The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus is not all that different in some ways from our own journeys with Jesus – and neither is all that different from the Beatles song for which this sermon is titled. In all three cases, the journey is not a direct one nor is it brief. Yet in all three cases, the journey leads to the same place again and again.
The story opens with a comment that two disciples were on the road to Emmaus, a town a few miles from Jerusalem. This is on the same Sunday on which Jesus rose from the dead. He has already appeared to Mary and has said He will meet the disciples in Galilee. So it makes sense that at least some of the disciples would be walking on a road. It makes far less sense that they’d be on the road to Emmaus. See, Galilee is almost directly north of Jerusalem, whereas Emmaus is almost directly east of Jerusalem. If the disciples were headed toward Galilee to see the Lord, they were taking a most curious and round about route.
We often do that in our faith journeys, don’t we? We have a good idea of where we are supposed to go, but we take a different way. Sometimes we are trying to delay the inevitable. Sometimes we are simply planning to make a few stops along the way. Often, we are trying to run from the truth, to run from God. Even if we intend to end up where God calls us to be, we don’t necessarily take the most direct route. Often, too, we have to take the same road again and again to be led back the way God wants us to go. Just like the words in the Beatles song - The long and winding road That leads to your door Will never disappear I’ve seen that road before It always leads me here Lead me to your door.
That’s what Jesus does in the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. He walks with them, talking with them about the events that had taken place in Jerusalem, but He is really leading them. Can you imagine the scene? The Lord approaches and asks what’s going on - as if He has no idea what has happened, though He, alone, lived each and every moment of it. The disciples, who are headed in the wrong direction, do not notice the presence of God, do not recognize it is God who is speaking to them. They assume it is just a stranger, nothing special. They are sad because they believe that it’s too late, and they are so caught up in their own lives, their own emotions that they cannot see the Truth even right in front of their very eyes. They cannot see the hope and the grace. They are stuck in the thinking “Redemption is no longer possible.” And this despite having been told Jesus was raised from the dead and having the empty tomb affirmed by other disciples. They just cannot accept the grace and mercy, cannot accept the reality of the situation.
We get like that. We go through life, following our own paths, and fail to notice when God is in our midst, fail to recognize when God speaks to us. We assume the advice or counsel of a friend or parent is just routine, we assume that when things fall into place it is only luck. We think that the barriers to the things we want or the places we’d like to go just mean we need to work harder, push farther. We get so caught up in our own lives that we don’t see the Truth. We lose sight of hope and grace that are right in front of our eyes. We do this so often and find ourselves in the same place, over and over again. We may even get so discouraged we think redemption is no longer possible – that what we have has taken us so far from God’s grace that there is no hope left. Those times are like the wild, windy nights of the song washed away by rain and leaving behind a pool of tears. We, like the disciples, are downcast at these times, crying for the day, so to speak. We, like the disciples, are left feeling bereft and a bit lost, needing someone to show us the right way. As the song puts it, “Why leave me standing here? Let me know the way.”
Yet the song, like the Scriptures, reminds us that it is not too late. The road always leads to the same place, God always seeks to draw us back to Himself. Wild, windy nights, rainy days can leave us feeling battered and tossed about, lost and alone, and yet they eventually lead us back to where we belong – to our faith and to the things of faith. Hardship is often what drives us back to the church, to our faith, to the Word. And always when we return, God is here, waiting for us to recognize Him, to realize He’s been with us all along, to offer once again the bread of life, the cup of salvation, redemption in its purest form. Always when we come back, we find that God is the one who has tried many times, who is simply waiting to be let in. No matter how long we leave Him standing there, He will always be waiting to welcome us back.
That’s true for the disciples, too. After they have told all the events of the crucifixion and the hope that was now dashed, taking a journey of seven miles on foot to do so, God reaches out to them again, teaching them the stories of the promised Messiah and the good that would come with Him – like the story from Jeremiah that Jim read for us this morning. The lesson is not a new one – it is the same lesson, the same door that God has always offered into heaven. The door to salvation found in the Scriptures. Jesus teaches them the old lessons that pointed out all the He would have to suffer. Jesus used the Scriptures we now know as the Old Testament to point out that all they had prophesied had come true in Him. And still these disciples didn’t recognize Him. It is as if He is the one singing “Don’t leave me standing here.” Yet the disciples have no idea that He is right there.
Finally, when the disciples invite the Lord to stay with them, when they offer hospitality and share a meal, their eyes are opened, like the opening of a long closed door. God has waited patiently for the door to their hearts to be opened and when it is, the promises are revealed as being fulfilled. They recognize God in their midst. After they have seen the Truth, they realize that He was with them all, along.
But the story ends with an interesting view of the disciples. They take credit for “knowing all along” in some mysterious way. They reinvent history to make themselves appear more in tune with God’s presence than they really were. Surely, they give credit to the Lord for making their hearts burn with the teaching of the Scriptures, but they also cannot humble themselves enough to give all the credit to God. They speak to each other as if they had some special insight. And we do that, too.
How often have we managed to become lax in our church attendance, ignored opportunities to participate, allowed our Bibles to gather dust? And how often, when we recognize the incontrovertible Truth of God’s constant presence, we try to say we have been more faithful than we really have, more aware of God’s presence, more immersed in our faith? Yet God does not fault us or grow angry with us, any more than Jesus did with the disciples. Instead, He patiently teaches us the old lessons again, the same ones we’ve studied before, relearning the same lessons we once knew. And we are right back in the same place, having journeyed yet again on the long winding road to a renewal of our faith, just as the disciples who walked the road to Emmaus, headed in the wrong direction but pulled back to the right way by the Lord who loved them enough to journey with them and teach them the same lessons again. How quick we are to close that door once again, to have to travel that long winding road again to get to the place where we are supposed to be.
Even so, no matter how many times we travel that same road, no matter how many times we open that door only to shut it again all too soon, God’s door and the road that leads to him will never disappear. He will never give up on us. He will never leave us alone or allow us to go too far in the wrong direction without reaching out to correct us, to set us back on the path He has planned for us. God never stops seeking us, never stops His love song to us asking us to let Him in. The only question that remains is this: Are we going to leave Him standing there or are we going to open the door?