Well this is a much beloved story, often told at Easter time and almost always titled something like what I put in my sermon title, “On the Road to Emmaus.”

As I was working on the sermon this time it occurred to me that if you were trying to come up with a title that might more accurately describe what really is happening in this story, you might have called it something like “Ordinary people transformed.” Because that’s really what this is a story about. It’s a story about ordinary people.

There’s two of them on this road. We actually don’t know even the name of one of them. The other we know was called Cleopas. That doesn’t tell us very much because this is the only place in the whole Bible where Cleopas is mentioned.

And so we know, in effect, that these were ordinary people. These aren’t the main disciples. They’re not going to be the church leaders. They’re not the great gospel writers. Just two people on the road.

Some commentators think that Cleopas here in Luke might be same person that John refers to as Clopas, in which case we have one tiny bit of additional information because in John there’s one voice that says something like this: “Mary, wife of Clopas, was at the foot of the cross when Jesus was crucified.” And so some commentators speculate, and that’s really all it is, that the two people here on the road are Cleopas/Clopas, on the one hand, and his wife, Mary, on the other. We don’t know. Ordinary people.

They’re going to Emmaus, and we aren’t told exactly why they’re going there. One reasonable guess might be that they are simply going home. At the Passover time, Jews are encouraged whenever they can to gather together in Jerusalem. The population of Jerusalem swells for the Passover Feast. But when the Feast is over, they then return home. And it’s quite possible that that’s what’s going on here. That they’ve left Jerusalem and they’re going home. Ordinary people going back to really ordinary lives.

But there’s truly an extraordinary transformation that takes place here alog the way. If you think of where they start and where they end, they start really gloomy. We’re told they’re sad, they’re downcast. The pictures of them walking from Jerusalem, heavy-laden, burdened.

They’re talking to each other. They’re trying to make sense of the confusing jumble of events that have just taken place. There’s a sense of confusion and really over it all,there’s this great sense of disappointment.

You can hear it in almost one of the most poignant verses in all of the new testament – verse 21 – when they’re talking to the stranger and they say to the stranger, “But we had hoped that this Jesus would turn out to be the one who would redeem Israel. We had hoped that this Jesus would be the Messiah, the one who would come and save his people. We had hoped.”

But the hopes were dashed, because the one fact that they’re absolutely certain on in the middle of all the jumble is that Jesus is dead. He was turned over. He was condemned. He was crucified. And, indeed, if this is Mary wife of Clopas, she was there at the foot of the cross watching him die as he hung. And so they had these high hopes and they’re dashed because Jesus is dead.

Now that’s where it starts. But if you think how the story ends, it’s exactly the opposite. They’re not walking slowly, heavily away from Jerusalem. They’re turning back, running toward Jerusalem. They’re not downcast. They’re filled with joy and amazement. They’re no longer talking about how Jesus died, but they’re joining with the other disciples to say over-and-over, “Yes, indeed the Lord has risen.”

So there’s this huge transformation that takes place in this story. And it seems to me that in telling this story Luke invites us to enter into that transformation and ask, “What is it that changed these early travelers from one place to another, or as one psalmist said, ‘from morning to dancing,’ from sackcloth to clothes of joy?”

What makes the change?

Well, let’s go back for a moment and look at where they were at the start. I want you to have a sense as to how deep is the disappointment, even despair that they start with. Just a kind of common sense principal for you:

• When you hope for little and your hope is frustrated, you’re only a little disappointed.
• If you hope for a lot and your hope is frustrated, great is the disappointment.

This is a trivial example from my own life:

I am, when it comes to sporting events in our family – in terms of watching them – I’m not a lot of fun to be with just before the game starts because I’m sort of the Eor when it comes to sports. My boys, my wife…full of confidence and optimism. “This is the year it’s gonna happen.” And I’m the one that’s always, “Oh, in the 4th quarter they’re gonna blow it again.”

And it didn’t used to be that way, and I’ve sort of wondered, “Why is it that I’ve gotten into this role?” And I realized what it is..it’s that when I would approach these games with such high hopes, when the teams let us down as they seemed to inevitably do, in the midst of this the defeat was crushing.

And so now I aim lower. I have lower hopes and so when they don’t win, it doesn’t hurt as much. I have less disappointment. Little hope. Little disappointment. Big hope. Big disappointment.

The disciples, these travelers on the road, had a huge hope. They were shooting for the moon. They were hoping that Jesus would turn out to be the one that everybody had been waiting for, looking for, longing for, for centuries. That he’d be the one who could save them in all terms: politically, socially, economically, spiritually. That he was the one. A huge hope. But now he was dead. And as in death he could not be Messiah.

And so they were crushed. They were in this deep sense of despair. And so the question is, “What would be adequate to speak into that sense of despair, that deep disappointment?”

Well I can tell you some things that clearly would not have been adequate. If you think about lots of what is often shared with these days as the “true meaning of Easter” and try to imagine if any of those “true meanings” were trotted out on these folks on the Road to Emmaus. They’re in this deep despair. They’ve been hoping for a Messiah, and you run out to them and you say,

“Oh, buck up. It really doesn’t matter whether Jesus died or not. It’s all in what you believe.”

Or what about these?

“You know, Jesus is alive everywhere. You can see Jesus in the tulips or in the smile on a little child’s face.”

“You know it doesn’t really matter that he was raised from the dead. What counts is the kind of life he led. He was a model human being, and if we can just study his life, it will be a true inspiration and call forth from us the best we can be.”

“You know, it doesn’t matter that he died. In fact, in his life and death, he simply reveals the indomitable human spirit that returns time after time, raising up to resist injustice and tyranny.”

If you imagine any of those things with these folks on the road to Emmaus, they might have politely said, “Yea, but we were hoping for a Messiah. We were hoping for someone who could save.” There was really only one word that could be spoken that could dent that despair, and the word was “resurrection.”

The only thing that could dent a despair that great was the statement that Jesus was alive - the same Jesus whose heart had stopped beating, whose brain waves had stopped flickering, whose skin had gone cold and clammy, who had really physically died. They needed to hear that he was physically, materially alive again.

And that’s what we profess as Christians. Nothing less than that: The objective reality that a Jesus died and a Jesus rose in a real sense. And anything less than that would have been inadequate to the despair.

But it’s interesting that that by itself doesn’t seem to be enough for the people on the road to Emmaus. They actually already had what you might think of as a lawyer’s circumstantial evidence: they had testimony that the tomb was empty.

As they speak with the stranger they say, “Look, we heard that the women (in that century not viewed as reliable witnesses) had gone to the tomb and discovered it empty. And amazingly the men went after them and also found it empty. And there were angels that were there who said Jesus was alive.”

They knew all of these things already. But it didn’t transform them. It didn’t change them.

And here, I think, is another important truth for us: The objective truth reality of the resurrection is a necessary but not sufficient condition for transformation. It must have happened, but it also must be joined with the subjective personal encounter with the resurrected Jesus before it will transform our lives. The objective truth married to this subjective experience is what brings about transformation.

And so really this whole story is about that subjective encounter - that personal encounter - that these two on the road have with this Jesus. So Jesus comes up behind them as they’re walking and he enters into conversation with them. It says to us in verse 16 –- the literal Greek is “their eyes were held back.” They were restrained from being able to recognize him.

It’s not until 15 verses later, in verse 31, that we are told their eyes were opened and now, finally, they understand that the person they have been walking with and talking with and eating with, that this person was indeed the resurrected Jesus. And at that moment the historical truth and the encounter, the personal experience, come together and transformation happens.

But for 15 verses they’re walking and talking with him and don’t know who it is. It seems like God feels like there needs to be some preparation laid before they can really see. And in just a few minutes here, let me just share with you what I think are 3 aspects of that preparation that are given to these travelers.

The first thing that seems absolutely clear that had to happen was that these travelers had to ask Jesus to come in and stay with them. Jesus was prepared to just keep on walking when they reached Emmaus. And it says the disciples urged – and in fact the Greek here is extremely strong. It says here, “strongly urged” - strongly urged him to come in because they wanted to continue the dialogue. They wanted him to stay with them. They had sort of a deep desire to pursue more of Jesus.

And I think when Luke tells this story he portrays kind of a picture of the way in which God consistently reveals himself to us. Notice that God always takes the initiative.

• It’s Jesus that comes up first on the road, walking behind them.
• It’s Jesus that initiates the conversation.
• It’s Jesus that starts the questions and opens the Scripture.

But it is always true that God never forces himself on us. There comes a moment when He says in effect, “I can go on, and I can stay. Do you want to just say to me, ‘Bye. Nice conversation,’ or do you want to say ‘Come on in’?”

And that seems to be critical. It was critical that they said, “Stay with us, Jesus.” They had to respond to the invitation that Jesus was dangling out there before them. Otherwise, he would have just walked on.

Second thing that happens: Jesus opens the Scriptures to them. He opens all the Scriptures, it says. He goes through the whole Old Testament. And in doing that he changes their picture. They had a picture that said the Messiah had to be the one who won, who was kind of this big military victory type guy. And when they saw the cross and he died they said, “Wow, that didn’t fit.” Hopes are dashed.

But Jesus said, “No, look. If you follow the whole story through the Old Testament, what you’ll see is that consistently it is pointing to a Messiah that had to go through the cross – had to died in order that he could come into his glory, come into his essence, truly be the Messiah. This was the pattern laid out in the Scripture from the beginning.

And these disciples say afterwards, “Wow, didn’t our hearts burn within us as these words were revealed to us?”

And then the third thing: As they invite him in, he sits down at table with them. He sits – this is kind of an act of fellowship. Typically, if you were inviting someone into your house, you were the host. You would be the one to take the bread, give the blessing, and give it out. But Jesus in effect usurps this position. Jesus becomes the one who is acting as host. And he takes the bread. He gives thanks. He breaks it. And he hands it out to them. Those same four words.

Now in doing that, he is recalling two other episodes that are critical.

First is much earlier in the gospel of Luke, where Jesus is preaching to a crowd of 5000 people. And those people are hungry by the end of the day and he says to his disciples, “What do we have to feed them?” And they said, “We only have two fish and five loaves.” And Jesus does this: He takes the loaves. He takes the bread. And he gives thanks. He breaks it and he gives it to his disciples. And it proves to be, in that episode, enough to feed the crowd with tons left over.

And so by recalling that episode here at table Jesus is saying, “Yes, I am the Messiah, and I am capable of providing for the needs of my people.”

But he’s also, of course, recalling a second episode - what we call the Last Supper or the Eucharist – where again, the same words: He took bread. He gave thanks. He broke it. He gave it to his disciples. In this case, “Take, eat. This is my body broken for you.” And in this way, he is reminding them that, “Not only am I the Messiah who can provide abundantly for all the needs of the people, but I provide by breaking my own body; by allowing my body to be broken for you.” That’s the kind of Messiah I am.

And you see that matches up exactly with what he’s been teaching htem out of Scripture. And so when all of this comes together, that’s the moment. Their eyes are opened and they’re transformed. And they race back to Jerusalem with the good news.

So I’m thinking about this story and I realize as I think about my own life, I live so much of my life as if Jesus were dead. I honestly don’t have much problems with the objective truth part. I believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, materially, physically, historically. I believe it based on the sort of scant evidence that is available, and primarily I believe it in faith. And I don’t really tend to doubt that very much.

But my problem is that I don’t frequently enough have that objective truth married to a subjective encounter with the risen Jesus. I tend to live my life as if it were all up to me; as if when I get another challenge I have to figure out on my own how to solve it; as if when the challenges mount I just have to work all the much harder. In moments of joy and good things happening, I tend not to include Jesus in the celebration. When I’m quiet and alone I tend not to enjoy sitting in His presence. When I’m desperate I have to get all the way to the end of my own rope before I remember to include Jesus in the desperation.

And one of the things it leaves me in is not necessarily so much a great, perpetual sense of despair, but it leaves me often without much hope. I tend to look at things and see them as not so good and say, “But that’s kind of the way it is. And we just kind of muddle along as best we can.”

As long as Jesus remains, in effect, dead to me I remain kind of in that condition. So I want more of these encounters where I feel I have met and been met by the risen and resurrected Jesus.

And so as I think through this text, it occurs to me that I need to, in some ways, be involved in the same things:

• I need to have my heart eager to pursue Jesus and to be on the look-out and listen for those invitations – thos moments- when God dangles things in front of me and says, “Are you gonna just let me walk on, or are you going to ask me in?”
• I need to be more immersed in Scripture.
• I need to stay in Scripture. I need to be in the whole of Scripture, not just in particular passages that I like, but in the whole thing. And setting particular passages within the grand scope of the story; the story that tells one big story that points consistently to Jesus.

When I do study Scripture, I feel that I need more and more to invite Jesus at the beginning to be my guide through scripture; that Jesus would walk me through; that Jesus would illumine the text. So that instead of approaching it like a great ancient text that I have to puzzle out its meaning, I think of it as a living text that God will bring to my heart in a way that will cause them to burn with his words of truth.

And I think I need to be more involved around the Table. In some sense, that means gathering with close friends in intimate fellowship. In some ways, it may mean in asking strangers – as these two travelers did – to come share a meal with me. But mostly for me, at least today, it means gathering around this table. Becaues I need week-after-week to be reminded by Jesus’ stance there that says, “I am the Messiah. I can provide for all the needs of my people. And this is my body, broken for you.”

You see, this is what we actually do every week in worship. When we gather together as a congregation in worship:

• We are saying “yes” to the invitation that God has extended to us.
• We are expressing our desire, our hopes, to be close to him; that he would stay with us.
• We have his word illumined to us. He guides us through his word and we gather around his table.

Word and sacrament. This is really what worship is. And if that’s true, then it seems to me that every Sunday when we come to worship, we ought to come expecting to be transformed.

We ought to come expecting that - even though we come in with some sense of disappointment in life, some sense of hopelessness in life - we ought to expect that we will meet the risen and resurrected Jesus, and in that meeting we will be changed so that we will become people of hope, people of joy, and people who will be able to claim with confidence and enthusiasm that Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

Let’s pray.