Sunday Sermon - April 19, 2026

After joining us for some background conversation on the gospel reading, listen to Pastor Katie's sermon on the story about the walk to Emmaus. Listen as she explores what it is to be blessed, broken, and sent by Jesus in the resurrection. Because of a joint service at an alternate location, this is a delayed post. 

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Scripture quotations from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. © Copyright 2011 COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You'll never believe what happened. My buddy Cleveland and I were walking along the road heading to a bayonet. It was a seven-mile walk from Debris Walk. So we had a lot of time to talk. But there was really just one thing we wanted to talk about. Jesus. It was so sad the way they put him to death. He really didn't deserve to die. I mean, sure, he didn't exactly fall over his standards, but he felt a lot about loving one another. They did so much deal with it. I really can't see how they happened to. I honestly felt like they were kind of grassing at all time at all. But then it's a cycle spectrum death. But honestly, that I honestly figured it out of this soft cycle. That is really difficult. So we do that is the first one. People are trying to make that happen. People are very fast to do that. So we're welcome to make all the acting that happened. Yeah, but I guess what? How people thought that God is how we have worked with God first. How I hope that would be material. How limited by the angel. And then do you know what he said? He called us foolish. He said that we see that we have missed the message of the prophets. He told us that it was needed for the Christ to suffer all these things and then enter into his glory. And then he proceeded to explain the scriptures, starting with Emmaus and going through all the prophets. By the time we got to Emmaus, we were totally wrapped up in his teaching. He seemed like he was going to keep going. But it was almost evening, so we invited him to stay with us and have a meal. This man sat down at the table with us, broke the bread, less and broke it, and gave it to us. And suddenly we knew who he was. This man who had been walking all the way from Jerusalem to Emmaus was Jesus. The Jesus from Nazareth. And then just like that, he was gone. How did we not recognize him? We knew Jesus. Our hearts were on fire as he was speaking to us along the road. And when he explained the scriptures for us, we obviously couldn't keep this to ourselves. So we turned back around and went back to Jerusalem to tell his closest disciples and their companions, and we told them all about how Jesus was made known to us as he broke the bread at our table. I didn't, I don't know that I've ever had such an important walk from Jerusalem to Amenis, and I don't think I ever will again. That was a truly life-changing walk.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

So I always appreciate when we can kind of dig into these texts a little bit and think about what it must have been like. So when we were working on the script, we were thinking about what would it have been like to be Cleopus and friend, poor friend doesn't get a name. They had been following Jesus, they knew Jesus, and so this is the interactive part, by the way. How do you think it would have felt to see Jesus healing people, feeding the multitudes, doing Jesus y things? How would that have felt? Good, fantastic, like joyful, right? Like you're super excited, and all your hopes are put into this person, and life is new and exciting, and you can't wait to see what is gonna happen next. And then you follow him to Jerusalem, and you watch him die, and you watch his body be put in a tomb, and suddenly things don't seem so rosy anymore. That feeling of blessedness, of happiness, of contentment, of satisfaction that you might have gotten from knowing Jesus and walking with him is gone. And we get to that point in the story that I feel is perhaps one of the saddest verses in the Bible. We had hoped. We had hoped that life was gonna be different now that Jesus was here. We had hoped that all that goodness, that fantastic, happy, wonderful feeling of feeding and healing, we had hoped that that would continue. But instead, we watched that hope, that person Jesus, die. And it's like they were broken themselves. Their vision was broken up, their sense of who they were was broken, and they felt nothing but loss. Loss of identity, loss of purpose, loss of vision, loss of their faith. And so it's no wonder then that after Jesus died, Cleopas and Friend decided to return home. Decided to go back to Emmaus, back to the life they had once left behind. Broken. Broken and grieving, gripped by loss. And so because they were gripped by their loss and they were broken, their vision shattered. It's no wonder then that as Jesus stepped up alongside of them, they didn't recognize him. I mean, these are funny little glasses, but they kind of do the trick at the same time. They break up your vision. I was trying to read something earlier with them, and you kind of have to do one of these things to follow the words. And so Jesus walks up alongside them, and they are firmly grounded in their grief, firmly grounded in death, firmly grounded in what they witnessed on Good Friday. And Jesus is explaining all the scriptures to them. He's talking about Moses, he's talking about the prophets, he's talking about the way that God has redeemed the people and will continue to do so. And I can almost hear Cleopus and friend thinking in their heads, uh-huh, I want to believe. I want to have faith in what you're saying, I want to be right there with your stranger who doesn't know what's going on in Jerusalem. But something was stopping them. Something was in their way. And their hearts felt like something was there, but they weren't ready to fully grasp it, weren't ready to fully see it. And then they came to a maze. And this stranger was going to walk on, but something compelled Cleopas and friend to say, no, no, come and stay, come and have dinner, come and be in community with us. And the stranger took the bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples to eat. And suddenly, as they watched the bread being broken, as they were welcomed into this community, they saw Jesus. And life was new again. Jesus never denied the pain of death. Jesus never denied the pain of grief and loss. Instead, he stepped into that space with them, walked that journey with them, and invited them into community, into communion, and into new life, resurrected life. And with that, they couldn't help but they went, they ran, and they told everyone what they had seen, what they had heard, who they had experienced. In your bullishness, I ask that the scripture be put as it is in the text. Because one part that the kids skipped, did not get to, is at the very end. They got up and returned to Jerusalem. This is at verse 33. There they found the eleven and those with them assembled together and saying, It is true. They went out to tell news of what they had experienced in Jesus' presence after the resurrection, only to find out Jesus had already gone before them. Jesus was already out there doing Jesus things. And as we hear this story, we hear a mirror of maybe our own lives of faith. When we first come to faith, either as a child or as an adult, there's that shiny penny newness of exciting faith, right? There's that time when things feel lovely and wonderful and good, and it's just, ah. But then we know life brings loss. Loss of loved ones, loss of job, loss of security, loss of faith. And we can be stuck in that loss, that hard space, that pain, that grief. We can feel that Good Friday reality hanging heavy on our souls. As the doctor shares a bit of bad news, as we hear word that someone we loved has died, as we watch someone go through the struggle of financial insecurity, as we experience our own losses in life, as we turn on the news and see the losses around the world. That grief can weigh heavy on us, and it can feel like we've lost sight of the life we're promised in Jesus. It can feel like we can't see what Jesus has promised us. And so in our brokenness, Jesus comes. Jesus doesn't wait for us to feel all better and have it all figured out. Jesus joins us on the road, on the way, on the journey, and honors the reality of pain, of suffering, of struggle, of grief, of loss. Jesus honors and recognizes the reality of all of that and says, let me walk with you. And then after our hearts are burning with hope that maybe, just maybe, we can know resurrection life again. Jesus gives us an opportunity to invite him into our space, invite him into our lives and say, No, stay with us. Stay here. Have a meal, be in relationship with us. And as Jesus breaks the bread, we realize that he is the host all of them. He is the one who is holding space for us and offering us new life, nourishing us in body and soul, and welcoming us into community so that we run back, we run out into the world and say, I have seen the Lord, I have experienced life and goodness in Christ, even in the face of grief and death. And then when we go out into the world and share that good news, guess what we're gonna find? God's already out there. God is already out there showing life and love and goodness, even when it seems like there is nothing but death and pain around us. So this Easter season, because it is an Easter season, and let me Presbyterians. Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Easter is 50 days. It takes us a week of this to experience this. And we experience this not by some momentary sudden yes, but maybe by a journey, by walking along the road, by experiencing those initial joys, but also experiencing those pains and struggles, and ultimately continuing on the walk until at the last we know fully and completely, without any glasses, without any barriers, the goodness, the life, the love of Christ offered to us in community, offered to us in baptism, and offered to us in the breaking of the bread. Amen. Amen.