Luke 24:13–35
Over the next few months, you will discover that I am usually a lectionary preacher. I appreciate the discipline of following the rhythm of Scripture with Christians around the world, listening together for what the Spirit might be saying to the Church. But today feels like a different kind of day. Today we find ourselves at a threshold, and as I prayed about where we should begin this journey together, I kept finding myself drawn to a road outside Jerusalem where two disciples were walking with memories, questions, hopes, disappointments, and uncertainty about what came next. So, for this special Sunday, I thought we needed to walk a different road together.
One of the things you will learn about me is that when I read Scripture, I like to enter the story. I try to find myself somewhere in the scene. Sometimes I am one of the characters; sometimes I am standing at the edge of the crowd with no lines at all. Sometimes I am the person who understands what Jesus is saying, although I suspect more often than not, I am the one standing there wondering what on earth Jesus is talking about. Scripture, I believe, is not simply something we read from a safe distance. It invites us to step inside the story and discover where Jesus might be meeting us.
That is one of the things I love about this passage. Luke tells us the name of one of these travelers. His name is Cleopas. The other disciple remains unnamed, and although there have been all sorts of theories about who this person might have been, Luke never tells us. I have come to wonder whether that anonymity might actually be a gift, because perhaps Luke has left a little room on the road for us.
So, imagine yourself there. It is Easter Sunday, although it certainly does not feel like Easter yet. You have left Jerusalem and are walking toward Emmaus. You have heard strange reports about an empty tomb, but you do not know what to make of them. Everything you thought you understood has been turned upside down. Jesus is dead, your hopes have been shattered, and your future looks very different from the one you imagined only a few days ago. While you are trying to make sense of all of this, a stranger begins walking beside you and asks, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?”
I find it fascinating that Jesus asks the question. He already knows the answer. He knows what happened in Jerusalem. He knows about the cross, the tomb, and certainly the resurrection. Yet Jesus asks the question anyway, and before he teaches, before he interprets, before he tells them what they have misunderstood, he listens. He allows them to tell their story in their own words.
I think there is something profoundly pastoral about that, and perhaps something there for us as we begin our ministry together. There will be plenty of time for us to talk about where we are going. There will be decisions to make, questions to answer, and opportunities to imagine what the next chapter in the life of this church might look like. But before any of that, we need to walk together for a while. I need and want to hear your stories. I want to hear what you love about this church, who has shaped this community, where you have seen God at work, what you hope for, what you wonder about, and perhaps what has disappointed you. All of that belongs on the road.
Cleopas tells the stranger their story. He tells him about Jesus of Nazareth, about what they had seen and heard, about the crucifixion, about the women who went to the tomb, and about the strange report that the tomb was empty. Then he says three words that may be among the most human words in all of Scripture: “We had hoped.”
There is an entire world inside those words. Every one of us carries a “we had hoped.” We had hoped the diagnosis would be different. We had hoped the relationship would work out. We had hoped our children would make different choices. We had hoped we would have more time. We had hoped things would turn out differently. Churches have “we had hoped” moments too, because hope makes us vulnerable. Hope means imagining a future, and when the future turns out differently, we have to figure out how to keep walking when the map we were carrying no longer seems to match the road beneath our feet.
What I love about this story is that Jesus does not wait for them at the end of the road after they have figured everything out. He does not require them to resolve their disappointment before he comes near. He does not insist that they understand resurrection before he joins them. Jesus comes alongside them while they are still walking, still questioning, still remembering, still trying to understand. That, I believe, is one of the great promises of the Gospel: Jesus meets us on the road.
There is an old question sometimes asked when a spiritual leader enters a new community: “Who are you, and why have you come?” I have thought about that question quite a bit as this morning approached. Who am I, and why have I come? I come first as a servant and follower of Jesus Christ. I come as a fellow pilgrim, and, borrowing the words of the Apostle Paul, I come knowing nothing except Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.
I do not come with a perfectly drawn map showing us exactly where this road will lead, nor do I come believing that my job is to rescue this church or remake it according to my own image. I certainly do not come pretending that I have all the answers. I come to walk with you, to pray with you, to listen with you, and to open Scripture alongside you. I come to ask questions with you, to laugh with you, to celebrate with you, and, when the time comes, to grieve with you. Most of all, I come trusting that Jesus is already here and that perhaps our work together is to learn how to recognize him.
The first time I walked into this sanctuary was in 2017. I was here for the ordination of Steve Aucella, and I remember looking toward the front of the sanctuary and noticing this cross. I had never seen anything quite like it before, a cross made from driftwood, and I remember being curious about it. But then again, perhaps that is part of the point, because no two pieces of driftwood are exactly alike. Each one has its own story. Each has been shaped by different waters, different storms, and different currents.
Looking back now, I realize there may have been another reason that cross caught my attention. At the time, I felt a little like driftwood myself. I had recently been received into the United Church of Christ after many years in another Christian tradition. I was grateful for where I had been, but I was still discovering where God was leading me next. I was standing on a threshold, no longer entirely where I had been but not yet completely sure where I was going. I was a pilgrim.
I left this sanctuary that day and, although I remembered the cross, I did not return here for many years. Then, a few months ago, I walked back through those doors, looked toward the front, and there it was. The cross had not changed, but I had, and I saw it differently. Once again, I found myself standing at a threshold, and this time so does this congregation.
There is something about driftwood that seems appropriate for a threshold moment. Driftwood has been carried by currents it did not choose. It has been battered by waves and pushed toward shores it never intended to visit. The journey leaves marks, and the wood does not emerge unchanged. Yet those marks do not make it worthless. In some strange way, they become part of its beauty. Most of us could walk along a beach and pass a hundred pieces of driftwood without giving them a second thought, but someone looked at those weathered pieces of wood and saw something else. Someone saw a cross.
Perhaps there is a Gospel lesson hanging on the wall of this sanctuary. The world walks past driftwood; the carpenter sees a cross. Christianity makes an extraordinary claim about what God can do with the things that have been weathered by life. The Gospel does not promise that the waves will never come, that the currents will always carry us where we intended to go, or that we will emerge from every experience unchanged. The Gospel promises something better: the waves do not get the final word.
The cross itself tells us that. The cross was supposed to be the final word. It was an instrument of violence and domination, a way for the powerful to remind everyone else who was in charge. Yet as followers of Jesus we look at that same piece of wood and see something entirely different. We see self-giving love, grace, hope, and resurrection. God does not erase the journey; God redeems it.
That is what the disciples on the Emmaus road have not yet understood. They know about the cross, but they do not yet know how to see it. Their problem is not that they lack information. They know the story and can tell the stranger almost everything that happened. What they cannot yet recognize is what God is doing in the middle of it all. Sometimes that is where we find ourselves as well. We know the facts, we know what happened, we know what used to be, and we may even know what we hope will happen next. What we do not always know is how to behold the grace already moving through the story.
Maybe faith is sometimes less about finding a God who has disappeared and more about learning to recognize the God who has been walking beside us all along.
Eventually the disciples reach Emmaus. The stranger appears ready to continue on, but they invite him to stay, and there, around an ordinary table with ordinary bread, their eyes are opened. They recognize him and suddenly realize that Jesus had been with them all along. The road had not been empty. Their grief had not been empty. Their questions had not been empty. Even their disappointment had not been empty. Jesus was there before they had eyes to see him.
There is a table here in this sanctuary too. It stands here every Sunday. Some Sundays bread and cup will be placed upon it and we will spiritually gather around it. Other Sundays, like today, it simply waits. Yet its promise does not disappear because we are waiting. The invitation remains, and grace remains. Perhaps there is something there for us as we begin this journey, because we do not need to know everything today, decide everything today, or know exactly where the road will lead. Sometimes we simply need to walk faithfully enough to discover that Jesus is already there.
When the disciples recognize Jesus, he disappears from their sight, and yet they are not abandoned. They are changed. They look at one another and ask, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?” Then they get up and return to Jerusalem. The road has not changed. Jerusalem has not changed. Rome has not changed. The cross still happened. Their disappointment was real, and their grief was real, but now they see differently. Because they see differently, they can walk differently.
That is resurrection. Resurrection is not pretending that Good Friday never happened, nor is it a return to everything as it was before. Resurrection is the discovery that what looked like the end was not the end of the story. It is the recognition that God can take what has been wounded, weathered, broken, and changed and still bring forth something new.
And so here we are, at the beginning of a road, you and me, fellow pilgrims. I do not know everything we will encounter along the way. There will be stories to tell and questions to ask. There will be things to celebrate and perhaps things we will need to release. There will be moments when the road seems clear and others when we may wonder where God is leading us, but I trust that we will not walk alone.
The risen Jesus still walks dusty roads. He still comes alongside people trying to make sense of what has happened and wondering what comes next. Jesus still listens, still opens Scripture, still meets us in ordinary things, and still takes what has been weathered by the storms of life and reveals possibilities we could not see before.
So, who am I, and why have I come? I come as a servant and a fellow pilgrim, knowing nothing except Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, and asking for your prayers as we walk this road together. Perhaps Luke really did leave a little room on the road for us, so let us take our place in the story, listen carefully to one another, keep our eyes open for the presence of Jesus, and see where the road leads.
Amen.
