A Journey to Emmaus

Wednesday in Easter Week

April 5, 2010- Rock Spring United Methodist

Acts 3:1-10

Psalm 105:1-8

Luke 24:13-35

It is possible to experience sensory overload during bright week. The sights, sounds, smells, the wetness of the water, and the many stories…even just the ones that have the setting of Easter morning and Easter evening are enough to keep us worshipping all week. Tonight we return to that first night of Easter and to a story that is as much beloved in as many Christian circles as there are layers of meaning testifying to its significance. It too can send one into sensory overload, but the shock value is not there like some of the other stories….there are no pyrotechnics, no earthquake, no lightning from heaven or the like…the setting is all too familiar to us for it reflects for us the very pattern we enter into every time we gather for worship as God’s people.

Keep in mind there is a journey going on here…these two disciples, whoever they are, are headed somewhere….there’s the movement of the disciples and there’s the movement of the Risen One, alongside, toward them, with them, unrecognized for a time, but present, active, very much alive…the fount of wisdom and light that has always been.

But what happens on that journey is all too familiar to us…so much so that the story really isn’t as romantic after a while as it could be I suppose…it actually kind of seems pretty mundane… we all love those moments when the Risen One does something really out of the ordinary to get our attention… I would love a dollar for every story I’ve heard of someone who has made an Emmaus Walk or Chrysalis journey or the like and had some profound encounter with grace. But the reality is that day after day, week after week, we journey in and out of this place, and not every Sunday is as glorious as Easter, and not every day of our week is filled with bright lights, bell sounds and what seems like Easter glory. I mean, even this coming Sunday has come to be known as ‘low Sunday’….less people will probably be here, and I dare say you’re not busting out the windchimes again to welcome the second Sunday of Easter.

The pattern of this journey, quite sadly, can become something we take for granted… and after a few rounds through the whole thing we just might find ourselves wondering if it even matters at all… after all, why go through all the trouble of all that water stuff and then the bread and the wine? It just makes the service longer…and the Lord knows our real encounter with grace is when we fill our stomachs at dinner time and evaluate how well the preacher did this time around. …and don’t you think for a minute we don’t know it happens. Long before I ever became a preacher I attended many a Sunday dinner where roast preacher was served.

Perhaps the story is as much about teaching us something as it is about reflecting what we understand about this great mystery that is our Christian worship. If you listen closely you can’t help but begin to realize the story is quite familiar…if you get beyond the physical posture of walking the movement of the story is almost straight from the book of worship… the opening of the Scriptures, the proclamation that brings to light the focus of the entirety of Scripture as the looking glass that is Jesus…the Messiah who suffered and died for our salvation. And that same Messiah, the Risen One, hangs around for a while, breaks bread…feeds His kids and makes sure they have what they need to continue on their journey. I mean, when you really begin to understand that we’re going somewhere with all of this, the emphasis on the preacher hitting a home run every Sunday since that’s the main event of the service anyway almost fades a bit into the background…well, it doesn’t fade away, but it really becomes the preparation for the main event.

There’s just nothing like this in all the world. Where else but the church do you have a group of people who can gather together and just like it happens in all these Easter stories have the Risen Lord show up and make himself known? And that being the case, why would you want anything else?

I’ve come to the place in my own spiritual journey that I am afraid that to not come to the Table of the Lord is like telling Him to just stay home and put his healing, reconciling, forgiving, freeing, washing, and feeding energies to work at a more convenient time…and that is so far away from the spirit of this story….the response of these disciples is powerful… remember how it describes them? Hearts burning while the Scriptures are opened to them and they are aided in their understanding. And it is in the breaking of the bread that they finally encounter Him openly and clearly… and it changes them forever.

It will change you too.

There’s nothing like the graciousness of our God who has determined to feed us with his very life week in and week out, and in those times when we’re particularly faithful…even on some of the weekdays too. We break this bread as a constant ‘thank you’ to the One who has given everything for us… and even in our offering our time to do it, the creatures of the bread and the wine, and even paying the electric bill for the building in which we gather to do it, Christ takes our humble offering to Him and offers us all that He is and has back to us in return.

The Emmaus journey is the journey of the church when she is faithful to follow where her Lord is leading. No more the journey of fear and despair. No more the doubting. No more the wondering what has come of all our hopes and dreams. No more the burden of guilt over sin, failure and shortcoming. No more going half way and stopping and going home. No, the journey takes us right into a place of rest and refreshment where having remembered the good things of God we feast on His love, His life, His presence in our midst as the Risen One breaks bread with us, feeding us…making sure we are equipped to continue on the journey of our discipleship…. And this we MUST DO no matter who stands in this pulpit from week to week… and no matter who would raise their voice to oppose it…we have nothing else to offer the world than the hope of Jesus Risen and the window into that reality that the Eucharist truly is.

Oh how my heart burns within me tonight… what a precious gift of grace that Christ has explained himself to us in the Scriptures… and now He invites us to feed on Him in our hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.

Amen.