Luke 24:13-35
Alan Taylor / General Adult
Easter 3A / Luke 24:13–35
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+ In Nomine Jesu +
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Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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Todays message is based on the Gospel reading from Luke 24. The Emmaus disciples encountered Jesus as they traveled from Jerusalem to Emmaus, presumably returning home from the celebration of Passover in Jerusalem. 
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Of all the people who encountered Jesus after His was raised from the dead, the Emmaus  disciples are, for me, the easiest to relate to. Of the others who saw Jesus, its difficult for me to relate to them because their experiences were so miraculous. You may recall, in the Easter Sunday Gospel reading,  Mary Magdalene and another Mary were the first witnesses at the empty tomb. After they arrived there, they felt the earth shake. They saw and heard the angel. When Jesus appeared to them, there was no doubt in their minds that it was Him. Its hard for me to relate to them because of the extraordinary things they saw and heard. In my estimation, its difficult to relate to Thomas too. He was the subject of last Sunday’s reading. Despite his initial unbelief, which I can certainly relate to, Thomas had the unique and somewhat disturbing experience of physically touching Jesus’ wounds, both in His hands and His side.  
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In contrast to the two Marys and to Thomas, this week’s reading introduces us to a couple of disciples who seem rather ordinary. They were among Jesus’ followers, but they weren’t the famous ones. They encountered Jesus, but they didn’t  know it was Him until He was gone. They couldn’t recognize Him when He was standing in front of them and they couldn’t understand the Scriptures right aways even though Jesus explained them to them. 
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Still, Jesus made His way into their lives. He walked with them and sat down and talked with them. He broke bread with them and He gave thanks with them. In the end, He worked the kind of transformation in their lives that He has worked in all of our lives. And so, finally, on this third Sunday in Easter, we meet a couple of disciples with whom we can truly relate.
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In many ways, the experience of the Emmaus disciples is the common experience of all Christians. I would suggest to you, that today’s Gospel reading sketches, in broad strokes, the fundamental flow of the Christian life, from a lack of hope, to finding hope in the Scriptures and in Jesus, to dining with Him at table, and finally, to boldly telling others about Jesus’ impact in our lives. In the remainder of our time this morning, I’d like to address briefly each of those four aspects of Jesus’ encounter with the Emmaus disciples. Again, because their experience is the common experience of all Christians, including you and me.  
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The story for these two disciples began with despair. Like everyone else in Jerusalem, they had heard of Jesus. And they liked what they heard. They thought he was the one who was going to redeem Israel, although they had a very different understanding of what redemption meant. Still, Jesus, they believed, was the One they had been waiting for. But then He was cruelly treated. He suffered and died, and with Him their hopes died. They said, “we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” 
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Dashed hopes are common to all of us. Sometimes, at least for a time, our hopes die even in regard to the goodness and mercy of God. We have nowhere to turn until Jesus makes His way into our lives. 
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Addressing that very issue, C.F.W. Walther, the first President of our Synod, once wrote the following. He said, “No matter how sick a person may be in his soul, the Gospel can heal him. No matter how deeply a person has fallen into the corruption of sin, the Gospel can pull him out. No matter how troubled , frightened, and afflicted a person may be, the Gospel can comfort him. Whatever the condition in which a person finds himself, even if he is convinced that he must perish because of it, the Gospel opposes his despair, saying, “No, as certainly as God lives, He does not want the death of any sinner. You shall not perish, instead, you shall be saved.” Sometimes our hopes are dashed and it is then that we need to hear those comforting assurances of our Lord, to lift us up out of our despair.
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“(Jesus, we are told,) interpreted to (the Emmaus disciples) in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” That must have been quite a Bible study, don’t you think? Beginning with Moses and the prophets, Jesus was giving the disciples a crash course in the Old Testament. The one whose Spirit inspired the prophets in the first place was opening their eyes to see the One of whom they prophesied. Central to the lesson was the necessity of the Messiah’s suffering and glorification.
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It is absolutely essential  for us too, that Jesus open the Scriptures to us, because, as the Scriptures say, “the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” The Bible, and most importantly, the Gospel, is closed to us, until it is opened by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word and Sacraments. As the Apostle says elsewhere, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing, by the word of Christ.” The suffering of Jesus, we come to see, is central to the glory of God. In fact, the moment of Jesus’ greatest glory, was not in His resurrection from the dead. Rather, it was in His suffering on the cross. For, it was there that He reconciled to world to God.  He says as much in His High Priestly prayer in John 17. As He prepared to make His way to the cross, He prayed, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.” The Spirit of God opens the Scriptures to us that might find God’s greatest glory in the cross of His Son, Jesus Christ. 
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“(Jesus, we are told,) was at table with them, (that is, with the Emmaus disciples).” The connections between the meal in this passage and the Lord’s Supper are compelling. This was not the first time Luke describes Jesus blessing, giving thanks, breaking bread, and giving it to His disciples. But even if Luke does not intend for us to think of the Lord’s Supper here, Jesus’ willingness to join these disciples for a meal indicates a commitment to fellowship and community for which you and I long in these days of individuality and separation. 
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It was not until that moment when Jesus broke bread and gave thanks that the Emmaus disciples recognized Him. Jesus brings us together here today. We gather around the table. Here, however, Jesus is both guest and host. We see Him, as it were, in these simple gifts of bread and wine. More than that, we receive what He, and only He, can give us. “This is My body and blood,” He says, “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” 
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From a lack of hope, and even despair, our eyes have been opened to understand the Scriptures, and to find in them our Redeemer, our hope and our salvation. We see Jesus, as it were, in the bread and wine of Holy Communion, and come away from the table renewed in forgiveness, the weight of guilt caused by our sins lifted from our shoulders. 
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Soon the benediction will be given.  And “then (Luke says) they told what had happened on the road.” I think its worth noting that Jesus never told the Emmaus disciples to go back and tell the others about what had happened to them. He didn’t send them to be witnesses; they simply went away from Him and bore witness. They couldn’t help it. Their hearts burned, their feet ran, and their mouths opened. “The Lord is risen, indeed!” they confessed, because this is what the cross and Easter does: It makes confessors of all of us. 
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You may or may not relate to these two disciples from Emmaus the way I have, but their story is compelling. Having lost all hope, Jesus made His way into their lives. He walked with them and sat down with them. He broke bread with them and He gave thanks with them. In the end, He worked the kind of transformation in their lives that He has worked in all of our lives too. And they went away and told others what they h, ad seen and heard. “Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!”
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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.
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+ Soli Deo Gloria +