The Road to Nowhere

I found myself wondering this week if anyone has ever published a book entitled "Selections from the Bible" or "The Bible’s Greatest Hits." We’re used to this sort of thing with other artists, authors or musicians: "The Selected Poetry of Emily Dickinson," or "Johnny Cash’s Greatest Hits." Somebody sorts through all of Johnny Cash’s songs and picks out only the best, the most popular, songs that have endured through time. All the ho-hum, less inspired songs are omitted. The resulting collection is wonderful. I’ve certainly seen Bibles where the publisher has extracted selected highlights and placed them in a special section in the front. But the rest of the Bible is still there, too. Undoubtedly, collections of just the Bibles’ greatest hits are also available, but it’s a concept that makes me a bit uneasy. Can we just discard or disregard some parts of the Bible because maybe they’re not the most popular? And I’m also wary of taking any individual story, no matter how powerful or popular it may be, out of the context of the Bible as a whole.

Which brings us to this morning’s gospel reading. If we were to compile a selection of greatest hits from the Bible, this morning’s gospel story would undoubtedly be in it. It is a well-known story. Even if you’re hazy on the details, you probably have at least heard of this story. This is the story of the Road to Emmaus. You’ve just heard it. Two sad and confused travelers on a dusty road after Jesus’ crucifixion. To these travelers as they journey along the road, Jesus comes, a glorious figure, but unknown and mysterious until the breaking of the bread. Maybe they see the marks of the nails in his hands as he offers the bread to them. However it comes to be, in the breaking of the bread they know their fellow traveler as their Lord, risen from the dead, present with them. Met along the road, made known in the breaking of the bread. The story of the Road to Emmaus.

But that’s really an odd title for this story. Is the fact that they were journeying on a road to Emmaus really the central point of this story? Was it important that they were on that road and not some other road? Did Cleopas and his companion even really know where they were going? As powerful and as memorable as this story is, when we give it a title and hold it up as a self-contained story, separate from its broader context, I think we miss a great deal of what it has to tell us.

This story begins somewhere back when the earliest Hebrew people came to see themselves as God’s chosen people and then over the centuries came to believe that someday, some century, God would send a Messiah to save them as a people. And then Jesus came. And in Jesus the people of God saw and touched and knew the very presence of God, the wonder of the living God right there in their lives, their towns, their time. Surely he was the promised one, the Messiah. Their hearts were full of eager hope and expectation and joy.

And then—in Jerusalem—they saw it end. They lost a friend and companion. They lost so much more than a friend and companion. They lost their connection to God. Hope died. It was as though someone had slammed the book shut on the story of the people of God just as that story seemed to be reaching fulfillment. I quoted Frederick Buechner last week. Listen to his description of what Jesus’ followers faced in Jerusalem right after the crucifixion. "On Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, even with their eyes closed, they could still see the three crosses dark and angular against the sky; even with their fingers in their ears, they could still hear the sound that had been made up there: the cry of thirst, the buzzing of the flies, and the heat, because heat has a sound too, like a muffled drum or the beating of a heart."

I imagine that Cleopas and his companion just couldn’t stay in Jerusalem where that vision, that memory, haunted every moment of their lives. I imagine they could not face the emptiness of their lives in Jerusalem without Jesus. They couldn’t endure the crushing loss and disappointment they were feeling. So they ran away. Or trudged and stumbled away, setting out on any road to any town. There’s a marvelous line somewhere in Alice and Wonderland, "When you don’t know where you are going, it doesn’t matter which road you take." Cleopas and his companion weren’t on the road to Emmaus. They were on the road to nowhere. They didn’t know where they were going. They were just trying desperately to escape life’s hurt, loss, confusion, disappointment and anger. If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter what road you take.

Isn’t it good to know that Jesus meets us on those roads, not just on one particular road to Emmaus? Even if we don’t know where we’re going, Jesus can find us. Even if we don’t know what road we’re on, Jesus can find us. Even if we’re just blindly stumbling along overcome by pain or loss, Jesus can find us. Even if the road we’re on is mostly a selfish one, marked by anger or confusion or cowardice or denial, Jesus can still find us. Even if we’re trying to run away from Jesus, Jesus can still find us. It was on just such a road that Jesus came to Cleopas and Cleopas’ friend. Jesus shared that road with them and offered them companionship, understanding and love. And on their particular road of confusion and loss Jesus led the two disheartened travelers to see that Jerusalem was a place of beginning, not ending. Jesus showed them that their story, God’s story, did not end in Jerusalem and would not end there on that dusty road to nowhere.

And Cleopas’ and his friend’s story didn’t end. Cleopas and his friend were running away from a Jerusalem where Jesus had died. As soon as they encountered the risen Christ, Luke tells us "that same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem." Having trudged and stumbled along a road going nowhere until they were too tired to continue, they miraculously found the energy, the purpose, the desire to rush all the way back to Jerusalem. They rushed back to share the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection.

That’s the next chapter in this broad, ongoing story. In the risen Christ, through the risen Christ, the disciples received new life, new commitment, new purpose, new hope. We see the fruits of that new life clearly described in this morning’s Scriptures. In Cleopas’ return to Jerusalem. And even more powerfully in Peter’s sermon to the people in Acts. Remember, not long ago Peter had been running away from Jesus as fast as he could. As Jesus approached death, Peter denied again and again that he had any association with Jesus at all. Yet having come to know the risen Lord in his life, Peter was inspired, empowered to make the risen Christ known in the lives of others. Peter’s story didn’t end in hopelessness and betrayal. Listen to the new life, the new purpose, that ring out in Peter’s words: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins… For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him." Three thousand souls heeded Peter’s words and were baptized that day into new life in the risen Lord. Acts also tells us what that new life was like. It was a life "devoted to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers."

Those words should sound familiar. They are from our own baptismal covenant. The story continues in us. This story isn’t just one of the greatest hits from the Bible, a particularly good story about two people on a road to Emmaus a long time ago. It is a story that begins in the earliest days of the people of God and continues in the people of God today. It is a story about all of us, and all of the roads we are on. Whether those roads are joyous or hopeless, selfish or faithful, rocky or smooth… no matter what the road, Jesus comes to us in the breaking of the bread, bringing us new life in the risen Lord. And then, empowered with this new life, it is our turn to carry the story on, forward into the future.

We rehearse our part in the story every Sunday when we say the post-Communion prayer. Sometimes it’s easier to hear the real meaning in words if they are less familiar. Listen to the post-Communion prayer from Rite 1:

"Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost feed us, in these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ; and dost assure us thereby of thy favor and goodness towards us and that we are very members in corporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs, through hope, of thy everlasting kingdom. And we humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen."

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