Our Walk to Emmaus
Text: Luke 24:13-35
I think one of the things I enjoy about the Biblical stories is that there are often so many different layers that we often miss. We tend to take the stories at absolute face value, being a dispassionate accounting of events, without realizing that the writer is also infusing the story with their own experience of faith. There are so many layers of meaning wrapped into the Biblical witness that we miss that it’s really worthwhile to take a closer look… even with something that we think is familiar.
As with most of the seven resurrection stories, each of the gospel writers includes at least one encounter with the risen Christ that is unique to that Gospel only. For Luke, it’s the Road to Emmaus. In the same way that the story of Thomas always comes up on the 2nd Sunday of Easter, a tradition has developed that we walk the Road to Emmaus on the 3rd. It’s not a bad practice, really, especially when one considers that that this is the only resurrection story that has us encounter Jesus while on our way to someplace else. There are also a few things that we miss along the way.
The story opens with two people traveling to a village called Emmaus. We presume the two people walking along to be disciples, but really that’s not all that clear. It simply says “two of them.” –one of whom has the name Cleopas… which is not a name that we’re otherwise familiar with as being one of the twelve disciples. So that’s a bit unexpected… the other is a companion who has no name. It could even have been Cleopas and his wife… we don’t know. What is clear is that these are people who aren’t part of the inner circle, so to speak… At any rate, they were going to a village called Emmaus.
According to the text we read this morning, the village of Emmaus lies approximately twelve kilometers from Jerusalem… the actual text uses the ancient measurement “sixty Stadia.” but it’s not as cut and dried as that. If you were to travel to Israel today, one of the Biblical places that one could not visit would be the village of Emmaus. Not because it lies behind a wall, or is under heavy guard… it’s that nobody has ever found it. Sure, there are lots of candidates in the region, but none of them bear the exact name “Emmaus.” It’s also complicated by the fact that depending on which version of the ancient manuscripts you read, some of them indicate that it is one hundred sixty stadia away from Jerusalem, which would put it at closer to 30km. All we know is that it doesn’t really line up with any village name in the area. So maybe Luke was using a different name on purpose…
But even so, it’s the name he does use… Emmaus… which is very close to another word we’re familiar with: Emmanuel… which in itself is foreshadowing what is to come in the story. Those are just a couple of things to keep in mind as we listen to the rest of the story.
14As they were talking and thinking about what had happened, 15Jesus came near and started walking along beside them. 16But they did not know who he was.
This is important. As the listeners, we know that Jesus is the one who is walking with them… but they don’t. There a number of Biblical stories that use this motif… this theme of God being with people, but this isn’t initially revealed to the characters in the story. The story’s tension builds as we wonder when the two travelers are going to actually clue-in. It also helps to keep us listening.
17Jesus asked them, “What were you talking about as you walked along?”
The two of them stood there looking sad and gloomy. 18Then the one named Cleopas asked Jesus, “Are you the only person from Jerusalem who didn't know what was happening there these last few days?”
19“What do you mean?” Jesus asked.
Again, we know that Jesus knows what has happened over these past few days… so why would he ask? In part, it’s so that they can share the story so that we can know what they understand. It’s a set-up… Not knowing who their new walking companion is, they answer:
They answered:
“Those things that happened to Jesus from Nazareth. By what he did and said he showed that he was a powerful prophet, who pleased God and all the people. 20Then the chief priests and our leaders had him arrested and sentenced to die on a cross. 21We had hoped that he would be the one to set Israel free! But it has already been three days since all this happened.
22Some women in our group surprised us. They had gone to the tomb early in the morning, 23but did not find the body of Jesus. They came back, saying that they had seen a vision of angels who told them that he is alive. 24Some men from our group went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said. But they didn't see Jesus either.”
“We had hoped.” –Perhaps one of the saddest phrases to ever pass through human lips. “We had hoped that he would be the one to set Israel free!” Is what they say, but there’s so much more than that. It is the sound of a hope that has died, it is the sound of a world that has come crashing down around them. Saying “we had hoped” in the past tense means that they have no hope now. The opportunity has come and gone, deflated and defeated.
This is where these two are at. Hope is gone… all is lost. And it’s not surprising that Jesus gets a bit ticked when he responds back to them:
25Then Jesus asked the two disciples, “Why can't you understand? How can you be so slow to believe all that the prophets said? 26Didn't you know that the Messiah would have to suffer before he was given his glory?” 27Jesus then explained everything written about himself in the Scriptures, beginning with the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets.
Even at this point, the two don’t really get it. Even when Jesus shares with them, puts all the pieces together, connects all the dots, they still don’t realize who he is… BUT they are starting to get a sense of the bigger picture… and perhaps even recapture a bit of the hope that they had lost.
28When the two of them came near the village where they were going, Jesus seemed to be going farther. 29They begged him, “Stay with us! It's already late, and the sun is going down.” So Jesus went into the house to stay with them.
30After Jesus sat down to eat, he took some bread. He blessed it and broke it. Then he gave it to them.
Where have we heard this before? When they sat down to eat, Jesus took some bread… he blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them. Where have we heard this before? Normally in this environment, I say those words and take that action when I am standing behind that table. In the earliest forms of worship of the church the one thing that was universally recognizable was the breaking and sharing of the bread… Anyone in the early church would have seen this as a parallel to their own experience of worship
31At once they knew who he was, but he disappeared. 32They said to each other, “When he talked with us along the road and explained the Scriptures to us, didn't it warm our hearts?”
33So they got right up and returned to Jerusalem.
The two disciples found the eleven apostles and the others gathered together. 34And they learned from the group that the Lord was really alive and had appeared to Peter. 35Then the disciples from Emmaus told what happened on the road and how they knew he was the Lord when he broke the bread.
The lights go on, they finally get it at the point at which they gather together and break bread together. Luke is being quite intentional in this story to tell us that we experience the risen Christ in our midst every time we get together to worship… whether we realize it or not… not only that when Jesus is revealed to Cleopas and his traveling companion, part of that revelation is that in fact Jesus had been traveling with them all along… and they didn’t even know it. God in Christ was with them in the midst of their journey, even if they didn’t recognize or acknowledge him. They didn’t “get it” until after the fact.
This is why the word “Emmaus” is more than simply the name of a lost village somewhere near Jerusalem. As I mentioned earlier in the service, the word “Emmaus” is right next to the word “Emmanuel” in the Greek lexicon. We hear the word “Emmanuel” brought up many times around Christmas… or rather mostly during Advent in the lead-up to Christmas. It literally means “God with us” –maybe there’s a bit of wordplay going on here… kind of like a surprise Easter Egg to remind us that we might not even be aware that God is with us. The walk to Emmaus has this whole other layer to it, that Jesus walks with us and we may not even be aware of it until after the fact. It’s a reminder that their walk to Emmaus is also our walk to Emmaus.
Happy Easter!
I think one of the things I enjoy about the Biblical stories is that there are often so many different layers that we often miss. We tend to take the stories at absolute face value, being a dispassionate accounting of events, without realizing that the writer is also infusing the story with their own experience of faith. There are so many layers of meaning wrapped into the Biblical witness that we miss that it’s really worthwhile to take a closer look… even with something that we think is familiar.
As with most of the seven resurrection stories, each of the gospel writers includes at least one encounter with the risen Christ that is unique to that Gospel only. For Luke, it’s the Road to Emmaus. In the same way that the story of Thomas always comes up on the 2nd Sunday of Easter, a tradition has developed that we walk the Road to Emmaus on the 3rd. It’s not a bad practice, really, especially when one considers that that this is the only resurrection story that has us encounter Jesus while on our way to someplace else. There are also a few things that we miss along the way.
The story opens with two people traveling to a village called Emmaus. We presume the two people walking along to be disciples, but really that’s not all that clear. It simply says “two of them.” –one of whom has the name Cleopas… which is not a name that we’re otherwise familiar with as being one of the twelve disciples. So that’s a bit unexpected… the other is a companion who has no name. It could even have been Cleopas and his wife… we don’t know. What is clear is that these are people who aren’t part of the inner circle, so to speak… At any rate, they were going to a village called Emmaus.
According to the text we read this morning, the village of Emmaus lies approximately twelve kilometers from Jerusalem… the actual text uses the ancient measurement “sixty Stadia.” but it’s not as cut and dried as that. If you were to travel to Israel today, one of the Biblical places that one could not visit would be the village of Emmaus. Not because it lies behind a wall, or is under heavy guard… it’s that nobody has ever found it. Sure, there are lots of candidates in the region, but none of them bear the exact name “Emmaus.” It’s also complicated by the fact that depending on which version of the ancient manuscripts you read, some of them indicate that it is one hundred sixty stadia away from Jerusalem, which would put it at closer to 30km. All we know is that it doesn’t really line up with any village name in the area. So maybe Luke was using a different name on purpose…
But even so, it’s the name he does use… Emmaus… which is very close to another word we’re familiar with: Emmanuel… which in itself is foreshadowing what is to come in the story. Those are just a couple of things to keep in mind as we listen to the rest of the story.
14As they were talking and thinking about what had happened, 15Jesus came near and started walking along beside them. 16But they did not know who he was.
This is important. As the listeners, we know that Jesus is the one who is walking with them… but they don’t. There a number of Biblical stories that use this motif… this theme of God being with people, but this isn’t initially revealed to the characters in the story. The story’s tension builds as we wonder when the two travelers are going to actually clue-in. It also helps to keep us listening.
17Jesus asked them, “What were you talking about as you walked along?”
The two of them stood there looking sad and gloomy. 18Then the one named Cleopas asked Jesus, “Are you the only person from Jerusalem who didn't know what was happening there these last few days?”
19“What do you mean?” Jesus asked.
Again, we know that Jesus knows what has happened over these past few days… so why would he ask? In part, it’s so that they can share the story so that we can know what they understand. It’s a set-up… Not knowing who their new walking companion is, they answer:
They answered:
“Those things that happened to Jesus from Nazareth. By what he did and said he showed that he was a powerful prophet, who pleased God and all the people. 20Then the chief priests and our leaders had him arrested and sentenced to die on a cross. 21We had hoped that he would be the one to set Israel free! But it has already been three days since all this happened.
22Some women in our group surprised us. They had gone to the tomb early in the morning, 23but did not find the body of Jesus. They came back, saying that they had seen a vision of angels who told them that he is alive. 24Some men from our group went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said. But they didn't see Jesus either.”
“We had hoped.” –Perhaps one of the saddest phrases to ever pass through human lips. “We had hoped that he would be the one to set Israel free!” Is what they say, but there’s so much more than that. It is the sound of a hope that has died, it is the sound of a world that has come crashing down around them. Saying “we had hoped” in the past tense means that they have no hope now. The opportunity has come and gone, deflated and defeated.
This is where these two are at. Hope is gone… all is lost. And it’s not surprising that Jesus gets a bit ticked when he responds back to them:
25Then Jesus asked the two disciples, “Why can't you understand? How can you be so slow to believe all that the prophets said? 26Didn't you know that the Messiah would have to suffer before he was given his glory?” 27Jesus then explained everything written about himself in the Scriptures, beginning with the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets.
Even at this point, the two don’t really get it. Even when Jesus shares with them, puts all the pieces together, connects all the dots, they still don’t realize who he is… BUT they are starting to get a sense of the bigger picture… and perhaps even recapture a bit of the hope that they had lost.
28When the two of them came near the village where they were going, Jesus seemed to be going farther. 29They begged him, “Stay with us! It's already late, and the sun is going down.” So Jesus went into the house to stay with them.
30After Jesus sat down to eat, he took some bread. He blessed it and broke it. Then he gave it to them.
Where have we heard this before? When they sat down to eat, Jesus took some bread… he blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them. Where have we heard this before? Normally in this environment, I say those words and take that action when I am standing behind that table. In the earliest forms of worship of the church the one thing that was universally recognizable was the breaking and sharing of the bread… Anyone in the early church would have seen this as a parallel to their own experience of worship
31At once they knew who he was, but he disappeared. 32They said to each other, “When he talked with us along the road and explained the Scriptures to us, didn't it warm our hearts?”
33So they got right up and returned to Jerusalem.
The two disciples found the eleven apostles and the others gathered together. 34And they learned from the group that the Lord was really alive and had appeared to Peter. 35Then the disciples from Emmaus told what happened on the road and how they knew he was the Lord when he broke the bread.
The lights go on, they finally get it at the point at which they gather together and break bread together. Luke is being quite intentional in this story to tell us that we experience the risen Christ in our midst every time we get together to worship… whether we realize it or not… not only that when Jesus is revealed to Cleopas and his traveling companion, part of that revelation is that in fact Jesus had been traveling with them all along… and they didn’t even know it. God in Christ was with them in the midst of their journey, even if they didn’t recognize or acknowledge him. They didn’t “get it” until after the fact.
This is why the word “Emmaus” is more than simply the name of a lost village somewhere near Jerusalem. As I mentioned earlier in the service, the word “Emmaus” is right next to the word “Emmanuel” in the Greek lexicon. We hear the word “Emmanuel” brought up many times around Christmas… or rather mostly during Advent in the lead-up to Christmas. It literally means “God with us” –maybe there’s a bit of wordplay going on here… kind of like a surprise Easter Egg to remind us that we might not even be aware that God is with us. The walk to Emmaus has this whole other layer to it, that Jesus walks with us and we may not even be aware of it until after the fact. It’s a reminder that their walk to Emmaus is also our walk to Emmaus.
Happy Easter!
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