3rd Sunday of Easter - Recognizing Jesus on our Emmaus road

​There is a road in the Gospel of Luke that I think most of us have walked. We may not know it by name, but we know it by feel. It is seven miles long, it leads away from Jerusalem, and it is walked by two people whose hope has just been buried in a tomb.
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Emmaus. The road to Emmaus.

Cleopas and his companion are not running away in cowardice. They are simply doing what grief does to us: it moves our feet. It pulls us away from the place where the thing we loved was lost. They had believed, as Cleopas tells the stranger, that Jesus was "the one who would redeem Israel." And now he was dead. And yes, some of the women had gone to the tomb and found it empty, had even reported a vision of angels — but as Cleopas admits: "him they did not see." And so they walk.
Maybe you know this road. Not in Judea — but in your own life. The diagnosis that changed everything, or the marriage that fell apart, the child who drifted away, the prayer you lifted up for years that seemed to vanish into silence. The faith that once felt so alive and now feels like a language you've half-forgotten. That is the Emmaus road. Seven miles of disappointment. Seven miles of trying to make sense of what God didn't seem to do.
And here is the staggering thing Saint Luke tells us.
"And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them."
He drew near. He sought them out. They did not find Jesus — Jesus found them. He fell into step beside two people who had given up, who were walking away, who "were prevented from recognizing him." And he didn't announce himself. He didn't say, "Stop — it's me. Turn around." He simply walked with them in their confusion and asked: "What are you discussing as you walk along?"
What a question. The Risen Lord of history asking a heartbroken disciple: what's on your mind? He let Cleopas pour it all out:  the hopes, the crucifixion, the women's report that they couldn't bring themselves to believe. Jesus listened. He walked their road with them before he revealed himself on it.
This is who the risen Christ is. He is not waiting for us to clean ourselves up before he approaches. He is not standing at a distance, arms folded, waiting for us to find our way back to joy before he will speak to us. He seeks us. He finds us on the road we are actually walking, not the road we wish we were on. As we heard from the First Letter of Peter this morning: we were ransomed "with the precious blood of Christ" — a God who spends himself like that does not abandon us to our grief.

But then something remarkable happens. Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus "interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures."
The first place the risen Lord makes himself known is in the Word. He opens the Scriptures to them on the road. And something happens inside them — they will name it later: "Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?"

My friends, that burning heart is not merely a first-century memory. It is what the Word of God is meant to do to us right now. Every time we gather and these Scriptures are proclaimed, the Risen Christ is doing what he did on the road to Emmaus. He is walking with us. He is speaking to us. He is opening himself to us through every page. The question is whether we are listening the way those two disciples listened — like people on a desperate road, hungry for a word that is true.

We sometimes treat the Liturgy of the Word like a prelude. Like the warm-up act before the main event. But Jesus was already present on the road, in the Word, before the breaking of the bread. Don't miss him there. Come to Scripture the way a thirsty person comes to water. Come hungry. Come willing to let your heart burn.

And then they reach Emmaus. He makes as if to go on, but they urge him — "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over." And he stays. He takes his place at table with them. And then: "he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them." "With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him."
There it is. The moment of recognition. And where does it happen? At the table. In the breaking of the bread. Luke uses those words — the breaking of the bread — deliberately. His first readers would have heard immediately what he meant. This is the Eucharist.
We are not meant to read this passage and think: how wonderful for them. We are meant to read it and look up at this altar. Because what happened in that house in Emmaus happens at every Mass. The same Risen Lord takes bread, speaks the words of blessing, breaks it, and gives it to us. And if we have the eyes of faith, we can say with those first disciples: I have seen the Lord.
The Eucharist is not a symbol of Jesus. It is not a fond memorial of the Last Supper. It is the real presence of the Risen Christ — the same Christ who walked that road, the same Christ who is walking yours right now. He gives himself to us under the appearance of bread and wine because he knows we are fragile, because he knows we need him close, because the road is long and the day is far spent and we grow weary.

This is the heart of our faith. He is not distant. He is not absent. He is as near as the Word that is proclaimed and as close as the Bread that is broken.
And one more thing. After he vanishes from their sight, those two disciples do not linger in Emmaus. The Scripture tells us they "set out at once" — that same hour, in the dark, back to Jerusalem. Back to the very place they had fled. The encounter with the Risen Lord does not leave us paralyzed. It sends us. It turns us around. We come to this table broken, and we leave it as witnesses.
Whatever road you are walking this week — whatever Emmaus you are trudging toward — know this: you are not walking it alone. He has already drawn near. He is already in step beside you. He is speaking to you in the Word. He will meet you at his table.
Remember, we do not find Jesus. Jesus finds us. He always has. He always will.

Peace.

​Deacon Michel