The Twice-Traveled Road
Sermon
An Idle Tale Becomes Good News
Messages On Lent And Easter Themes
Two people, possibly a husband and wife, had been in Jerusalem during that tragic weekend when Jesus was crucified, and now had decided to return to their home. They lived in the village of Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. But what a long walk that must have seemed that day! They walked with heavy hearts, with so much on their minds.
Maybe that was one reason why they did not recognize this man who joined them on the road and walked along with them. Maybe they did not recognize him because they had no expectation of seeing him, or they were blinded by their grief. Preoccupation can cloud one's mind and affect one's vision; were they so preoccupied with their sorrow and the perplexing news of the empty tomb that their powers of recognition were made dormant?
We don't know the reasons for their not recognizing him; we only know that they did not. It was a Stranger who was walking with them, someone they did not know. Yet they felt comfortable enough with him to share the deepest concern of their lives as they walked along together.
The Road Away From What Might Have Been
These two people, leaving Jerusalem, were walking away from what might have been. "But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel," they said to this Stranger.
That was what might have been, but was not. During much of their long history, the Hebrew people had been subject to other nations. They had known very little real freedom. But for centuries they had been longing for such, and cherishing the hope that a king would arise who would lead them to victory over their enemies and establish a strong and righteous nation for them. Like Ernest in Hawthorne's story of "The Great Stone Face," they had thrilled with anticipation as one person after another came along seeming to possess the possibilities of the deliverance they longed for. But again and again their hopes had been demolished.
The hopes revived once again when Jesus began his public ministry. Surely now the Redeemer of Israel had really come. At one point, the Gospel of John tells us, some "were about to come and take him by force to make him king" (John 6:15). Others became disillusioned when they realized that Jesus had other goals and purposes than the ones they held. Then when his enemies put him to death, the last bit of hope to which they had clung died with him. "We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel," but he wasn't. So two days after his crucifixion, these friends started home, walking away from what might have been.
Is that experience foreign to you? Have you never found yourself walking away from what might have been?
Here is a relationship that might have been beautiful, enriching, fulfilling, but something happens and you are left with only the shattered hope of what might have been. A baby is born, and two parents are filled with joy until they realize that their child will never have a healthy body or a normal mind. From then on they have to live with the broken dream of what might have been. Or the child grows into youth or young adulthood, and somehow the parents' commendable values and goals never become his or hers. The consequences are deplorable, perhaps even tragic, and the parents walk the road to Emmaus nursing the fractured dreams of what might have been.
So often events outside your control touch and change your life. An accident occurs, a disease strikes, a crime is committed, and life is never the same again. Things might have been so different, but that possibility is gone now, and you are walking away from what might have been.
As a young man Jesse Stuart was a creative and innovative educator in the mountains of his native Kentucky. But he ran into so much opposition that after a few years he found himself jobless and had to leave Kentucky to get a job in education. He wrote that as he crossed the Mason-Dixon Line, his ideas of helping to educate his own people "were shineless stars in a background of memory."1 He was walking away from what might have been.
That's part of what this Stranger encountered on the road to Emmaus: broken dreams, frustrated hopes, two people walking away from what might have been.
A Road Walked In Perplexity
Those two disciples were walking not only in disappointment; they were walking also in perplexity. "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" this Stranger asked the disciples. They were so flabbergasted they stopped, "looking sad." One of them, whose name was Cleopas, asked, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" The Stranger responded, "What things?" They told him then about Jesus being crucified and about the unconfirmed news of the empty tomb.
They did not know what to believe about this. In their minds there was a mixture of hope and fear, of bewilderment and wonder, of love and grief, of doubt and faith.
So much of life is like that. It is filled with ambiguity, indefiniteness, uncertainty, and sometimes that is disconcerting, maybe even painful. Life would be so much simpler if we never had to be uncertain about anything.
That is one reason why Adolf Hitler had the power he did. He spoke with definiteness, with authority. He was both passionate and dogmatic. You did not have to wonder what to think or to do; he told you. And soon a whole nation was under the spell of his personality and his mind.
That is also why some religious leaders, who are out on what some of us call the fringes, attract people as they do. There is no wavering in their message. They speak as if they know exactly what the truth is, what everybody ought to do, and what is necessary to create the kind of world they think we ought to have. They leave no room at all for differences of opinion. They give no indication of thinking they might be wrong about anything, and many, wanting that kind of certainty, latch on to everything they say.
But life is not always that simple, the issues are not always that clear, the answers are not always that definite. This means that we often have to live with perplexity, with uncertainty, with ambiguity. This is not to say that there is no place for conviction and definiteness of belief. But it is to say that we should never be surprised or disturbed when we discover within ourselves a blending of faith and doubt, of love and grief, of hope and fear, of bewilderment and wonder.
All of this was within those two disciples going from Jerusalem to Emmaus that day, and may very well be within us today, too.
Companionship On The Road
But then something happened on that road that changed their lives forever. The living Christ joined them and walked and talked with them. For the rest of the way, they walked that road in companionship with him. It was only later that they realized the full significance of what had happened, but even then they sensed that something momentous was taking place.
At first they did not know who he was. In fact, not until they had reached their destination and had sat down to eat together did they realize who their Companion had been. Then as they thought about that walk, they said, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"
The idea of "burning hearts" may have negative connotations for us, but it did not for these persons. For them it was more like what John Wesley meant when he wrote of his heart being "strangely warmed." On that walk they had experienced a quality of fellowship that had a lifting, renewing, enervating influence in their lives.
That was because of what Christ brought with him. He did not come, as he never comes, with empty hands. He brought instruction, for one thing. He opened the scriptures to them so that they saw them in a new light. The scriptures came to have meaning for them they had never had before.
But he brought more than instruction. He brought himself. True, for a time they did not know it was he, but still he blessed them. They did not know who he was, but they knew he was giving them something they very much needed.
Graham Greene tells about a man who could come into a room full of people and you wouldn't notice his coming, but you would notice that the whole atmosphere of a discussion had quietly altered, and that even the relations of one guest to another had changed. He says that no one any longer would be talking for effect, and "when you looked round for an explanation, there he was -- complete honesty born of complete experience had entered the room and unobtrusively taken a chair."2
Something like this, only infinitely greater, had happened when Jesus joined those two people on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They thought he did not know what they knew, but before long they sensed that the very atmosphere of their lives was being changed. They still didn't know it, but he was the One they had hoped would redeem Israel; now they found themselves being redeemed. He had been raised from death; now he was raising them from another kind of death to a new kind and quality of life.
A Road Traveled With Good News
I wonder if anywhere on that road between Jerusalem and Emmaus these disciples asked this Stranger who he was. Perhaps not. But when they sat down to eat together and Jesus blessed and broke bread for them, they suddenly realized who he was. He was the Friend they had lost, their Lord who had been crucified, and now he had been raised to new life.
Then all of a sudden he was gone, "vanished out of their sight." What did they do then? Begin to nurse their wounds again, to doubt the reality of what had happened? No, they were so excited that they just had to share their good news with others. So they started back to Jerusalem! It was seven miles or more, but that didn't matter. They had wonderful news to share with dear friends, and the lateness of the hour and the distance to be traveled were irrelevant.
When they arrived in Jerusalem, they "found the eleven and their companions gathered together." They were told, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" Then these travelers shared their good news: "They told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of bread."
They realized that what had happened was not for private consumption, but was good news to be shared with anyone who would listen. I wonder if they remembered that story in their scriptures where four leprous men had found a besieging army's camp deserted but with plentiful rations left behind. At first they had thought to hide and hoard as much as they could for themselves, but then they came to the realization that this news needed to be shared. So they said, "This is a day of good news; if we are silent and wait until the morning light, we will be found guilty; therefore let us go and tell the king's household." And they did (2 Kings 7).
I don't know whether they thought about that story, or not. But I do know they realized this news had to be shared. So the road they had just walked, in disappointment, in perplexity, traveling away from what might have been, they now walked with a lighter and quicker step because they had glorious good news to tell. And from that time until this, people who have come to know the living Christ have traveled all kinds of roads sharing that good news with others.
____________
1. Jesse Stuart, The Thread That Runs So True (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949, 1958), p. 270.
2. Graham Greene, Ways of Escape (New York: Washington Square Press, 1963; copyright 1980 by Graham Greene), pp. 26-27.
Maybe that was one reason why they did not recognize this man who joined them on the road and walked along with them. Maybe they did not recognize him because they had no expectation of seeing him, or they were blinded by their grief. Preoccupation can cloud one's mind and affect one's vision; were they so preoccupied with their sorrow and the perplexing news of the empty tomb that their powers of recognition were made dormant?
We don't know the reasons for their not recognizing him; we only know that they did not. It was a Stranger who was walking with them, someone they did not know. Yet they felt comfortable enough with him to share the deepest concern of their lives as they walked along together.
The Road Away From What Might Have Been
These two people, leaving Jerusalem, were walking away from what might have been. "But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel," they said to this Stranger.
That was what might have been, but was not. During much of their long history, the Hebrew people had been subject to other nations. They had known very little real freedom. But for centuries they had been longing for such, and cherishing the hope that a king would arise who would lead them to victory over their enemies and establish a strong and righteous nation for them. Like Ernest in Hawthorne's story of "The Great Stone Face," they had thrilled with anticipation as one person after another came along seeming to possess the possibilities of the deliverance they longed for. But again and again their hopes had been demolished.
The hopes revived once again when Jesus began his public ministry. Surely now the Redeemer of Israel had really come. At one point, the Gospel of John tells us, some "were about to come and take him by force to make him king" (John 6:15). Others became disillusioned when they realized that Jesus had other goals and purposes than the ones they held. Then when his enemies put him to death, the last bit of hope to which they had clung died with him. "We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel," but he wasn't. So two days after his crucifixion, these friends started home, walking away from what might have been.
Is that experience foreign to you? Have you never found yourself walking away from what might have been?
Here is a relationship that might have been beautiful, enriching, fulfilling, but something happens and you are left with only the shattered hope of what might have been. A baby is born, and two parents are filled with joy until they realize that their child will never have a healthy body or a normal mind. From then on they have to live with the broken dream of what might have been. Or the child grows into youth or young adulthood, and somehow the parents' commendable values and goals never become his or hers. The consequences are deplorable, perhaps even tragic, and the parents walk the road to Emmaus nursing the fractured dreams of what might have been.
So often events outside your control touch and change your life. An accident occurs, a disease strikes, a crime is committed, and life is never the same again. Things might have been so different, but that possibility is gone now, and you are walking away from what might have been.
As a young man Jesse Stuart was a creative and innovative educator in the mountains of his native Kentucky. But he ran into so much opposition that after a few years he found himself jobless and had to leave Kentucky to get a job in education. He wrote that as he crossed the Mason-Dixon Line, his ideas of helping to educate his own people "were shineless stars in a background of memory."1 He was walking away from what might have been.
That's part of what this Stranger encountered on the road to Emmaus: broken dreams, frustrated hopes, two people walking away from what might have been.
A Road Walked In Perplexity
Those two disciples were walking not only in disappointment; they were walking also in perplexity. "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" this Stranger asked the disciples. They were so flabbergasted they stopped, "looking sad." One of them, whose name was Cleopas, asked, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" The Stranger responded, "What things?" They told him then about Jesus being crucified and about the unconfirmed news of the empty tomb.
They did not know what to believe about this. In their minds there was a mixture of hope and fear, of bewilderment and wonder, of love and grief, of doubt and faith.
So much of life is like that. It is filled with ambiguity, indefiniteness, uncertainty, and sometimes that is disconcerting, maybe even painful. Life would be so much simpler if we never had to be uncertain about anything.
That is one reason why Adolf Hitler had the power he did. He spoke with definiteness, with authority. He was both passionate and dogmatic. You did not have to wonder what to think or to do; he told you. And soon a whole nation was under the spell of his personality and his mind.
That is also why some religious leaders, who are out on what some of us call the fringes, attract people as they do. There is no wavering in their message. They speak as if they know exactly what the truth is, what everybody ought to do, and what is necessary to create the kind of world they think we ought to have. They leave no room at all for differences of opinion. They give no indication of thinking they might be wrong about anything, and many, wanting that kind of certainty, latch on to everything they say.
But life is not always that simple, the issues are not always that clear, the answers are not always that definite. This means that we often have to live with perplexity, with uncertainty, with ambiguity. This is not to say that there is no place for conviction and definiteness of belief. But it is to say that we should never be surprised or disturbed when we discover within ourselves a blending of faith and doubt, of love and grief, of hope and fear, of bewilderment and wonder.
All of this was within those two disciples going from Jerusalem to Emmaus that day, and may very well be within us today, too.
Companionship On The Road
But then something happened on that road that changed their lives forever. The living Christ joined them and walked and talked with them. For the rest of the way, they walked that road in companionship with him. It was only later that they realized the full significance of what had happened, but even then they sensed that something momentous was taking place.
At first they did not know who he was. In fact, not until they had reached their destination and had sat down to eat together did they realize who their Companion had been. Then as they thought about that walk, they said, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"
The idea of "burning hearts" may have negative connotations for us, but it did not for these persons. For them it was more like what John Wesley meant when he wrote of his heart being "strangely warmed." On that walk they had experienced a quality of fellowship that had a lifting, renewing, enervating influence in their lives.
That was because of what Christ brought with him. He did not come, as he never comes, with empty hands. He brought instruction, for one thing. He opened the scriptures to them so that they saw them in a new light. The scriptures came to have meaning for them they had never had before.
But he brought more than instruction. He brought himself. True, for a time they did not know it was he, but still he blessed them. They did not know who he was, but they knew he was giving them something they very much needed.
Graham Greene tells about a man who could come into a room full of people and you wouldn't notice his coming, but you would notice that the whole atmosphere of a discussion had quietly altered, and that even the relations of one guest to another had changed. He says that no one any longer would be talking for effect, and "when you looked round for an explanation, there he was -- complete honesty born of complete experience had entered the room and unobtrusively taken a chair."2
Something like this, only infinitely greater, had happened when Jesus joined those two people on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They thought he did not know what they knew, but before long they sensed that the very atmosphere of their lives was being changed. They still didn't know it, but he was the One they had hoped would redeem Israel; now they found themselves being redeemed. He had been raised from death; now he was raising them from another kind of death to a new kind and quality of life.
A Road Traveled With Good News
I wonder if anywhere on that road between Jerusalem and Emmaus these disciples asked this Stranger who he was. Perhaps not. But when they sat down to eat together and Jesus blessed and broke bread for them, they suddenly realized who he was. He was the Friend they had lost, their Lord who had been crucified, and now he had been raised to new life.
Then all of a sudden he was gone, "vanished out of their sight." What did they do then? Begin to nurse their wounds again, to doubt the reality of what had happened? No, they were so excited that they just had to share their good news with others. So they started back to Jerusalem! It was seven miles or more, but that didn't matter. They had wonderful news to share with dear friends, and the lateness of the hour and the distance to be traveled were irrelevant.
When they arrived in Jerusalem, they "found the eleven and their companions gathered together." They were told, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" Then these travelers shared their good news: "They told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of bread."
They realized that what had happened was not for private consumption, but was good news to be shared with anyone who would listen. I wonder if they remembered that story in their scriptures where four leprous men had found a besieging army's camp deserted but with plentiful rations left behind. At first they had thought to hide and hoard as much as they could for themselves, but then they came to the realization that this news needed to be shared. So they said, "This is a day of good news; if we are silent and wait until the morning light, we will be found guilty; therefore let us go and tell the king's household." And they did (2 Kings 7).
I don't know whether they thought about that story, or not. But I do know they realized this news had to be shared. So the road they had just walked, in disappointment, in perplexity, traveling away from what might have been, they now walked with a lighter and quicker step because they had glorious good news to tell. And from that time until this, people who have come to know the living Christ have traveled all kinds of roads sharing that good news with others.
____________
1. Jesse Stuart, The Thread That Runs So True (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949, 1958), p. 270.
2. Graham Greene, Ways of Escape (New York: Washington Square Press, 1963; copyright 1980 by Graham Greene), pp. 26-27.
