Road to Emmaus

 Luke is a master storyteller. There is so much drama and tension in this account. A very human story of loss, confusion, suspense, realisation… and then an exuberant flurry of excitement and activity. A real rollercoaster of emotions.

It’s told as a physical journey and the narrative contains so much movement and dynamics. There is lots of coming and going, travelling, walking, stopping and rushing.

Such a dynamic and exciting passage. 

The framing of these disciples being on a journey fits with the wider theme of Luke’s gospel, in which he has organised the whole central section of his gospel, Jesus’ teaching and ministry, as part of a journey to Jerusalem from Luke 9 to 19.

 
The central question that Luke poses in his gospel is whether the disciples will follow Jesus on that journey both physically and spiritually. 

But here it’s a couple of disciples rather than Jesus who are on a journey, in many senses in the wrong direction, going away from Jerusalem and it is Jesus who joins them, the question here is; will they continue, or stop and change direction back to Jerusalem?
 

We are told simply; “that same day, there were two of them”, two disciples, not part of the 11, but two who were close to Jesus – ‘that same day’ being the resurrection Sunday. 
 

You may, like me, have assumed these were two men (we are only told later in the story that one was a man, Cleopas). It seems to me most likely that the other was his wife, Mary, whom we are told was present with the other Marys at Jesus’ death. They would most likely have been journeying back home to Emmaus a few miles away… and they were in sorrow and confusion. 
 

We read they are talking intently about what they have just experienced, Mary perhaps relaying to Cleopas what her friend Mary had witnessed in the garden that very morning, and trying to persuade him, or even to persuade herself, that it was true. Almost not daring to believe it, having seen him die on the cross.
 

And we read that Jesus came and walked alongside them – a beautiful picture. I love Jesus’ patience with them, and I love that Jesus’ default is to ask questions! 
 

“Talk to me, share what’s on your hearts”. He wants us to open up to him as he walks with us on our difficult journeys.

They didn’t recognise him, perhaps too caught up in their own issues and concerns. After all they were devastated. “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem not to know what’s happened here in these days?” 
 

Jesus probably couldn’t help a wry smile when they said this. He was of course the only one who knew exactly what happened here in these days.
 

What things? He says, gently and skilfully playing along with the conversation, encouraging them to reveal their hearts. 
 

Jesus longs for us to tell Him what is on our hearts, even though He already knows. There is great value, power, release for us in saying it to Him.
 

This is the central invitation to us - an invitation to talk to Jesus about the events of our lives, to be conscious of Him walking with us. Then, we give Him space and time to enable us to see the pieces of our lives reworked.  
 

All the pieces of our lives are still there, even the hard and bitter ones… about pain, death, misunderstanding, suffering, loneliness, but they can be re-ordered only with Jesus at the centre.
 

Our lives may seem broken in places, but when we include Jesus in the picture, they can be redeemed and restored in His greater redemptive story.
 

You see, while they were walking, Jesus takes them back to the wider story, he interprets the scriptures and shows them, not that God would redeem Israel of their suffering but that he would redeem them through his suffering. 
 

How true when we look back over our lives, I bet the times when you have known God’s closeness, his faithfulness is when you have come through a time of suffering. We so often only see this in retrospect. E.g. Footprints poem.
 

Initially, they do not recognise Him. They did not recognise God’s redemptive story. How much of life do we go through, even with Jesus walking alongside us, and not recognise either Him or our place in this wider story? 
 

How often are we confused, downcast, much like Cleopas and his wife, things not going our way and we do not recognise Jesus in our situation?

We perhaps know in our heads that he is always with us and promises that he will never leave or abandon us, but we don’t act like it. We don’t live like it’s true. 

This story is a powerful encouragement to pray, to read scripture, to call on His Spirit to reveal knowledge, truth, guidance, comfort to us as we walk. 
 

What happened when they did properly hear the words of Jesus…their hearts burned within them! What a great image.

Only when we acknowledge Jesus himself walking this road alongside us, when we tell him about our confusion, our pain, our loneliness will we feel him burn within us.

This couple have journeyed from the angst of “but we had hoped”, to feeling their hearts burn within them… which caused them immediately to turn round and return and share the great news and declare “It is true! The Lord has risen”. 

For when we fully grasp the significance of that in our lives, everything is changed.

We live much of our lives amongst death’s cold ashes, perhaps the challenge today is to recognise Jesus alongside us, our eyes opened to Him…. and feel our hearts burn within us.

Richard