“We Will Know Him”
Luke 24:13-35
If you’ve ever had your hopes dashed, your heart broken, or lost a dear one long before their time, you know how hard it can be to look someone straight in the eye.
If you’ve tried to stay grounded in faith while the world around you is torn apart by greed and violence, you know how hard it can be to look life straight in the eye.
In those situations, chances are you can hardly stand to even think of God—God the promiser, God the giver, God the seed of hopes and dreams, the wellspring of loves and hearts, God the one who conquered death with love.
And so you start living sideways, because dealing with anything or anyone head-on feels like more than you can bear. Because if you let someone look you straight in the eye, they might see the sadness in your soul. Because if you looked someone straight in the eye, you might dissolve into a puddle of tears.
So you go through life sideways: changing the subject, avoiding eye contact, trying to forget what’s broken inside you, keeping conversations superficial, doing your best to ignore God, refusing to pray.
Sideways is safer, you think. Or at least not as painful. And so you set out in a sideways direction.
Sideways is where Cleopas and his companion are headed. They have had enough of the headlong Jesus way: the way that loves you whether you like it or not; the way that seeks out the lost, the sick, the broken, and the dead; the way that confronts the powers; the way that can get your dreams and your heart hung out to dry.
So devastated are Cleopas and his companion that even hiding behind locked doors has become too much for them. Three days of huddling in grief and fear, and what had it gotten them? Now even Jesus’s body is gone, and the women are telling tales of angels and empty tombs. It’s all so confusing.
Better to get out of that frying pan, they think, before they, too, burn up. And so they set out walking, as if they could just slip out of all that death and danger, as if they could go back to thinking and living as they had before Jesus loved them and made them think anything was possible.
And so they walk side by side, away from their community and all their shared experiences, as if Lazarus had never been raised, as if the 5,000 had not been fed, and Jesus had not stilled the storm. As if all God’s healing and life-giving power had died along with Jesus.
Maybe they’d never seen a spring like this one—how just when you’ve resigned yourself to never-ending winter, the yellow comes back to the willow trees, the peepers start singing, and all manner of things begin budding and blooming and busting out all over.
Or maybe they couldn’t see it.
Maybe, because their eyes had seen so much suffering and pain, a protective film had grown over them.
Maybe, because their hearts had experienced so much disappointment and fear, they were slow to recognize or respond to the gift of Goodness and Life, even when it stood right beside them.
Maybe their world was such a scary mess that they could no longer afford the luxury of hope.
And let’s give Cleopas and his companion a break: Unlike us, they had never before met the Risen Christ.
But they seemed to have forgotten that when God is involved, you just never, never know what’s going to happen.
They had forgotten that God specializes in sideways. That God majors in making a way out of no way. They seem to have forgotten how the Good Shepherd hates to lose even one of her precious sheep, much less two. And that, maybe more than anything, God lovescreating new life, instilling new hope, and revealing in new ways.
And that’s the thing:
Even when we are living sideways, even when we are trying to walk away from life’s pain or uncertainty, especially when we can no longer bear to live with open hearts or look life square in the face, and especially when we feel like we’re walking a sad path all alone, God’s love is going to show up and walk right beside us.
There’s nothing special about the road to Emmaus. The gospel truth is that all roads lead to God’s love and that God’s love will find us and walk beside us no matter which road we’re on.
Chances are that, like Cleo and his companion, we may not recognize a fellow traveler as God’s love with skin on; we may not realize an unexpected situation comes bearing blessings. Chances are that we’re so absorbed in our own suffering, so embarrassed by our own struggles, that we can’t quite bring ourselves to look life straight in the face and to open our hearts to it.
But God’s healing, strengthening, encouraging presence has countless ways to reach us.
Maybe it’s the sweet scent of a tulip magnolia in blossom as we walk by. Maybe it’s the sound of our child’s laughter. Maybe it’s a piece of music that brings us to tears. Maybe it’s shared conversation over a cookies and tea that assures us someone’s got our back. Maybe it’s a phone call, email, or text that lets us know someone is thinking of us.
Or it could be a pope who refuses to stop preaching the gospel of peace and love, even when bullied by the two most powerful men on earth. It could be a quartet of astronauts reminding us during wartime that Earth is all one beautiful, beloved people. It could be entire communities who continue to stand alongside their immigrant neighbors. It could be a caring friend who just listens instead of trying to fix things.
And I’m pretty sure the Spirit is constantly trying to get our attention through our feelings, wanting us to notice how our hearts burn within us or tears spring to our eyes when God’s love is revealed and present with us.
Sometimes, like Cleopas and his friend, we don’t realize what has happened until after the fact.
And still, there was something about the stranger on the road to Emmaus that touched Cleo and the other one. Something about him that made them beg him to stay with them.
The story tells us that their eyes were opened to Jesus when he was at table with them, that they recognized him when he took bread and blessed it and broke it. But I think there is more to it than that.
I think the knowing and being known began when they realized they didn’t want to lose their connection to this stranger. There was just something about him and the way he made them feel. And so they took the risk of opening their broken hearts to him. They invited him in, and asked him to stay.
He did, of course.
And then they stopped walking side by side and sat down at the table, across from one another, where they could really see each other. I think their hearts went from burning to seeing to leaping, and they recognized the Risen Christ when they looked him straight in the eye and he said, “Take, eat. This is God’s love. For you.”
Yes, Christ meets us in the breaking of the bread, but Christ also meets us anywhere, everywhere, and whenever we turn to him, wanting to see and willing to be seen.
We need not be good or sure; we need not be free from sin or free of doubt. We need only to be wide-open and willing, present and welcoming, ready to make room in our days for prayer, room at our tables for an unexpected guest, room in our hearts for Love.
Then, we too will know the Risen Christ.
Yes, we will know Christ in the breaking of the bread. And we will know him in the dependability of each day’s sunrise. We will know him in the setting out and coming home. We will know him in the sacred scriptures, holy sacraments, and the community gathered. We will know him in the side-by-side and how he clears the path ahead of us and promises to be with us always. We will know him in our capacity to hope, despite all the evidence. We will know him in our willingness to love, despite all the risks. We will know him in yellowing goldfinches and greening trees. We will know him in the stranger, the enemy, and in community. We will know him when we decide to live life head-on. We will know him in blessing and giving and sharing.
We will know him in the dimming of the day and the uncertainty of the in between, when we invite Love in.
And when we let the Risen Christ into our hearts, life will never be the same.
Thanks be to God.
