loved one.  He might even be in that person that you help with a ride .  That’s because every road we travel is the road to Emmaus.  Every place we go Jesus goes with us, listening to us and teaching us.  Every ordinary action is a chance for him to be revealed to us.  I wonder what Emmaus moments are awaiting you.  What ways will Jesus come to you, unrecognized?  How will he set your heart ablaze?  How will you go forth from such a moment to share the Good News?