Easter 3 Year A

Acts 2:14a,36-41, Luke24:13-35

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O God our Strength and our Redeemer.

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Many of you will know that in the Anglican church, we follow a three year series of readings, so, each set of readings comes around every three years. Sometimes when a familiar passage comes up, I look back to see what I said the last time I preached on it – where was my mind and heart? What was happening in our world? 

 

And when I looked back this week, I realised I last preached on this story of Jesus meeting the disciples on the road to Emmaus six years ago, in late April 2020, on zoom.

 

If you remember that time, we were about a month into our first national Level 4 covid lockdown – we were waiting in 1m spaced queues outside our local dairy, going for walks and spotting teddy bears in our neighbours’ windows, living in our bubbles… Covid was still a huge and frightening unknown – international media had brought us coverage of refrigerated morgue trucks parked outside New York hospitals and military convoys winding through the villages of Italy. Our world had been turned upside down very fast, and we were living through huge uncertainty – it was a very anxious time. 

 

And what spoke to me six years ago in the story of Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus was their trauma. Their world too had been turned upside down. Jesus had died a violent death at the hands of the authorities.

 

They weren’t simply sad. Trauma has left them disoriented, overwhelmed, and unable to make sense of what’s happened. The one they had trusted, the one they’d hoped in, had been killed – the future they’d imagined had collapsed. When the stranger comes alongside them on the road, and asks them what they’re talking about, we’re told they stand still, looking sad – perhaps it’s hard for them to speak. In contemporary language, we’d say they had been traumatised.

 

And I remember suggesting, six years ago, that perhaps we needed to stay with them on the road a little longer, before rushing too quickly to resurrection, to the familiar ending of the story.

 

As we come back to this story now, six years later, I have the same sense, but for different reasons.

 

Because we’re not living through an acute shock like we were six years ago. But we are living through a time of huge uncertainty and slow-moving stress, all of which can have a powerful psychological impact on us. Day after day, we’re hearing news of the war in the Middle East, and commentary about all the interrelated impacts that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz will have on our lives. And there’s so much news and commentary, and so much sheer insanity in the mix, that it’s hard to keep up. When we woke up yesterday, the Strait had been opened, but it was closed again before we went to bed. Our fuel prices have risen alarmingly fast, and it seems very likely that the prices of goods and services, including groceries, will start rising as well. And from my position of relative privilege, I know that this will be much harsher for many in our society.

 

On the surface, life is still much more normal than it was for us three years ago. But beneath the surface, there is uncertainty: we don’t know how serious this will get – we don’t know how long it might last – we don’t know how it might impact us personally. There is also a lack of control: the global systems involved are massively complex, and there are chaotic forces at work; it’s easy to feel helpless and vulnerable. And lastly, the situation is ongoing with no resolution in sight, and the news keeps changing. There is no respite, no end point.

 

How then should we live, as people of faith? What does the story of the road to Emmaus have to offer us? 

 

One of the striking things about this story is the moment in which it’s set. It doesn’t happen in a moment of resolution or clarity. The worst has already happened – Jesus has been crucified – but the future is still completely unknown. Rumors of resurrection have started to circulate, but no one knows what to make of them. Nothing is resolved. Cleopas and his friend are living in an in-between time.

 

And that is where Jesus meets them.

 

He doesn’t wait for a moment of peace and certainty. He doesn’t appear in a blaze of glory that removes all their confusion and fear. He comes alongside them on the road, as they are – disoriented, uncertain, trying to make sense of things – and he walks along with them. 

 

But they don’t recognise him. Simply because they don’t yet know how to see.

 

This seems like one of the most important things that the story of the road to Emmaus offers us, at a time like this. It reminds us that the presence of Christ isn’t dependent on our clarity, or our sense of calm or control, or our ability to make sense of what’s happening around us. Christ is present in the midst of uncertainty – often unrecognised, but present nonetheless. 

 

The second thing the story shows us is what Cleopas and his friend do, in the midst of their uncertainty. They keep walking, and talking… they share their confusion, their grief, their broken hopes. They try to make sense of their experience together. And in that very ordinary human activity – walking and talking – Christ comes alongside them. 

 

I think that’s worth us noticing today. Because when we’re living with this kind of slow-moving unknown and the anxieties that can create in us, the temptation is to become overwhelmed by it – to constantly scan the news and try and get ahead of what might happen, doomscrolling on our media – or otherwise, to shut down and disengage completely.

 

But Cleopas and his friend on the road offer us a different way. They invite us to keep walking – to keep attending to the ordinary rhythms of our lives. To keep talking and sharing with one another how we’re doing, even when it feels sad – as they did – or uncertain. In other words – to stay connected, rather than withdrawing into isolation or fear. 

 

And then, in time, we see that something begins to shift. As Jesus walks with them, he opens the scriptures to them. He helps them to see their story – and their present moment – within the larger story of God’s faithfulness. But still… they don’t fully recognise him.

 

It’s only later, when they sit down together at table, when he takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them, that their eyes are opened. 

 

Jesus is made known to them in the breaking of the bread. 

 

And this speaks directly to us today.

 

Because it tells us that in the midst of uncertainty, we’re not left to find our own way alone. Christ continues to come to us – in the opening of the scriptures, and in the breaking of the bread. In the life of this community, gathering week by week. In the ordinary, repeated practices of our faith.

 

The promise of the resurrection is not that the ground will suddenly become steady again, or that we will have answers to all our questions. It is rather that Christ walks with us on the road – he walks with us through uncertainty, through grief and sadness, through our confusion. And sometimes, only in hindsight, making himself known.

 

At a time like this, when our world and our normality seem to be fracturing, the call isn’t to try to make sense of it all or to hide from it all, but to remain faithful – faith-filled – in small, steady ways. To keep walking together, to keep talking together, to keep breaking bread together – trusting that Christ is present among us, even if we do not immediately recognise him. 

 

And trusting that, in time, our eyes too will be opened. 

 

Amen.