May 8, 2011 - Easter 3A

Jesus Walks With Us Along the Way
Luke 24:13-35
Easter 3A – May 8, 2011

Some events are just incomprehensible. We start out with so much hope, so much promise, so much anticipation. We dream our dreams and plan our plans, thinking about what it will be like some day.

And sometimes those dreams come to pass. But there are other times, other dreams, that don't come to fruition, that somehow go terribly horribly wrong, leaving us wondering how such a thing could happen. Whether it's something on the scale of 9/11, which has been on all of our minds this past week, or the disappointments that strike more intimately, more privately, the burdens that we carry quietly on our own, when things don't go according to plan, when things don't turn out the way we had hoped they might, they leave us struggling, wrestling, walking along the roads of our life, trying to make sense of it all, trying to figure it all out. The marriage that fell apart. The son or daughter who turned away from the family or sank down into addiction. The children longed for who never came. The ones who died too soon, leaving some among us with heavy hearts on this Mother's Day. The career you worked so hard for that remains always just out of reach. Each of us has our own share of disappointments that we carry with us. And as people of faith, we wonder sometimes, in the midst of our grief and our sorrow, where is Jesus? Why didn't he stop this from happening? Why does he seem so far away? He promises, “...remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Mt. 28:20),” so why don't we feel his presence when we need him the most?

That's where we find the two disciples in the gospel story this morning. Cleopas and the other, unnamed disciple, walk along the road, headed to Emmaus, we can only speculate why. Perhaps now that it seems that everything has fallen apart, they are doing the only thing that makes any sense – going back home to pick up the pieces and start over, however that may be possible. And so they walk together, filled with disappointment, trying to make sense of what has happened. They had hoped that Jesus was the one to redeem Israel. Just a week ago – this is still the 1st Easter Sunday for these disciples, after all – just a week ago, it had seemed that those dreams were about to come true, as Jesus triumphantly entered into Jerusalem to the cheers of all the people. They had looked to him to set things right, to lead the rebellion and overturn their Roman rulers – but oh how quickly things change. Before they knew it, Jesus was handed over to be condemned to death and crucified. And it's now the third day since these things happened, they explain to the unknown man who has joined their journey, and some women had gone to the graveside, but the body was gone and no one knew what to make of that. What will they do, now that Jesus is really and truly gone? How will they move on?
The disciples in this story don't know what we know. They have no narrator to clue them in to who this stranger really is. They haven't had 2000 years of witnesses and story-sharers to help them, to walk along the road with them, to remind them that things aren't always what they seem. Yet they find in the unrecognized Jesus a listening ear – and so they pour out their confusion, their dejection, their anguish at the loss of the one they loved and trusted and hoped in so much, still unable to see the truth that is right in front of their eyes, even as he begins to share his story, intertwined with God's story – God's plan to intervene in human history – linking it to their story.

It's only after the fact that they see Jesus for who he truly is. Only when he takes the bread, and blesses it and breaks it, as he has done so many times before. (In Luke's gospel, Jesus is always eating with people, always hosting a meal.) But in this familiar act, suddenly, they recognize him. Their eyes are opened – and then Jesus disappears! Then they look back at their walk with him, and the pieces fall into place. “Weren't our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening scripture to us?” And they are renewed, restored with joy.

Isn't that the way it works most of the time? In the middle of our hard times, we often feel alone. With our eyes clouded by emotion and hurt, we cannot see Jesus. We feel like he has abandoned us in our time of greatest need. But – when we come through to the other side – & sometimes it takes a long time to get to this point, it's not always as quick as it was for Cleopas & his friend – it's only then, looking back, that our eyes are opened to see the one who has been walking with us all along. It's only in retrospect that we can see how God is able to work even in the worst things in our lives, how God is able to bring some good out of bad situations. When Joseph (you know Joseph – of Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat fame, from the Old Testament) – when he was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers, and eventually those same brothers ended up at his mercy, depending on him for food in a famine – he was able to see God working through what they had done to him, and say, “ Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people...” (Gen. 50:20). The Apostle Paul said a similar thing when he wrote to the Roman church. He said, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God” (Rom. 8:28). The reality is that we don't usually know how God is at work in the bad situations of our lives, how God could possibly bring anything good from our most difficult circumstances, not when we're in the middle of it.

But that doesn't mean that God isn't working, or that Jesus is not walking with us. That's the witness of this story – that is the promise, the hope – that Jesus comes alongside us when we are questioning and confused, when we are disappointed and depressed. He comes to us as we journey through our lives, and walks with us, even though we don't always recognize him. Have you seen him? Have you heard his voice? May he reveal himself to us today – in words of scripture, in bread broken, in wine poured. May we see him among us – and then may we run to share the story!

Amen.