That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?” And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place.” (Luke 24.13-21)
The post-resurrection appearance of the Risen Jesus to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is found only in Luke’s gospel, although Mark–or better stated, the writer of the longer ending to Mark’s gospel–will make a general statement to the effect that “He appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either.”
Perhaps this reference inspired Luke to fill in the blanks with a very detailed narrative about the pair who found themselves in the company of the Risen Jesus, although they did not recognize him, not until he had opened their eyes to the scriptures that had foretold his suffering and death and after he had sat at table and broken bread with them.
Regardless of Luke’s source or sources for the story, it is one of the most-well known of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, precisely because of the detail that Luke provides in his narrative of the account. He has turned Mark’s rather bland reference into a rich story infused with a depth of feelings not necessarily found in the other appearances.
I think it is precisely because of Luke’s ability to present us with the emotions of these two disciples that we find the story so memorable and, better stated, so relatable. They find themselves in that betwixt and between situation that anthropologists like to call the state of liminality. Put simply, it is that period when our past as we knew it is no more and our future is not yet known.
For almost everyone, it is a transitional period that is filled with fear, anxiety, and even dread. The reason is simple. Whatever was in the past must be let go of and whatever awaits us in the future can’t be seen, leading us into a state of disorientation, disbelief, and disappointment. Luke described it perfectly when he stated that the two disciples “looked downcast” when Jesus first joins them on the road. That time of transition is always clouded and confounding, causing anyone caught in it to feel down in the dumps and downcast, if not downright despair.
When Jesus asked what had made them so discombobulated, they answered, “We were hoping that Jesus the Nazarene would be the one to redeem Israel, but our chief priests and rulers handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him.” Again, Luke skillfully puts before us the feelings of hopelessness that are so much a part of the move from what was to what is, the bridge of liminality that few people really want to cross, unsure if the bridge will even support them as we make their way across it.
In those times, nothing is certain to the traveler who must traverse the tightrope across the tumultuous waters of the unknown. Nothing can be seen because the future is always opaque, cloudy and devoid of clear-sightedness. Surely for this same reason, the evangelist emphasizes the inability of the disciples to recognize the Risen Jesus when he suddenly joins them on their journey.
There is no small irony in the words that the disciples say to Jesus when they tell him that “some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.” He stood before them in the moment, fully alive, and they failed to see him. Such is the state of liminality when our eyes are clouded and our hearts are heavy as we grieve the past that is no longer ours and wait on unsteady feet for the future that will only reveal itself in its own good time.
In the end, their eyes were opened, but only because they had moved from the cloud of unknowing to the clarity of knowing, from the state of blindness to the state of sight. The Resurrected Jesus had brought them through the liminal stage, slowly and carefully opening for them a whole new day. Whereas they were “looking downcast”when he had first met them, now, as he leaves their company, they set out at once and raced back to Jerusalem, their feet no longer tired, bursting through locked doors to tell the others of what they have come to see.
There is a lesson in this story for us just as it was for the early Christians who first heard it. We need to remember that the Gospel of Luke was written in the last years of the first century, long after the events that they recalled. It was meant to boost the spirits of the early community, assuring them that they also could come to believe that the Lord Jesus had been raised and had appeared to the disciples.
Millenia have passed and the message is the same for us. When we find ourselves in those times of downcastness and downheartedness because we are in the fog of the in between, knowing for sure that what was our lives is no longer possible but also not knowing for sure what the future will be for us because it has not yet arrived, we are asked to walk with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, learning from them.
These times come in everyone’s life, even if they take different shapes. In the flash of a moment, just about anything can upset the apple cart that was our ordinary lives. We can find ourselves or someone we love facing a sudden and serious illness, its unannounced and unwanted presence making it clear that our lives won’t return to normal, but also refusing to reveal to us just what our lives will look like afterwards.
Similarly, other unexpected and uninvited guests in our house, such as an affair or a divorce, or a job lost or a child who has lost his or her way, catapults us into the darkness of that space between the past and the future, a time when we must find our way forward even if we feel like we are walking with our eyes blindfolded.
These times, whatever they are, always fall under the title “we were hoping,” the phrase borrowed from the words that the disciples spoke, an expression of loss, longing, and loneliness as we navigate ahead like a ship caught in a heavy fog, impossible for us to turn back, but also impossible to see where we are going. Whatever we had hoped for has been taken from us and we are left in the emptiness, in the darkness, and in the in-betweenness.
The answer for those times, as Luke presents to us today, is to remind ourselves that we do not walk alone, but that the Risen Jesus walks alongside us, even if we do not recognize him at the moment. We heard the two disciples beg the stranger, “Stay with us, for the evening falls,” the cry of every person in those moments of doubt and dread.
And what they would learn and as we also must learn is that he answers that cry, that prayer, staying with us as evening falls. For Luke, it is apparent that he believes that we will find the Risen Lord with us most certainly in the scriptures and in the breaking of the bread. These are the two ways that the stranger opened the eyes of the disciples, revealing his person and his presence to them as the Risen Jesus, and these are the same ways that we can be certain that he stays with us, showing us his person and his presence as evening falls.
They are not the only way he reveals himself, but Luke leaves little doubt that he believes these are two surefire ways to find the Lord Jesus alongside us as we walk to Emmaus. If we immerse ourselves in the scriptures and if we sit at table with others to break bread, we will have our eyes opened and “our hearts burning within us,” as the disciples describe their growing awareness of the Risen Lord walking with them as their companion on the way.
In her book, “In My Grandmother’s House,” Yolanda Pierce who was raised by her grandmother describes how she came to know the closeness of Jesus through her grandmother. She writes, “As a child, I thought of Jesus as a very close neighbor, because calling on Jesus was like calling on MIss Priscilla next door–there was sure to be an immediate physical response. She writes, “The Jesus of my grandmother’s house was not just ‘Lord’; he was a friend and confidant. Jesus came by to visit us on a regular basis, and for much of my early life, I thought that was how it was everywhere that people believed. I thought everybody knew Jesus as a good neighbor who visited often.”
She continues, “We called on Jesus when the groceries ran low or when someone’s fever ran high. We called on Jesus when the rent check was due or when death visited and laid us low. And we called on Jesus in celebration and times of joy–when bodies were healed and prayers were answered and relationships were restored.”
The story of the Emmaus disciples suggests that Luke would have us know the same closeness and the same intimacy with the Risen Lord as did Yolanda Pierce’s grandmother who obviously believed that the Lord took to heart the words of those disciples when they begged him to stay with them for evening falls. And, as a true believer, she did not hesitate to call upon him as darkness shaded the windows and as the chill night air moved about her house.
So, for us who find ourselves in those times when our hopes have been snatched from our hands and crushed to the ground and we are left bereft and beside ourselves with worry, we must take heart from the story of these two downcast disciples who left Jerusalem behind and went back home, their dreams for a better day left in a tomb outside the walls of Jerusalem.
Unknown to them as they walked away from the past and walked towards an unknown future, a new day was coming, a better day. It might take a while, but over the course of the seven mile walk to Emmaus, they gradually had their eyes opened and came to see that they had never walked alone. The Risen Lord had been with them the whole while, even if their eyes had failed to recognize him at first.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 