Scripture can be found here…
Sometimes, you just need to be at home.
It is still Easter. For us, it’s still Easter season, for six more weeks. For the disciples in our story, it is still Easter day. But they don’t yet know what that means.
And so two of them set out from Jerusalem for a long walk home, seven miles. And Jesus comes alongside them, to walk with them.
But they don’t know it’s Jesus.
Why don’t they know?
There are lots of possible reasons.
Maybe Jesus is deliberately obscuring his face from them, somehow altering his voice.
Maybe they are so distracted and confused by the events of the whole week—which went from joyful procession to conflict to Passover supper to betrayal to trial to cross to death to tomb to… what? What had happened this very morning, the story of the women at the now empty tomb? Maybe these two are so overwhelmed by all of this—they just want to get home.
Maybe it’s something even simpler. Maybe it’s a simple case of not expecting to see Jesus. Even in spite of what they have heard… even in spite of the women’s story.
A man joins them in their walk. It’s not unusual for people returning home from a pilgrimage to walk with others. Safety in numbers.
He listens as they talk about that week they have just lived through. He asks them what it’s all about.
Finally, we learn the name of one disciple: It’s Cleopas. I’m going to assign a name to the other disciple: Mary. I’m going to assume that Cleopas is with his wife Mary and they are traveling together, to the home they share.
Cleopas is astonished that this stranger doesn’t know the things that have been happening in Jerusalem. This week someone in our online bible study, imagining Cleopas’s response, said, “What, did he just crawl out from under a rock?” Which, if you think about it…
Anyway, Jesus asks, “What things?”
And Cleopas and Mary offer a kind of statement of disappointed faith. They speak of Jesus as a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. “We had hoped,” they say. But their hopes had been disappointed.
But still… still… this morning… something had happened… involving women, and the tomb and angels. Some are saying it was nothing. But others are saying…
Oh, you two, Jesus replies. Your not-ready-to-believe minds. Your sweet, slow hearts.
And then Jesus offers his own bible study, right there on the road, tying together the scriptures and his very own life and witness and death and resurrection.
They still don’t know who he is, but they invited him to stay for dinner. And he does.
So now, they are home. And a meal is served. And then something marvelous happens. When they are at table, suddenly, Jesus is the host. And there is a loaf of bread. And he takes it, and he blesses it, and he breaks it, and he shares it… and, to quote one of my favorite scholars, “when Jesus does the most Jesus thing of all, everything changes.” [i]
Remember: Jesus is constantly sharing food, whether in an intimate setting with just a handful of close friends, or with his core group of disciples, or with thousands of people, sitting in groups on the green grass. Jesus shares meals with others, and every time he does, it is a holy thing.
Every time we share a meal with someone, it is also a holy thing. Every time we sit down at table, even at a table for one in our kitchens, we connect ourselves to an entire web of people who grow our food, and harvest it, and prepare it, and bring it to us, to the supermarket or tow our homes: and it is still a holy thing.
Jesus breaks and shares the bread with Cleopas and Mary, and in that holy instant they recognize him—of course, this is Jesus. And in that moment he vanishes. But then they remember what it was like to hear him speaking, and one of them says to the other, Weren’t our hearts on fire when he spoke to us along the road, when he explained everything to us?
Cleopas and Mary go from having hearts that are a little slow to awaken to what is happening, to having hearts on fire with delight and excitement when they realize Jesus was with them, this whole time.
And this makes me wonder: How’s your heart? I’m not talking about the organ pumping blood through your body, though I do care about that too. I’m wondering, how’s your other heart—your heart that is the real you. How is your heart?
I can imagine your heart might feel slow—still trying to stay caught up with the news from day to day, wondering sometimes what day it is.
I can imagine your heart might feel frustrated and impatient—ready for all this staying at home to be over, ready for life as we knew it to return, now.
I can imagine your heart might be tired—weary from anxiety, keeping up with all the ways we need to work to keep healthy and safe.
I can imagine your heart might be sad—missing the people you love to see, to laugh with, to work or play with, to embrace.
I can imagine your heart might be hopeful, as we hear more and more stories of people who are recovering from the virus.
God cares about our hearts, no matter what state they are in. God cares about our worries, our frustrations, our sorrows, and our hopes. And in this resurrection story, Jesus cares enough to walk with us, to teach us, to sit at table with us, and to continue to reveal himself to us.
And he does all of this, whether we are out and about in the world, or staying at home, for our own sake and for the sake of our neighbors.
Sometimes you have to be at home. This is one of those times.
And while we are at home, God is with us, until we meet again.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Eric Baretto, “Commentary on Luke 24:13-35,” Preach This Week-Working Preacher, April 23, 2017, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4442.