Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Luke 24:13-35
It is a walk that every sports fan knows. The trudge back from a match which has dashed hopes and thwarted expectations. Eyes to the ground, shoes scuffing along the pavement, you go over with your companion what might have been. Why did our defence not turn up? How did our captain drop that catch? If our winger had reached the try line, the result could have been very different. Heads shaking, deep sighs.
The two disciples – Cleopas and his unnamed companion – would have cut similar figures as they made their way to Emmaus on that Sunday late afternoon. Their conversation was shaped not by excitement but by disappointment and lament as they reflected on all they had seen in the days just past. ‘We had hoped’, they said to the man who came to walk alongside them. We had hoped that Jesus of Nazareth was the one to redeem Israel. But he is now cold in the grave, and despite the reported empty tomb, nothing seems likely to change that. And so, as they left Jerusalem, it seemed that the one who promised so much was now consigned to the annals of history. They don’t recognise the one who is walking with them.
But there is another walk that these two disciples undertake before the day is over. A walk back to Jerusalem in the dark, but with a light burning within them. They are rushing back with the most extraordinary news - Jesus of Nazareth is alive. They have encountered their risen Lord – on the road as he opened the scriptures to them and at the table as he took, blessed, broke and gave bread. And so their journey is now so different. From looking sad we can sense their joy. Their step has a spring to it as even in the gloom they have a light to guide them – the light of the risen Christ. He may be now beyond their sight, but they know his presence.
Luke records this walk to and from Emmaus not simply as an account of what happened that first Easter Day, but also as an invitation for his readers to make a similar journey themselves. Because while his gospel is about to come to an end, Luke’s work is not yet finished, for has another story to tell, how people in the years to come met the risen Christ for themselves, including three thousand on the day of Pentecost. In the book of Acts, Luke will present Christ not as an inspiring figure of history but as a living Lord who continues to call and meet people from every tribe and tongue. His account of that Emmaus road is one that is written to invite people in the future to encounter the risen Christ in similar ways.
Today, in this season of Easter as we celebrate the presence of the risen Christ in our midst, we are invited to consider how we can encounter the risen Christ as happened on the Emmaus road.
First, we are invited to encounter Christ in the opening of the scriptures. Whether we receive scripture in a diet of Morning and Evening Prayer, in personal Bible reading or portions emailed to our phone, we are invited to let the scriptures point us to the person of Christ, long promised and so richly fulfilled. We can read the story of the Exodus which pointed to the redemptive work of Christ on the cross. We can read the psalms, the hymnbook Christ knew by heart. We can read the prophets who looked for the coming Messiah. We can read letters from the apostles who sought to explore and present the mystery, the glorious riches of Christ.
I remember listening to Professor David Ford speaking about John’s gospel. He said that reading that gospel is ‘reading our way into the presence of Jesus’. He spoke about how when we read the scriptures we are in the presence of the one who is being written about, the living Lord Jesus Christ. And he finished like this: ‘It is so exciting to live in the presence of somebody who is leading you into truth, into love, into glory’.
I can’t say I feel like that every time I hear or read the Bible, but if I read the scriptures not a history book of what happened then but as in invitation to come into and live in the presence of the living Christ, then perhaps my heart will burn a little bit stronger with love for the Lord.
Second, we are invited to encounter the risen Christ in the breaking of the bread. Luke’s account of the eyes of Cleopas and his companion being opened as they sat at the table with Jesus is an invitation to the Church in every generation to gather expectantly around the Lord’s table and receive bread and wine which become for us the body and blood of the crucified, risen, ascended and returning Lord Jesus Christ. In the sacrament the risen Christ is present in our midst, present in our hearts, present in our lives. As Thomas Cranmer put it so beautifully in the exhortation to Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer,
‘the benefit is great, if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive that holy Sacrament; (for then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ, and drink his blood; then we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us; we are one with Christ, and Christ with us;)’
Why would we neglect so great a benefit as to dwell in the presence of the risen Christ? Today as bread is taken, blessed, broken and given we can come gratefully, expectantly, hopefully, and encounter Christ as happened at that Emmaus table.
There is much that might make our walking heavy at times. It might be the travails of this world, all that threatens and concerns us both at home and abroad. It might be worries closer to home, much weightier than the results of a much-loved sports team: grief or anxiety that we carry for ourselves and others, relationships fractured or a body simply wrung out. Many of us will know what it is to walk with eyes down and hope dimmed.
The Easter message is not that these things disappear. The road to Emmaus is still a real road. The darkness still falls. The message of the resurrection is not that we are promised a world without pain, but rather that we are offered a life lived in the presence of the risen Christ.
So as we walk our own roads this Easter season, may we be open to encountering the risen Christ – in the scriptures and the sacrament and his daily presence with us. And may our journeys – however heavy they begin – become in Christ journeys of hope and joy and peace. Amen.