Sunday Sermon - 19 April

The two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus from Jerusalem, on the day of the resurrection, begin their walk in sadness and disappointment. They had heard that Jesus wasn’t in the tomb and that angels reported that he was alive, but they just couldn’t grasp the possible reality of the resurrection. The story of the road to Emmaus isn’t just a powerful Gospel story, it is a reflection of our own lives and our own journeys. 

Let me explain:

Two disciples are walking away from Jerusalem, away from the place where everything they had hoped for seemed to have come undone. They are grieving, confused, and burdened by unanswered questions. The one they believed to be the Messiah has been crucified. Reports of an empty tomb have reached them, but instead of clarity, those reports have only deepened their bewilderment.

And so they walk on.

That is where this Gospel meets us so powerfully—because this is where so many of us live our own lives: walking along roads we did not expect to travel, carrying the disappointments in our lives that we did not choose, trying to make sense of events that do not fit the story we had hoped God was writing for us. The road to Emmaus is not just a road in ancient Palestine. It is the road of human faith. I believe it is a metaphor for the road of every Christian life.

There are seasons when we too walk in confusion: when prayers seem unanswered, when grief clouds our vision, when suffering makes God seem distant,
when life unfolds in ways that make little sense. And often, like those disciples, we do not realize, we cannot see, that Christ is already beside us. Luke tells us that Jesus comes near and walks with them, but “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”

That is a powerfully striking line. “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” Did God blind them from seeing Jesus or was it their own inability to believe in the possibility of his resurrection that made them unable to see their Lord? Luke leaves us with this unanswered ambiguity on purpose. Jesus is present—but hidden. Near—but unrecognized.

How often is that true in our own lives?

Christ is with us in the hospital waiting room, but we do not recognize him. Christ is with us in the grief and long silence after loss, but we do not perceive him. Christ is with us in ordinary days of fatigue, those days when we are weary and uncertain and our eyes are fixed only on the problem before us.

The disciples tell Jesus their story, but they tell it only in terms of loss, using the words, “We had hoped…” That phrase is filled with disappointment and even heartbreak. “We had hoped.”

They had hoped for redemption. They had hoped for restoration. They had hoped for triumph. But their hope had been shaped by their own expectations, by what they wanted, the victory of their Messiah King, and because events unfolded differently than they had “hoped”, they could not yet see that God’s promise had actually been fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

This too is part of our journey, is it not? Sometimes we fail to recognize God at work because God is not acting according to our hopes and wishes, our timetable, our expectations, or our assumptions. The disciples knew the facts but they did not yet understand the meaning. So Jesus, being a teacher, points them back to Scripture. Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interprets to them the things concerning himself.

In other words, Jesus teaches them to read their story differently. To adjust their expectations and redirect their hope. He invites them beneath the surface.  He calls them deeper. That is what Scripture does for us as well.  It is so rich, with so many layers of sacred insight. When life confuses us, Scripture is not merely information, it is illumination and enlightenment, divined by God’s grace.

The Word of God gives us lenses through which to interpret our lives. It helps us see that suffering is not always abandonment. It reminds us that endings are not always the end. It teaches us that resurrection begins when human certainty ceases to exist.

The reading from First Peter speaks directly to this point. Peter reminds believers that they are living as pilgrims, journeying through a world that is not yet complete. He says: “Live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.” That word ‘exile’ is really relevant. It means we are travelers. We are not yet fully home. We haven’t arrived. Faith is not static. It is a pilgrimage. Like the disciples on the Emmaus road, we are always in motion—sometimes confident, sometimes uncertain, sometimes weary—but always called onward.

Peter reminds us that this journey is not aimless. We have been redeemed not with perishable things like money, wealth or profane power, “silver or gold”, as he says, but “with the precious blood of Christ.”

That means our journey has value. Our lives are held within the costly love of God - the cost being Jesus’ loving sacrifice for us. Even when we feel lost on the road, we are not abandoned on the road. We are called to offer an invitation - to open ourselves to a deeper understanding and relationship with God.  You see, as the disciples near the village of their destination, as their journey was coming to an end and Jesus appeared ready to continue on his own way beyond them, the disciples urged him, asking him, “Stay with us.”

Stay with us. When you think of these three words, I invite you to think of them not as a request but as prayer. In fact it could be seen as one of the great prayers of our Christian faith. For in every prayer are we not asking God to stay with us? Stay with us in our uncertainty. Stay with us in our sorrow. Stay with us in our pain and suffering. Stay with us even when I can’t see you.

Isn’t this what the disciples did? They invited Jesus to stay with them even when they did not know who he was. They make room for him before they fully understand who he is. That is often how faith works. We do not always begin with clarity of understanding or certainty. Sometimes faith begins simply by making space: space for prayer, space for Scripture, space for worship, space for Christ to dwell with us.

Jesus accepts the invitations. And then, at the table, it happens. Jesus takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them. That is the moment their eyes are opened. That’s when they finally see. They recognize him in the breaking of the bread.

This is no accident in Luke’s Gospel for the breaking of bread is where recognition comes into the fullness of understanding. At the table, what was hidden becomes known. Here the Emmaus story becomes profoundly sacramental for us because every time we gather at this altar, we come as Emmaus disciples. We come carrying burdens. We come with partial understanding. We come with questions unresolved. Here, at our beautiful altar, Christ meets us again: in Word proclaimed, in bread broken, in cup shared.

In the Eucharist, Christ is made known—not merely remembered, but encountered. We eat this bread, we drink this cup, not because it is mere ritual re-enactment. Every time we receive the Eucharist we encounter again our risen Lord. We are inviting him in to “Stay with us.”

As an aside and gentle reminder, faith is not a straight, steady climb from doubt to certainty. The road to Emmaus shows us that our lives in Christ move in rhythms—there are times of clarity and times of confusion, moments when Scripture burns within us and others when it feels distant and incomprehensible. The journey is not about arriving once and for all, but about continually returning—returning to the Word, to prayer, to the table—where Christ meets us again and again, and in those encounters he makes himself known anew.

Once the disciples recognize him, Jesus vanishes. He disappears from their sight. Why? Why does he just pop away like that? I think it’s because they no longer need visible proof of his resurrection. They have seen him with the eyes of faith and therefore his physical presence is no longer necessary.

Our story does not end at recognition. The disciples don’t just walk on the road to Emmaus, they also walk on the road from Emmaus - going back to Jerusalem. Immediately they rise and return, taking the same Emmaus road they had walked earlier in sorrow and that road now becomes the road to witness. There’s a new energy as they head back to the sacred city.

That is Luke’s final movement of this Christian encounter. That recognition necessarily leads to witness, to mission.

The reading from Acts reminds us of this transformation. Those “who hear the truth are cut to the heart” and ask: “What should we do?” The answer is clear:  turn, receive, be transformed. Encounter with the risen Christ is never meant to remain private. It didn’t stay in the disciples’ home. They took it back to Jerusalem. Encountering Christ sends us outward. When we have truly recognized Christ—when our hearts burn with his Word and our eyes open at his table—we are called to go back into the world as witnesses.

Witnesses in how we love. Witnesses in how we forgive. Witnesses in how we serve. Witnesses in how we carry hope into weary places.

So this morning, I ask you to ask yourself, “Where are you on the Emmaus road today?”

Perhaps you are walking in doubt and confusion. Perhaps Christ is beside you and you have not yet recognized him. Perhaps your heart is beginning to burn as Scripture opens and reveals itself to you. Perhaps you are asking Christ to stay with you. Perhaps you are at the table, eyes just opening - recognizing the reality of Christ beside you. Perhaps you are being called to rise and to go out as witness.

Wherever you are on your faith journey, today’s readings, especially the story of Emmaus, offers assurance:

Christ is on the road with you. In confusion, he walks beside you. In Scripture, he speaks to you. In Eucharist, he reveals himself to you. In every step beyond this place, outside of those doors, he sends you into the world to witness to the light of Easter’s resurrection.

For the road to Emmaus is not only a disciples’ story. It is ours. It is your story.

So I pray, may your journey be met by the risen Christ. May he walk gently beside you, opening your heart, confirming your faith and empowering you to bear his loving witness.  

Amen.