Sermon for April 19, 2026: The Reminder based upon Luke 24:13-35

Luke 24:13-35 The Walk to Emmaus (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)
 
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 

While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 

And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?”
They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” 

He asked them, “What things?”

They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.” 

Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” 

Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.”

So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. 

They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road,  while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. 

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    While I was thinking about today’s scripture, a phrase from a poem popped up in my head: “touch the face of God.” I rooted around in my mind a bit and remembered that it came from a poem Tasha had framed and hanging on her wall when we were dating. It is “High Flight” by John Gillespie McGee Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, - and done a hundred things
you have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
my eager craft through footless halls of air ....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew -
and, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

     McGee, a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, sent these words in a letter to his parents, who had been Christian missionaries. He was a pilot and clearly inspired by his time spent in the air. This poem, in particular, he wrote after a high-altitude test flight. Unfortunately, before he even made it to battle in World War II, he died in a mid-air collision while training.

     I am grateful to McGee’s parents for sharing his poem after his death. It is a lovely meditation on feeling close to the Divine why doing something fairly extraordinary. While I personally don’t enjoy flying very much these days, I can certainly remember a measure of awe the first times I flew in my early 20’s. Particularly when hearing the testimonies of those who have flown in high altitude, I can see where one might equate the extraordinariness of that kind of flight, where one comes close to that which is beyond our Earth, to an encounter with the Divine. It is interesting to compare that kind of awe-inspiring encounter with today’s Scripture, in which two disciples encountered the Divine in a manner far more mundane... a walk to a neighboring village.

     During Eastertide, we usually spend some time in the stories of Jesus encountering his friends for the first time after the resurrection. We also end up skipping around in the different Gospels, too, as they don’t all share the same post-resurrection accounts. This one is in Luke. A little refresher on Luke as we haven’t been here in a while: Luke has Mary’s side of the birth narrative, where she sings that great song about God bringing down the powerful from their thrones and lifting up the lowly. It is also the Gospel where Jesus declares parts of Isaiah to be his mission statement (Lk 4:18-19):

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
To bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To let the oppressed go free,
To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

     Luke is Gospel where the Sermon on the Plain includes blessings for the poor, the hungry, and those who mourn as well as a list of woes to the rich and powerful. It is a Gospel where Jesus shows us a vision of God as one who is directly invested in the everyday well-being of humanity. Even as he was being crucified, Jesus offered mercy to a man being crucified next to him.

     Like the Gospel account of Matthew, Jesus’ women friends are the first disciples to witness the empty tomb and preach on the resurrection. They run and tell their friends that Jesus has risen, but, in a far too familiar pattern, the men don’t believe the women. Well, except for Peter. He went to the tomb to verify it was empty. When he saw that this it was, he believed the women and was amazed. Unlike Matthew, though, Jesus does not appear to the women when they are on the way to the men. The first people to witness the risen Christ are his friends walking to Emmaus.

     Margaret Aymer points out that Luke, which begins with everyday people receiving visits from angels, visits that continue through to the Resurrection, is dedicated to showing “the inbreaking of the holy, to visions of angels, in the everyday affairs of life.” It is good to be reminded that one does not need to fly into orbit to encounter God. We can simply walk down the road. We just might not realize how close to the divine we are at first. These two disciples didn’t. They thought that they were simply talking with a wise and kind stranger.

     These disciples, though they needed extra teaching about the nature of the Messiah from the stranger, had learned two lessons well: share what you have and take care of people. So they invited the stranger to stay with them. The Spirit must have inspired them to take this action, because their hospitality and care prepared them to receive what happened next. The stranger was sitting down to eat and drink with them. He reached out to bless the food, and in that moment, they recognized who he was. While Peter needed to see the empty tomb in order to believe the women, these two disciples needed to see Jesus sharing a blessing to do the same.

     Last week, I spoke of the Gospel of John’s understanding of belief as a relationship bolstered by intimacy. This story in Luke is similar. As Aymer points out in her commentary, it is the intimacy of the table and a shared meal that helps the disciples believe. I think it may be through on-going everyday intimacies that we continue to meet Christ to this day. Rev. Lillian Daniel, Conference Minister of the Michigan Conference, shared a story recently of some strangers who helped her in a particularly Christ-like way.

     In her daily devotional entry, “Shelter in a Storm,” Daniel relates a recent travel mishap. She was not in high altitude training. She was just trying to get home to Michigan on a night full of stormy weather. She ended up partway there, in Houston, late enough at night that the food court was shutting down. Hundreds of other travelers were stuck there, too, with everyone trying to get a new flight or a hotel room. Exhausted and a little desperate, she asked what she calls her “UCC church family” if anyone knew anyone in Houston, Texas.

     Within ten minutes, a colleague had a lead. They had lived in Texas and reached out to friends. Within an hour, two strangers were at the airport to pick Daniel up. They took her to their house and got her into a safe and snug guest room before midnight. Daniel had no idea where her luggage was, so they reached into the collection of toothbrushes they had amassed to send to Back Bay Mission with their church. As Daniel writes, “These people were already preparing for guests, just not in their own house, but all those toothbrushes told me they cared.” The hospitality didn’t stop there.

     Daniel says, “The next morning, they took me to their church where we shared the experience of hearing a strong sermon, moving music in a minor key, the sweetness of cookies, and the beautiful bitterness of a cup of coffee on that dreaded Time Change Sunday—but I had already received the gospel of the good Samaritan when two strangers picked me up in the rain.” The Good Samaritan is another story in Luke 10, by the way. It turns out that strangers, both foreign and divine, do a lot of good in this Gospel.

     It is interesting to me that Daniel references the Good Samaritan in this devotional, which was actually written to reflect on Romans 15:7: Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. And, here I am, bringing it into conversation with the Emmaus Road story from Luke 24. It turns out, welcome and care are a pathway to the Divine in lots of the Bible. They are pathways to the Divine for us, too.

     Rev. Daniel finished her devotional with, “Good to meet you, First Congregational of Houston, and if you ever get stuck in Michigan, we’ve got you. In a world of suffering, the good news is worth sharing.” May we answer the call to help stranded strangers and take the risk of speaking to people we meet along the road. May we see Christ more clearly in the sharing, be it toothbrushes and a meal. May we pay attention to the burning in our hearts. It is a reminder that we, too, can see Jesus again.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Lillian Daniel: https://www.ucc.org/daily-devotional/shelter-in-a-storm/
The poem "High Flight": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/157986/high-flight-627d3cfb1e9b7
About the author of "High Flight": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-gillespie-magee-jr
Margaret Aymer: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-of-easter/commentary-on-luke-2413-35-11