1.  They were so lost and headed in the wrong direction.

They had been in the room when the women returned from the tomb and heard the women say, “Go to Galilee and I will meet you there.” That would mean heading north and they were headed west.

2.  They were doing more than simply conversing.

The word here is “together seeking” and debating – literally throwing words back and forth at each other. They were not on a stroll or running away. They were intense as they walked – so intense that they did not even notice the stranger who walked up beside them. Even the stranger noticed how intense they were.

3.  They were trying to sort out what to make of Jesus now that he was dead and all that had happened.

Everything was in the past tense. He was a prophet. He was powerful in word and deed. He was handed over. He was crucified. We had hoped. We were amazed.

What had they hoped for? They, like all the others, still saw and heard Jesus through their own filter and their own desires. No matter what he said about suffering they did not hear it. No matter what he said about the necessity of what had just happened. they never took it seriously. What did they hear instead? They heard him saying he would fulfill Isaiah 61.

4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.
5 Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
6 And you will be called priests of the LORD,
you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
and in their riches you will boast.
7 Instead of your shame
you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
and everlasting joy will be yours.
8 “For I, the LORD, love justice;
I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
and make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 Their descendants will be known among the nations
and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
that they are a people the LORD has blessed.
10 I delight greatly in the LORD;
my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up
and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness
and praise spring up before all nations.

First impressions are permanent it seems and this is what people heard from the beginning – no matter what he said afterwards. Now they were disappointed but I don’t get the impression they are giving up. Sad, yes, but not giving up on the movement.

It’s not impossible to build something around a martyr or a powerful personality with a tragic death. John’s disciples did just that in the early years of the Church. Paul encounters them in Ephesus. They have received the baptism of John – repentance – but not the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The early church could have been the church of John and it would have been a good church as we talked about a couple of weeks ago. You could build a wonderful community on the fruits of repentance. The poor would be cared for. There would be honesty in dealing with each other. There would be contentment and the right use of power and privilege. But it would not be the Church – the Body of Christ. It would be earnest – and Christless. They would work hard to keep the tradition and teaching of Jesus alive. They would take seriously “do this in remembrance of me” but there would be no resurrection power – only people working hard to be good and trying to remember why they are doing this. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15: “16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” A religion with resurrection – no matter how good – is a pitiful thing.”

“The Church of England needs its own rebirth” from The Guardian

The growth is coming among families: “Getting your children baptised is how the overwhelming majority come.” But these new members have grown up away from Christianity and the language and traditions of the church. Pretty fundamental Christian concepts, such as sin, just don’t make sense to them any more. “I find families very ignorant and very responsive, and happy to come to stuff that they feel they might have some chance of following.”

The problem, she says, is finding ways of reaching half-believers. “The cultural assumptions of the people under 40 who I meet are just totally different, and the habits of being that the church both assumes and inculcates are new. When people are confirmed as adults, a lot of them have problems with penitence; they say: ‘But I have always been a good person!’”
Yet the church remains attractive in her villages partly for reasons that have nothing to do with theology, she says: “I encounter quite often in the people who do flirt with church a quite explicit desire for physical community: an anxious sense that people need to get together and do stuff in the same place and time.”
“Church was about being associated with the right tribe, sitting in the next pew to the headmaster and the local doctor. My lot can proudly parrot the catechism, want hymns they know and haven’t a clue what it is all about.”

4.  Jesus does not reveal his identity and they are kept from seeing him. He does not do anything miraculous or drop any hints about who he is. He doesn’t correct them for going in them direction. In fact, he walks with them in the wrong direction. He takes their serious discussion to a whole new level. They were serious but completely in the dark. They were arguing without knowledge.

The one who knew nothing about current events, the one who was clueless about all that was happening, the one who was blissfully uninformed about all the important stuff of life becomes the teacher and for two hours takes them through the whole of Scripture that points to Christ. He points them not to himself but to Scripture and to a right understanding of the work of Christ – not to redeem Israel in the way they had thought but to suffer for the sins of many. However, even after explaining everything to them he does not reveal himself and their eyes are not opened. “What a wonderful teacher! What a surprise to have stumbled on this man this way. What a remarkable coincidence and now we understand things that even Jesus did not explain to us as well. Too bad it is the end of the day and we have arrived at our destination. Otherwise, we might turn around and explain this to the others who are as confused as we were by all that has happened.”

Rick Warren said something this morning that struck me. “People are not comforted by mere explanations. They are comforted by the presence of God.” That’s what we see next.

5.  He pretends to be going on but they talk him into remaining with them. The road is dangerous at night and everyone is hungry. He agrees to stay with them.

And that is when he reveals himself – or they see him for the first time. It is in a simple act they have seen many, many times. It could have been his unique way of handling the bread or a look in the eye they suddenly recognize. I don’t think so. I think he was completely hidden from them. He blesses the bread and breaks it and everything comes together. “This is my body which is broken for you” suddenly is real and their eyes are opened…and Jesus disappears. Their hope is suddenly restored along with their sight and they, like the women, are amazed. In spite of it being night they run back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples what they have seen. When they arrive he appears again and they finish their meal with him.

Have you noticed how central food is in the new life of Jesus? You would think food would be the last thing on his mind but it’s not. It plays a part in almost every encounter with people after his death. Here, in the upper room earlier in the chapter and then by the seashore with the disciples when he prepares breakfast for them.

Food and the sharing of food means far more than simply eating, doesn’t it? Even now we think of food as how we get together with people we know and those we want to know. Where do people gravitate when we get together? It’s almost always the kitchen. In fact, home design now understands the role of the kitchen not just as a place to cook but as one of the social centers of the home. It is the real living room now.

“The kitchen has now become the place where we not only merely prepare and consume food, but a place to interact with family and friends while preparing a meal or simply enjoying hors d’oeuvres and a glass of wine. Cooking is now very much a social skill and people enjoy showing off that skill. Having your guests as an audience is an essential part of entertaining. How many of us can agree that when the party guests arrive, the kitchen is filled to capacity while the living room is empty!” SoCal Construction and Design newsletter.

For Jesus, eating and preparing food shows everyone he is real and not a ghost. The resurrection body is not just a husk and food is not something belonging to another life.

When he used food as an illustration of the nature of the kingdom he talked about the great feast that is coming. Some of his deepest teachings and miracles were at meals and weddings. In the Last Supper food and eating is the image he uses to tell us how to remember him.

We call that the Lord’s Supper but it’s not really a supper, is it? Not in the same way we think of supper or a feast. We’ve turned it from a meal to be enjoyed into a ritual to be observed. It is not communion as much as it is a ceremony. We’ve leached all the fellowship out of it. It’s become a thin wafer and a thimble of juice instead of a feast. The Lord’s Supper has become the Lord’s Snack.

I think Jesus intended it to be more like the final scene of every week in “Blue Bloods” with Tom Selleck. All the different story lines come together at their Sunday meal after church. Food is prepared, passed around, eaten and then cleared. That is, I think, what was intended by the Lord’s Supper – not a periodic ritual with symbols of food instead of food and wine. It is in the preparing, sharing and cleaning up afterwards that we oftentimes reveal ourselves most and learn what matters about others.

6.  While there are so many serious things going on here, I would like you to think about another way of viewing this. I would like you to see it as a story of Jesus playing with the disciples in a way that is foreign to us.

There are several incidences of God hiding himself from us. Abraham does not recognize the two angels who appear at the door of his tent. Joshua does not recognize the angel of the Lord and mistakes him for the enemy. Jacob does not recognize the angel with whom he wrestles. God often keeps people from seeing who he is until he chooses to reveal himself. But the way the story is told feels different from a confrontation with God.

The stranger who appears out of nowhere appearing to be ignorant becomes the teacher and the host. The one who pretends to be going on further is talked into staying. The sudden recognition and then he is gone. His showing up again out of nowhere back in Jerusalem.

What if this is a childlike joy that we cannot understand? It might seem like playing with the disciples at the worst time of their lives. It might seem cruel and mean, even. What if it is not? What if it really is an unusual way of expressing the rambunctious joy of the resurrection life now that the work for which he was sent is finished. We really are redeemed. We really were lost and now found. We really are reconciled to God permanently. We really are righteous because of what he has done. What if it is a complete reversal of the disastrous game of hide and seek in the Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve were afraid of being found. Not here. Just like when we were children, there is only laughter when we are found. Besides, we get to join in finding others until the very last one is discovered.

I want to read you something from “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.” You all know the story. The Witch has killed Aslan on the Stone Table and the children are devastated. They are talking among themselves about what happens now and then out of nowhere Aslan appears. What does he want to do? He wants to roar. Out of sheer joy he wants to play – in spite of their sorrow and their fear and their shocked surprise.

“Oh, children,” said the Lion, “I feel my strength coming back to me. Oh, children, catch me if you can!” He stood for a second, his eyes very bright, his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail. Then he made a leap high over their heads and landed on the other side of the Table. Laughing, though she didn’t know why, Lucy scrambled over it to reach him. Aslan leaped again. A mad chase began. Round and round the hill-top he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs. It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia, and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind. And the funny thing was that when all three finally lay together panting in the sun the girls no longer felt in the least tired or hungry or thirsty. “And now,” said Aslan presently, “to business. I feel I am going to roar. You had better put your fingers in your ears.”

It could be that is what Jesus was saying to the disciples. “I feel my strength coming back and I want to roar. I am playing because I have been through the worst that sin can imagine and death will have no power over you now. The power of darkness is broken and there is great joy in heaven. For us and for the disciples there is no more sadness or confusion or discouragement. The one who came to seek and to save has found us.