The Road to No Place in Particular

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
April 6, 2008

The Road to No Place in Particular
Acts 2:36-42
Luke 24:13-35

Two men walking along the road,
walking away from Jerusalem,
on the road to Emmaus.
One man is named Cleopas;
The other man is not named.
They were part of the larger group that followed Christ,
but neither of them was one of the original 11 disciples.
Beyond that, we know nothing about these men.

According to Luke,
it was still that first Easter Sunday as they walked,
walked away from Jerusalem,
away from memories of the past three days,
away from disappointment,
away from crushed hope.

Why were they headed to Emmaus?
Was it home?
Or was it just a stopping point,
on the way to the port city of Joppa?
Or perhaps they were on the way
to the road that would take them north to Galilee?
We are not even sure where Emmaus was.
Archeologists argue over at least four possible locations;
There is no consensus as to which was Luke’s Emmaus.

Even as the two men talked about the events
of the past three days,
were they also talking about the days ahead,
where they would be and
what they would be doing next Sunday?
Were they going back to hometowns and vocations
they’d left when they first responded to Jesus’ call?
Were they thinking that life would go back
to the way it had been before Jesus had come into their lives?

They were walking slowly,
or at least so we assume,
if they heard footsteps
behind them catching up with them.
They paused to wait for the stranger,
no doubt happy for someone to help them
break the gloom that filled them.

They didn’t recognize the man who joined them.
Luke suggests God’s hand in keeping their eyes closed
to Jesus’ presence.
According to John’s gospel,
Mary Magdalene did not recognize Jesus at first,
thinking him to be the gardener;
John also tells us that when Jesus appeared to the disciples
on the shore of the sea of Galilee,
none of them recognized the man giving them fishing advice
as Jesus.

The three walked along the road to Emmaus together,
and Jesus taught the men from Scripture,
from the book we now call the Old Testament,
taught them the prophecies that told them of the coming Messiah.
And then when they reached Emmaus,
the stranger at first seemed eager to press on,
but the men encouraged him to stop with them,
stay and share supper with them.

And as they ate their meal together,
the stranger took bread,
and blessed it, and broke it,
and gave it to them,
and then their eyes were opened,
and they recognized him.
And then he was gone.

The risen Jesus had been with them
and they had not known it.
Why had they failed to recognize him?
If God had closed their eyes, why?
Think of the celestial fireworks that filled the sky
when Jesus was born,
the heavenly host singing out,
“Glory to God in highest heaven!”
Now something even more miraculous had occurred,
Jesus risen, death vanquished,
and the sound of silence was deafening.

For Cleopas and his companion, was it because
of their invitation to Jesus to stay with them
when they saw that Jesus appeared to want to press on?
The men were only doing what was expected of them
in those days: extending hospitality –
“stay with us friend and share supper with us,
we’ll move on tomorrow.”

Should they have followed the stranger?
Followed the man even though
they did not know who he was
or where he was going?
Even though the day was getting on?
Even though the next town was too far to reach before nightfall?

Isn’t that the question we still struggle with 2,000 years later?
When we should follow Christ; where, how we should follow.
Don’t we really prefer to remain in charge of our journey,
in control of our lives?
Don’t we prefer to invite Jesus into our lives,
to make our lives a bit more comfortable,
and have Christ simply bless what we are doing?
That’s not the same as following Christ,
following him wherever he calls us to go!

Two men on a road to no place in particular
and Christ came into their lives
in such an ordinary way.
And isn’t that how Jesus comes into our lives?
Jesus comes to us in the commonplace and the ordinary.
We don’t find him just here in this Sanctuary on Sunday morning,
but in everyplace we go,
including those times in our lives
when we are going no place in particular.
But he comes, choosing us,
and then saying so simply, “Follow me”.

Theologians use the word “theophany”
to describe divine manifestations,
those occasions when God appears to a human.
But this is much too fancy a word for Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t “theophanize”;
he simply comes into our lives,
the living, risen Christ,
and calls us to follow him.
That’s the promise of the Resurrection.

Christ is present with us now
here with us to invite us to eat with him,
to eat this meal that he has prepared.
But be careful about accepting his invitation:
coming to this table is risky business.
If you come to this table with your eyes open,
your heart and mind open,
and share in this meal that Christ has prepared,
you are very likely to leave a different person:
transformed,
ready to follow,
with stronger faith,
perhaps even like Cleopas and his companion,
burning with the fire of the Spirit.
your mind on fire.
The two of them probably ran all the way back
to Jerusalem to share their excitement with their friends.
They had been utterly transformed at that table,
their lives were never to be the same.
And that is the invitation Christ extends
to you and to me in this meal.

Be forewarned, though: Christ leads us to some difficult places,
leads us into parts of world we may not like,
where we may feel uncomfortable:
places where there is hunger even as we seek lives of plenty;
places where there is violence even as we seek security;
places where there is hopelessness,
even as we seek to build futures with confidence.
And as we talked about last week,
Jesus even leads us to work for reconciliation,
especially with those we think of as our enemies.

Are you on the road with our Lord Jesus Christ,
following him faithfully, obediently?
Who is leading and who is following?
Peter reminds us that we are called to repent,
and the word repent means to turn,
to turn from the road we are on --
a road that may look wonderful,
but may well be a road to nowhere in particular.
Whatever road we are on,
Jesus meets us where we are,
in the ordinary moments of our lives,
always with the same invitation:
Follow me. Follow me on my road.

Follow Christ to this table
and be fed.
Follow Christ to this table with your heart, mind,
eyes and ears open.
Come to this table and be fed.
And then don’t be surprised
when you leave this table and this Sanctuary
that you find yourself walking a different road.
AMEN