Third Sunday of Eaaster
Scripture Text: Psalm 116: 1-4,12-19, Luke 24: 13-35
Let us enter into worship with prayer:
God of the Way,
you are the road we travel,
and the sign we follow,
you are the bread for the journey,
and the wine of arrival.
Guide us as we follow in your way,
holding on to each other,
reaching out to your beloved world.
And when we stray,
seek us out and find us,
set our feet on the path again,
and lead us safely home.( Voices United, 648)
In the name of Jesus, our Companion on the road, we pray. Amen
I remember when I was about 13 or 14, my sister and I would run home after choir practice Monday evenings so we could sit in front of the T.V. and watch the sensational and electrifying Tom Jones! He was this tall, slim guy in a tight fitting jumpsuit and he swooned young women with his wonderful and powerful Welsh voice. When Music 91 came to our area and I heard that Tom Jones was going to sing in Creston, my Mom and I were the 1st and 2nd people in line to get in to see his show. When an older, short, slightly chubby man came out on stage, I thought that "Oh" he must be the preshow entertainer, but then he started to sing "My My My Delilah," ... were not our hearts burning within us. I would never have recognized this man as the Tom Jones I remembered from my youth, if it wasn't for his voice.
Have you ever noticed how different things are in reality, to what you imagine them to be. After years of seeing pictures, watching T.V. shows and seeing vacation spots in magazines, you picture in your mind or imagination what things will look like. When you get a chance to see them up close you either do not recognize them or are surprised when they do not appear as you imagined. You might think that the Eiffel tower would be taller, the Leaning Tower of Pizza would be more tilted, the Atlantic Ocean more bluer, that Haggis would be a lot worse tasting...
I have always loved the story of the road to Emmaus. I have heard the story over and over for many years. As a youth in Sunday School we were asked to write some of the bible stories over as they may occur today and I chose to rewrite the story of the road to Emmaus. I always thought that if I ever got a chance to go to the Holy Land I would love to walk the road to Emmaus to see if I would experience the same sense of Jesus on the road as Cleopas and his companion did.
Imagine my surprise when I read that there are actually six towns that have the name of Emmaus and all are about seven miles from Jerusalem. So if you are going to make the effort to go to the Holy Land to walk the road to Emmaus — the same road that the two disciples in our reading this morning walked, you could be on any one of six, depending on your tour guide. When historians have gone back in time they have found no historical reference to a town named Emmaus, except for its mention in this biblical story and its being seven miles from Jerusalem.
When I read this it got me to thinking, what if the road to Emmaus is more than just a road. What if the road to Emmaus holds a deeper significance. How then do we walk the road to Emmaus?
Marcus Borg wrote that "perhaps Emmaus is NOWHERE...and perhaps Emmaus is EVERYWHERE."
Perhaps the road to Emmaus is a road that we all take at various times in our lives, you and I might even be on it now. We may be on it when we move away from the cross, away from Jesus, away from Jerusalem. The road to Emmaus may be wherever our life leads us when we are in dispair, when we doubt, when we have more questions than answers and when we feel like there is no hope.
This was the road Cleopas and his companion were on about three days after Christ's crucifiction. The very person they had hoped would redeem Isreal was cruely crucified before them. Their hopes were dead. Their future no longer makes sense. They become preoccupied with their disappointment, and disillusionment. They had so wanted to hold on to the slightest bit of hope that Jesus was alive, that he was still in control and even though the women said he had arisen, but no one comes back from that tragic type of death. Their hearts were slow to believe. The very things that Jesus constantly sought to dispel from his followers, were now preventing them from seeing Him as one who lives and walks with them.
When we place, or locate, ourselves on the road to Emmaus we are able to experience some of what Cleopas and his companion felt that day. Like them we wait for news about loved ones, relationships, health news, we fear the worst, we question God, we find it hard to cope some times in life when it is all we can do to put one foot ahead of the other, when we grieve the loss of someone dear to us, when life does not work out the way we planned or envisioned, or when we wonder if we will ever feel joy again.
My daughter Kristina went to church camp one year with a close neighbourhood friend. This friend invited another friend to also come along. The dynamics of a group of three girls can often get complicated and Kristina often found herself on the outside of this group whenever they were divided up into two's. One day while on a hike in which she was partnered up with someone other than her friend she remembered later sitting on the beach and feeling lonely, upset that her week at camp was not going so well. While she was feeling sorry for herself she wrote in her journal how she felt that someone was sitting with her and how she felt a sense of peace. She knew that no one was there physically—because she looked, but yet she had a sense of presence. After that experience her attitude changed and she finished the week of camp by making new friends and totally enjoying her camping experience. Was not her heart warmed by this encounter...
Often our encounters with God are like that—short, fleeting, little glimpses at times when we least expect it and are never prepared for. But what is left behind is a warmth, a burning in our hearts as we recognize that encounter for what it was.
God has not changed over the years. God is still an Emmaus God –A God who encounters us along the road. Emmaus being the path through life we are following, the road to wherever life takes us. Along this road God walks with us whether we are aware of God's presence or not. God is ever present. God is always with us, but we are not always with God. When life seems the hardest the thing we tend to give up — is God.
But God never gives up on us and that is part of the message of the road to Emmaus. God through Jesus walks with us wherever or whatever is going on—making sense from what at that moment—might seem senseless. God comes to us and talks to us in common and ordinary ways. In ways that we don't often recognize because it seems so everydaylike. Like when he talks to us through our spouse, our children, a good friend, at an annual congregational meeting when we hear members talk about the word love, and often he talks to us through a stranger.
These unknown encounters with God along the road can leave us pondering and wondering. How often do we pray that we may see the face of God in others and that they may see the face of God in us, yet when we do, we are slow to recognize it as an Emmaus experience and even more surprised when it is us who have passed the Emmaus experience to another.
People who have gone over to Third world countries will often express the sense of power they feel at first because of the way the people treat you, like you are amazing for coming there to help them and secondly because the money, the skills, the technology you bring can fix so many problems, whether it be medical, housing, or water concerns etc. But as time goes on you begin to realize an interesting twist. You think you are helping them, you think you are giving to them, but in actual fact there is something else going on in your heart that you can't even begin to understand. Your heart is burning. You feel compassion welling up inside you and you recognize that you haven't been doing a work on them as much as they have been doing work on you. That is, that in someway, through their smiles, and thankful hearts you have met Jesus and you didn't expect it and it changes you and it changes your outlook on life. It changes your focus on what is important and the whole message of love and compassion and empathy begins to change the shape of your heart. And when you leave that place you leave with burning in your heart—That is an Emmaus road experience.
Our road to Emmaus is a path we seem to take daily and it's not always filled with drama and dispair. Sometimes it can be a rather trivial road where not much is happening but there is a niggling feeling of needing to know we are not alone on this road. I often think of the Footprints poem and picture of two pairs of foot prints in the sand then one pair and then two pairs again, and the author asking why for a period of time there is only one pair of foot prints.
When we think that God has left us we realize that in fact God never left. The road to Emmaus was Jesus saying to Cleapas and his companion, to the other disciples they told, and to us that he is and always will be with us. He is still walking alongside us, listening to our stories, explaining the scriptures to us and breaking bread with us, causing our hearts to burn inside us. He continues to be present to us in our daily experiences, in our failures and disappointments as well as our successes. I have come to define wisdom in my life as how soon I recognize the stranger who comes along side. A wisdom that is not just in the head, not just in the heart but a wisdom designed to be in our hands, mouths, eyes and in our feet.
While Jesus immediately vanishes from the disciples sight when they recognize him as he broke bread, he did not disappear from their hearts. He disappears from their physical sight but he remains present in their midst, in the word and in the fellowship at His gathered table. The fire had not been extinguished by the events of the previous week but rather ignites a flame of new life and love. The disciples realize they have a new story to tell- one of life and hope. They not only see Jesus differently but they see themselves in a different way. They end up going back to Jerusalem, back to a place they were in a hurry to leave to let others know of their Emmaus experience. An experience that recognizes we do not walk alone and recognizes Jesus in the strangers we encounter on our daily journey.
Here is one of my Emmaus experiences:
– 9am: My husband lovingly quizzes me to make sure I have everything I need before I head out the door (you know: house keys? glasses? money?)...sometines I think he knows me better than I know myself... and then he gives me a kiss goodby as I go out the door.The Emmaus road truly is "everywhere."
– My neighbour yells out a greeting from his deck chair and assures me that it should be a sunny day as he defies the weatherman and the snow topped Elephant Mountain by wearing his summer shorts on this crisp cool April morning. I walk along.
– A fellow just around the corner and up the hill I need to climb is out with his grandchildren who are skateboarding down the hill and we exchange words about....the wisdom of age and the no-fear factor of youth. I keep walking.
– I hear music coming from one home that has its door open and it is obviously orchastrated music....and the tune sticks in my head as I move along.
– A young mother and father with a baby about 10 months old in a backpack are out for a walk with their dog and as I pass by we nod and smile.
– At the highest point of my walk I see the most beautiful scene of Nelson looking towards the orange bridge and it is just picturistic. I stop and enjoy.
– A friend heading in the same direction as me asks if I would like a ride but I say no thanks because I need this walk. We arrange to meet later. I walk on.
– I walk by a yard and between the row of trees I can see there are two little girls enjoying time on their swing set. One takes the time to yell out "hi" and I reply with a "hi" back as I walk by.
– A middle age man is out mowing his lawn, we do not know each other but he waves and I wave back.
– I come to a corner crosswalk and check the traffic. There is only one car coming and the driver stops anyways to let me cross. I wave, she nods. And we both keep going our own way.
– 0943: I arrive at Nelson United Church for services.
The God of Emmaus appears along roads of our everyday existance and like the 2 disciples we too experience the presence of the stranger... "Were not your hearts burning within you while he was talking to you on the road?" I know mine does.
May it be so in yours as well... Amen.
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