Cedar Valley Lutheran Church
Easter 3A April 20, 2026 Luke 24:13-35
When you turn off of highway 61 onto county road 9, what you have left to travel to get to the church is basically the same distance these two disciples were traveling to Emmaus. I doubt it could have been more scenic than this familiar trek many of us make on a regular basis. But one thing is sure, for Cleopas and his wife, they traveled with some heavy burdens on their hearts. (Yes, I’m assuming that the unnamed disciple was Cleopas’ wife and why not? That would explain why we aren’t given the person’s name. It was a common practice in the first century middle east to only refer to the husband’s name and ignore the wife’s. Besides, with a man and a woman in the story that makes room for it to be more about all of us.) Of course, the burdens that weighed down their steps was the grief and loss they felt of watching their beloved rabbi, Jesus being crucified. It was the questions and fears of their failed hopes and dreams that he was the one who was going to save them … save Israel.
There are times I make this trip down county road 9 and the only reason is to stand at Pam’s grave and we talk. Actually, I do all the talking and she listens but, in my mind, I can hear what she often told me and the wisdom she would offer. I tell her about my joys and struggles, my ideas and thoughts. I tell her that I still love her and miss her and quietly reflect on our 45 years together.
I look at her name etched in stone on our grave and beneath it the years of the beginning and the end of her journey. I look at my name, too, but the date under my name there is the year I was born and it ends with a dash. That’s where I’m at. That’s where all of us are at. We are at the dash … still on the journey from beginning to end. Still carrying the ups and downs of life. And along the way, Jesus meets us and most of the time, like these two on the road to Emmaus, we don’t even know it. He comes to us as a stranger along the way. He comes to us in person in a way we can’t possibly imagine and a place that could be just about anywhere.
You see, what makes this such a remarkable story is, literally, how unremarkable it is. What I mean is that it’s easy to imagine why Jesus appears to the women at the tomb and to Peter and John and the rest of his closest disciples, after all they had been with him through thick and thin. And it’s easy to understand why Jesus appears to Paul on the Damascus road in a blinding light that would transform him to go passionately into the gentile world with the good news of God’s love for everyone.
These appearances, after all, happen to the legends of the faith that will go on to establish his church. These are the movers and shakers of the gospel message. But here in this story on the road to Emmaus, Jesus appears to a couple of nobodies who seem to have no real place or purpose in the grand scheme of things. They are just a couple of ordinary, everyday, followers who were going to no particular place of significance. And what makes this story so remarkable is that if this could happen to them, then it can happen to any one of us. It is remarkable because their road to Emmaus on which Jesus meets them could be any ordinary road we happen to be traveling in the everyday of our lives going nowhere of any consequence.
This, you see, is the good news that I have for you today. Jesus comes and walks along side ordinary people like you and me … people not particularly known for having a strong faith or doing heroic deeds of compassion … people not particularly bold or brave … people not particularly smart or inspiring. Jesus comes and he walks the everyday roads we travel and he meets us. And, like Cleopas and his wife, we never recognize it at the time. Just like in our gospel story, it is only in hindsight that we realize that our hearts were burning within us all the while.
Pentecost 7B July 7, 2024 Mark 6:1-13
We see in our gospel reading for today the continuation of a theme that has been running through the life and ministry of Jesus from the beginning. Again and again, Jesus has been forced to deal with rejection: rejection for what he teaches, rejection for what he does, and rejection for who he is.
The Pharisees criticize him for healing on the Sabbath. His disciples chastise him for sleeping in the middle of a stormy sea. Even his mother and his family try to get him to stop working so hard because his zealousness is proving to be an embarrassment to them. And today, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth and it happens again. The people who sat next to him in worship, who celebrated with him at festivals, who watched him play and grow up, can’t accept what he has become.
At first, listening to Jesus teach in the synagogue, these family friends and neighbors are astonished by his eloquence and spiritual insight. They are impressed: “Where did he learn all of this?” they ask each other. “How did he get to be this good?” they wonder. “When did he get so wise all of a sudden?” they question. “After all, he is one of us. Up until recently he was just a local handyman, patching our roofs, framing our doors, and fixing our wobbly tables and chairs.” What happened? Where did Jesus get all of this?
Well, the answer to their questions is that he got all of this from them. He got it from his parents and siblings and relatives. He got it from his teachers at the synagogue. He got it from the values kept by his neighbors and from the stories he learned of his hometown heroes and his local scallywags. Jesus, in essence, is a mirror, showing them who they are and the role they played in shaping his identity and his place in the world. And the same is true for us. So much of what it is that makes us who we are and the things we do is shaped by our environment. And the history we carry and the people who have left a mark on our lives play a big part in our identity.
But their amazement suddenly shifts and they take offense at him. Someone in the crowd – perhaps a jealous neighbor, or maybe a childhood rival, or possibly the village gossip who loves to stir up trouble – questions the fact that Jesus has stepped out of his lane and ignored his place in the community. “He was one of us and now he thinks he’s something more – he has become something we didn’t expect him to be – something that doesn’t fit into the box we put him in.” And their doubts leave him powerless to do what he would love to do for them – what he has done for so many others.
But before we judge them too harshly, let’s imagine that we are also standing among his homies wondering the same thing ourselves. Like them, how often have we missed the holy among us because we could only see what we wanted to see? How often have we missed the new thing God is doing in Jesus because what we could only see is the old and familiar? How often have we not allowed Jesus to surprise us?
I remember something a wise friend told Pam and me when we were newly married. She said that we should surprise each other every once in a while with something unexpected. That surprise, she said, keeps the intrigue and the mystery of love alive in a relationship. I believe that part of the gospel mission for us involves an element of surprise. Because our openness to being surprised, keeps us open to the intrigue and mystery of God’s deep love for us so that it doesn’t get old and boring and meaningless.
My prayer for you, my friends, is that when you listen to Jesus you can hear a new thing God is doing underneath the comfortable traditions and the familiar habits of your faith. I pray you will be surprised by the mystery of the abundant life God has for you in Jesus – a life filled with love and grace … with mercy and forgiveness … with freedom and peace. May you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the surprising good news God has for you in Jesus Christ, our Lord.