Luke 24:13-35 Homily on the Emmaus Road

Luke 24:13-35: "Life After the Funeral"

Two years ago this week we buried my father. We laid him to rest in the Mershimer section of Grove City Cemetery, greeted friends at the repast, and then turned toward home. On that return trip, I wasn’t seeing too well. My soul was burdened and my eyes toward the clouds…my spirit in anguished prayer. I took a wrong turn on a road I knew very well, and ended up way out of my way. I finally made it home…much later than the rest of the family, and they asked, “Where were you? We were wondering about you!” I was too embarrassed to tell them I had turned the wrong way, so I mumbled something about “taking a scenic drive.” :-)

It’s just a fact that inner tears often blur outer vision. There’s something about grief that causes us to lose sight. There’s something about loss that blurs our ability to see. Oh, we can still see things with our physical eyes, but somehow we miss important aspects of life.

In today’s text, two followers of Christ find themselves trudging toward Emmaus, walking home after a funeral weekend in Jerusalem. Their hopes and dreams had been nailed to a cross, their Messiah buried in a borrowed tomb. So, the text says, they walked home with ‘faces downcast’ [v. 17].

Verse 14ff: They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things...Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing Him.

They did not see Him for who He was.

Sometimes our souls have to be right for our eyes to see what they should…

When Jesus walked the earth He taught us to see with our souls and minds. For example, He said:

Consider the lilies of the field:

They sow not, neither do they spin,

Yet Solomon in all his glory

Was not arrayed like one of these!

The word translated “consider” means to ‘see with the mind,’ to see with the soul. To look at a lily with physical eyes, we might say, “Oh that is pretty!” Or, “It’s just a flower in a field.” But when we see the lily with our soul, as Jesus taught us, we will see in that lily a lesson of God’s care: the Father cares for this flower of the field so well, and how much more does He care for us!

This is seeing with the soul…consider the lilies.

Key: Jesus taught us to view all of life this way, to see other people with our minds and hearts – to look and not see a physical body only, but to see the person, inside, spiritually.

But we lose the ability to see with our soul when in grief and loss.

So the Emmaus Road disciples could not see: Their inner eyes were shuttered; loss of heart caused loss of vision. How does Jesus address their need? What does Jesus offer as a cure?

Jesus first takes them back to the Word, to the promises of God.

These verses reveal an order of cure, an order of revelation. These verses also reveal the incredible personality of Jesus! There is so much here to show us of our Lord.

Jesus is a fun-loving person with a great sense of humor. I just love how Jesus plays dumb here. He walks up and says, “What are you talking about?”
And they are shocked: “What?” Are you just a visitor to Jerusalem that you don’t know what has happened?
And Jesus, the central character in all the events, innocently asks, “What things?" :-)

What things, indeed! They pull out their laundry list: “It’s so bad, you just don’t know…we thought He would bring the kingdom, we thought He was Messiah, now killed, dead, gone…and worse, now some rumors are going around that He’s not dead, and we are so confused!”

Isn’t this how we react to the Lord? We pull out our laundry list, and breathlessly recite it: and this happened, and this, and this, and it’s not working out – you don’t know how bad it is, Lord!

With a smile on His face, and a twinkle in His eye, He says, ‘Child, what things?’ ‘Tell me about it!’ The One at the center of all events says, ‘What things?’ What an amazing sense of humor; what amazing love!

Wouldn’t you just love to sit down for a meal with Jesus! “What things?” He says! He is so awesome... :-)

So, they tell Jesus about His own trial and death, and how depressed they are, because they expected Him to be Messiah.

Then Jesus gently takes them back to the Word, and begins with Genesis and the Books of Moses, walks them through the Scriptures, telling them about himself. He tells them how Christ had to suffer and then enter glory.

Here Jesus follows an order in revelation. Jesus doesn’t immediately show himself – but first shows them the promises of God, He takes them back to the word…

This is how He answers their lack of sight: He shows them himself in the promises of God; He renews them in the Word of God.

This is great advice for us. When we lack vision, when we cannot see the presence of God, we must go back to the promises of God, and there see Christ.

David Livingstone wrote in his journal of one night, 16 years into his missionary exploration in Africa, a night where he most feared for his life: January 14, 1856.
On this night, a crowd of hostile hunters threatened him and offered to take his head. He lay in his hut, surrounded by powerful men and spirits, and could not sleep. One voice said, ‘Slip away under darkness while you can.’ ‘Flee while you can.’ But another quiet Voice said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So Livingstone knelt by his bed and read again these words of Jesus: “All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, and lo! I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”
Livingstone underlined these words and then said: “It is the word of a gentleman of the highest honor. He will keep his word.” ‘That settles it!’ ‘I will not flee…I will stay and do my duty.’ He lay down and slept and woke in the morning, sustained by the word of God. Kept safe, in the promise of Christ!

So, here on the road to Emmaus, Jesus takes them back to the word and tells them of himself, through the promises of Scripture.

By now it is getting late and they ask Him to spend the evening with them. They invite Him in for a meal, and break bread. But there, in the breaking of the bread, a miracle occurs: Verse 30ff:
When He was at the table with them, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him, and He disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
Did not our hearts burn within us? We knew something was going on! They leapt to their feet, and ran back to Jerusalem…once tired, now energized, once hopeless, now overflowing with joy.

What made the difference? The breaking of bread, the presence of risen Christ…

When God breaks bread with us, when the Spirit opens Scripture to us, when Christ visits our home, our personal sanctum…something begins to burn within us…

I believe this mysterious, awesome Presence has been made real in some of our recent prayer sessions. We’ve sensed something of the Spirit of Christ…in prayer, our spirit burns within us.

And we are changed. The Emmaus Road encounter echoes hope for our darkest days of loss…and doubt.

The presence of grief blurs our sight.
But Christ takes us back to the word, to the promises of God.
Christ makes His presence known at our table, in our inner life.
He touches us to live again. And there is life after the funeral.

The presence of the risen Christ makes all the difference. In our anxiety...in our need, we miss the great meaning of life. But the presence of Christ restores us to communion with God and others: vision, sight, 'knowing even as we are known.'

There is a lesson here for us as individuals...and as a church, Parkview!

Let us trust the words of Christ. Go back to His promises.
Let us invite Him to our table; invite Him to our inner chambers.
Let us break bread with Him, and live again…dancing back to Jerusalem!

Amen!