“Dancing Down the Road from Emmaus”
Luke 24:13-32
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
April 5, 2015
They should have been dancing down the road to Emmaus! They should have been shouting “Hallelujah! Christ is risen!” to everyone they passed. After all, they were there when Mary and Mary and Joanna came running in to say the tomb was empty; they heard the certainty in Mary’s voice when she told them about the angels in dazzling clothes. They heard the good news—Jesus had risen, hope was alive.
But they weren’t dancing. They weren’t shouting Hallelujah. They were walking somberly, wondering and worrying. If anything, the news of the empty tomb added a layer of confusion to their sadness and fear.
I love all the Easter stories—the women sneaking through the streets to anoint their friend’s body, Mary’s encounter with a gardener, Peter and John racing each other to get to the tomb, Jesus making breakfast on the beach. This one, though, is my favorite. It speaks to how I come to know the good news that Christ is risen.
I have never talked to an angel sitting on rock by an empty tomb. I have, though, had Emmaus Road moments—conversations that seemed ordinary until something opened my eyes and I realized the risen Christ was with me.
This year our Lenten theme has been “Sacred conversations.” Church members have written amazing reflections for our daily devotionals, describing experiences of holy conversations. Many of those conversations were what I would call Emmaus Road moments.
Some actually happened on a road—like Kate’s story about the homeless woman she met on a street in Memphis. As a child, Kate went with her family to visit the restored Lorraine Motel, the site of Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination. In the early 80’s, when the Motel had fallen into disrepair, wealthy community leaders purchased the property to create a museum, displacing the very poor families living there. The city promised to find housing for them, but never did. The woman Kate encountered had lived on that street ever since, sitting there waiting to tell her story to whoever would listen. Kate listened—and learned how much more still needed to be done. An Emmaus Road encounter—for in that conversation the risen Christ was present—honoring the dignity of a woman most people ignored, urging a child to do the work of seeking justice.
Some Emmaus Road moments happened not on a physical road but as part of a healing journey. Ellie and her roommate were not actually going anywhere; in fact they were kind of stuck in their room at Wingate Rehab. The roommate was 96 years old, confined to a wheelchair and spoke no English. Ellie was recovering from an illness, longing for home, and she spoke no Spanish. One day, they found themselves side-by-side, talking together for almost an hour. With the few words of Spanish she could decipher, Ellie could tell what her roommate was feeling and responded the best she could. On their shared healing journey, Jesus walked with them, bridging the barrier of language, inviting them to claim the healing power of human connection.
Rick stood at the church kitchen counter with a friend who was recounting a painful experience. Rick recognized he had no special insight to bring to the situation, so he just listened—and let his friend know he would be thinking of him. I don’t know whether they broke bread—or maybe it was crackers and cheese—but Christ was with them, in the mutual assurance that they were loved.
Often, our Emmaus Road moments come in the most difficult times in our lives. Jessie told of being in the hospital with her new-born daughter, who had had a seizure. For two days, Jessie stayed by her baby’s side, afraid to leave. She was, as she wrote, “wiped and worn.” A nurse came up to her– “Give the baby to me,” she said. “I will take care of her; you rest.” The risen Christ came to offer her a lighter burden.
Sandy was struggling at work, her mom was battling cancer, and she was going through a contentious divorce. It was a long road filled with pain. But she did not walk alone. A co-worker Jane reached out to her. “She was the wisest woman I have ever met,” Sandy said. What Sandy remembers most clearly, though, was the power of Jane just listening. “Listening,” Sandy wrote, “is an invaluable sacred gift.” Listening is God’s love in human form—Christ with us.
Dawn described a terrible time in her life–mistakes she was forced to face, overwhelming fear and anguish, no one to talk to. At her lowest point, the songs of her faith came back to her–Amazing Grace, They’ll Know we are Christians by our love….they kept coming. Through the songs, she wrote, “God was there.” Dawn’s sacred conversation was with the generations of Christians before her who wrote songs to convey the promise of our faith. The risen Christ was with her–through music that had nourished her faith as a child, through the rich tradition we claim.
Janet wrote of an Emmaus moment that brought her back to a series of conversations with a beloved friend and mentor. A petunia blossomed in the middle of winter–on February 14th, the anniversary of Sue Dickerman’s death. For Janet, it was a continuation of many conversations she’d had with Sue about their shared love of gardening and their shared faith–one more lesson, she said, that Sue was teaching her about resurrection. In the blossoming of a petunia, Janet’s eyes were opened and she recognized that Christ was alive and at work in her life.
Willie wrote also of sacred conversation emerging out of grief. Last month, his friend Marcia was killed, hit by a truck while she rode her bike. A musician, an activist, a labor organizer, and a “wacky personality,” Marcia had created a huge family of friends. Willie learned about a gathering of friends to share remembrances. He was nervous about going–it had been a year since he’d seen her. Would he know anyone? He went anyway. The people gathered came from many walks of life; some he knew, many he didn’t. As they talked, they discovered they were all connected with each other–through their shared memories, even more through their shared vision of a just world. They received the sacred gift of community, new hope and new life.
Jenny’s sacred conversation was also in the context of community. It started with a gathering of the Framingham Sierra Club. Out of concern for the planet came a decision to join with the Transition Town movement. Along with other groups in towns all over the world, Transition Framingham is working to make our town a resilient community. They have offered workshops on gardening, tasting parties to encourage plant-based eating, even an “I Heart Framingham” festival. The news of climate change can lead to despair; Transition Framingham has chosen to be a source of hope instead. From the wisdom of community, new life emerges. Their eyes are open to possibility; their hearts burn with passion for this wondrous, fragile planet.
What powerful witnesses to the resurrection. In some of these stories, there is a particular person in whom we recognize the risen Christ–someone who speaks words of wisdom or challenge, someone whose presence embodies the healing power of God’s love. In some, the risen Christ is present in the arc of the conversation–in the emerging insights that neither person possessed before they came together. In others, the good news of the resurrection is made known in the gathering of community–hope awakening in the complex web of relationships.
What about for you? What are the sacred conversations through which you come to know that hope is alive? Often, we don’t recognize them in the moment; later, by the grace of God, our eyes are opened, in the breaking of bread, in the singing of a song, in the blossoming of a petunia.
Cleopas and the other disciple didn’t dance down the road toward Emmaus. Surely, though, they danced on the way back. Surely they leapt and skipped, shouting Hallelujah’s to amazed strangers. For their eyes were opened; their hearts were burning within them, burning to proclaim the good news that Christ is risen, hope is alive, love is victorious.
We too walk the road to Emmaus. We too talk with the risen Christ. We too break bread with God’s love in human form. Our eyes are opened. Our hearts are burning within us. Let us join the disciples, dancing down the road from Emmaus, shouting Hallelujah, proclaiming the good news of God’s love. Amen.