"Our Roads" - Sermon for Easter 3 2017

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who meets us on our roads.

            If I had to put down a top 5 bible stories this would be in it. The others that I thought of this week are Jacob’s ladder, the resurrection account of Mary Magdalene in the Garden with Jesus as the gardener, when Mary of Mary and Martha anoints Jesus’ feet, Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, and this text of two disciples who we have never heard of, and never hear from again, one of them doesn’t even get a name.

            Neither are part of the 12 disciples, they are just other followers of Jesus on their way back home after the Passover Festival. On the road Jesus meets them, he talks to them and explains the law and prophets to them. As they reach the town of Emmaus, Jesus moves to keep on going, but now that it’s night it would be very dangerous to travel, especially alone, so they encourage him to stay with them. And as they sit around the table, Jesus, just like he did as he fed the 5000, then fed the 4000, and then enacted the Lord’s supper, took the bread, blessed it, and broke it. And in doing so, the two disciples recognize Jesus, after walking with him most of the day, it’s only now that they realize who he is. And after he does this, Jesus vanishes from their sight. And what do they do? Just after expressing their fear about traveling at night. The get right up and run all the way back to Jerusalem.

            Why do I love this text? Because it speaks of real people. Real people just like us, People with fears and doubts about things, unclear about how things of God work. Real people who Jesus meets right where they are. In their fears of what will happen, Jesus meets them on the road. Jesus meets them at the table, he breaks bread and eats with them.

            Last week we talked about being the church, not the building, but us, the people of God gathered here and when we are in the world. We are real people who go out to do regular real jobs, and the whole time, we are the church doing God’s work through regular real things. This week’s text ties into that, because this text shows that where Jesus meets people is not just in the temple, or the synagogue, or just in church buildings, but Jesus is meeting them where they are, in the midst of what’s happening in their life. To these two disciples it’s in the midst of walking home, not full of joy, but in the midst of the loss of hope. They tell Jesus, “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Jesus meets them there. And then in dinner, eating together, Jesus makes himself known. In the simple task of breaking the bread, these two disciples know Christ’s presence.

            There is lot of debate about why the one disciple in this story has no name, but Cleopas does, some say it’s because they’re unimportant, or it’s just an oversite, no one recorded it, so they didn’t know it, so they didn’t write it down. But, I think it’s for a specific reason. They have no name, so we can insert our name. It’s because we too are that disciple. We are not just readers of this story, but we are participants in it. We are not reading how Jesus appeared to those two disciples, we are reading how Jesus appears to us.

All who have read this text over thousands of years, this text tells them, and us, Jesus meets us. Jesus appears to you. On the road, at the table, as we fear, and as we eat. Jesus meets us here in worship, and Jesus meets us when we are sent from here, the people of God in the world.

            In many ways those are two of the most common things we do as the people of God, the church in the world, we gather together to eat the Lord’s supper, and we walk in the world to enact God’s mission. We gather together as the people of God to worship and give praise that God meets us here. We drink the blood of Christ, the wine, and we eat the Body of Christ, the bread. And through that we are nourished because in that drinking and eating, Christ is present with us, not just metaphorically, but physically, in the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine, and in all those around us.

            And Christ meets us as we walk our roads. We go from here, we go to our jobs, our lives. We leave these doors as the church to the world, the people of God doing God’s work through our hands. Enacting God’s mission through how we live. We do all our jobs as people of God, we go through transitions and changes, we laugh, we cry, we see hope, we lose hope. We rest, we work, we play. And everywhere we go, everything we do, Jesus meets us. Jesus meets us in the bread and wine, but he also meets us on the roads we tread.

            As this story ends, after he breaks the bread with the two disciples Jesus vanishes from their sight, but they are not left the same as they were before in feeling that absence. They are transformed. No longer is their fear, we had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel, Now they know their hope is that Jesus is the one who has saved the world.

            And to this response, they dart up and run all the way back to Jerusalem, the excitement of hope restored filling them, they need to tell someone! And they get back and tell the others what happened to them on the road, and how in the breaking of the bread Jesus was made known to them. The other disciples let them know that Jesus appeared to Peter. And then our passage ends, but if we read just one more verse, we hear this. “While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.””

            Let’s read a verse from last weeks text from the gospel of John, taking place the same Easter Day Evening. “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, … Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  This text is connected to last week in it is also the start of the church, the creation of the people of God in the world. Last week we learned that we are the church in our daily routine. Christ has breathed the spirit into us, and we go out and breathe the Spirit to the world in all we do. Today’s lesson tells us that while we are the church, when we are out in the world, Christ meets us there on our roads. We are not alone as the church of God in the world, we do God’s work with our hands as Christ walks alongside us giving us strength and support.

            I pray that you feel that in your life, and may you have the same excitement as these disciples, that you want to run to tell the world.