Prepare

The Road to Emmaus story is chock-full of theological imagery and imagination. We meet disciples and Jesus on the road and yet something is keeping the disciples from recognizing Christ. There’s a lot that could be explored as to why the disciples don’t recognize Jesus throughout their entire conversation, especially in light of other resurrection stories we have about Christ where folks recognize him immediately. Moreover, it is theologically significant that his identity is revealed through the Eucharist. It is as they break bread that Christ is recognized for who he is. The meal is the disciples “touching of the wounds” moment that Thomas was so desperate for. The meal is where Jesus is the most recognizable version of himself.

The gospel of Luke, more than the other gospels, emphasizes roads and journeys for both Christ and people of faith. It is fitting, therefore, that we meet Christ on the road as the disciples’ doubts, questions, and pain swirl around them. Their movement in the passage reflects where the disciples are in their processing. They are moving and progressing forward as they are vulnerable with each other and this stranger. When they cry out that they had hoped Jesus really was the messiah, they reveal their underlying fear: it now appears he was not. It isn’t until right before Christ is revealed to them that they find a place to stop and sit with their grief. Once he is revealed, the disciples are on the road again, this time to redeem the story that was told as they left. 

Opening Exercise

Are you currently hoping for anything in particular? What does it feel like to hope for something with true hope (something you cannot work towards on your own, but something you have to trust God, or someone else, to come through for you?). 

Read the Text:

Luke 24:13-35

When Easter Hope Isn’t all Shiny and Pastel

A few years ago I was talking with a friend about her husband’s cancer diagnosis. In this conversation I could feel the

The Road to Emmaus (Gang nach Emmaus), 1877, by Robert Zünd. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

sadness and frustration starting to get me down so I said something along the lines of “but we’re hopeful the next treatment will work!” I am ever the person to add sugar to a terrible situation. Luckily, my friend was willing to be honest and vulnerable with me. She said, “honestly, I’m feeling kind of burned by hope. I’d rather not.” I was stunned…Isn’t hope a good thing? 

But she shared that they’d been hoping. That they had hoped the tumor wasn’t cancer at all and then it was. They had hoped the cancer wouldn’t progress and then it did. They had hoped chemo would work and then it didn’t. She, like the disciples on the road in our story, was tired of hope.

When you think about it, hope sets us up to be burned a time or two because, when we start hoping, our whole demeanor changes. We go from a place of accepting our circumstance to dreaming about what things could be like if God, or someone more powerful than we are, stepped up. It’s the dreaming that makes hope dangerous. The disciples who met Jesus on the road had been hoping that Jesus was going to redeem Israel. When it looks like that hasn’t and won’t happen, they are down worse than they were before they met Jesus. They are more upset than when they had no hope.

Easter Hope

What really gets the disciples is that they assume this is the end of the story. They have left the other disciples, wallowing as they walk back towards their lives before hope. But that isn’t how Jesus works. They stop having hope because they tied their hope to very specific outcomes. They hoped that Jesus would redeem them in an earthly battle. They hoped Jesus would never die. They hoped in far smaller ways than our God works. 

When Jesus is revealed in the meal, what the disciples start to see is that their hope made Jesus way too small. They didn’t need to hope he wouldn’t die, because he overcame death. They didn’t need to hope that Jesus would win some earthly battle leaving some new people to be corrupted by power while others struggled. Christ brings the Kingdom of God in which there is abundance for everyone and nobody is lesser than anyone else. This story shows us the danger of hope in our world, not because we might be disappointed (though that’s always a bummer), but because if we hope with too much specificity we might miss who God is altogether. 

When we hope, we hope in a God who is doing far bigger things than our imaginations can handle. The same God who has kept my friend’s husband alive and well for far longer now than any doctor expected.

Reflection Questions

• What do you think the disciples had hoped would happen instead of the cross?
• When have you missed, or almost missed, something really good because you were hoping for something else?
• How can we hope while being faithful to how gigantic our God is? How do we make sure our hopes aren’t putting God in a box?

Closing Activity 

Have students get into pairs and share their hopes. Invite them to gently “correct” each other until their hope is Christ sized, not limited to our own imaginations.

Here’s an example:

• I hope my friend gets better.
• I hope my friend is no longer in pain or the hospital.
• I hope my friend is able to live a rich and happy life with/without their illness.

Once each student has a God-sized hope, share them with the group.

Closing Prayer

Prayer of Good Courage:

O God, you have called your servants
to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.
Give us faith to go out with good courage,
not knowing where we go,
but only that your hand is leading us
and your love supporting us,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Bio

Lindsay Batesmith is the pastor of Rejoice Lutheran Church in Erie, CO. She is consistently in awe of the power of vulnerability to connect us to each other and invite the Holy Spirit to transform lives. When not at church or her favorite coffee shop, Lindsay is usually playing with her dog, Echo, or watching the Great British Bakeoff with her wife, Tillie.

Anne Williams, Ankeny, IA

Warm-up Question

What sorts of things make you feel better when you’re physically hurting? What about when you’re emotionally or spiritually hurting?

Crossing Borders

Rami Adham, a Syrian-Finnish (yes, he lives in Finland) father of 6 is known as Uncle Toy among Syrian refugee children. Adham collects toys and money in Finland then gets himself smuggled into Syria through Turkey to deliver toys and goods to people living in refugee camps. He has made the journey 28 times in five years. It can be dangerous, as he has to be smuggled across the border both ways each time he travels. It’s not unusual for him to walk six or seven hours at a time, sometimes dodging bullets. He says that Syrians have lost faith in others in the world because of the terrible violence in their country. Adham says no one will ever stop him. He’s completely dedicated to the kids of Syria.

Discussion Questions

• Would you ever consider doing something dangerous to bring some good to someone else?
• Do you think what Rami Adham is doing is healing? To himself? To the refugee children?
• How are Adham’s actions healing?

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c

2 Timothy 2:8-15

Luke 17:11-19

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year B at Lectionary Readings

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

Gospel Reflection

First of all, let’s frame Jesus’ story by exploring where he is. Jesus is outside of Jewish lands, he’s in a no-man’s-land between the borders of Judea and Samaria. It’s interesting that the village he enters is in that no-man’s-land. Even more interesting is that there are lepers living near this village. Lepers weren’t allowed to live in the towns, having to live in the hills or valleys around the towns they came from. In a lot of ways, lepers in the ancient world were refugees – unable to live in their own homes, often violently driven out of the towns they used to live in. The only way they were allowed to go back to their old lives was to prove to the local priest that they were healed – free of any skin diseases or conditions that might be considered contagious.

So this is where Jesus is, in a town where there are 10 lepers who just want to get back to their lives, with their families, in their homes. Our Bible text doesn’t say how Jesus healed these ten men, but we know he did. Only one of them turned back to Jesus and thanked him.  Notice, the only man who comes back to thank Jesus is a Samaritan.  Samaritans were often seen as enemies of the Judeans and regarded with suspicion. Jesus tells him that his faith has made him well.

It’s not really a surprise that we find Jesus valuing people who are both the refugees of the ancient world and the historical enemy of his people. Luke consistently tells us that Jesus is always there for the poor and the hurting, that his care extends to them no matter who they are or where they are from. Even if they exist on the very edges of society Jesus is willing to be there for them. And it shouldn’t surprise us that Jesus is willing to leave his comfort zone, even the boundaries of his own country, to meet those who need his help.

Discussion Questions

• If you were one of Jesus’ disciples, how, would you feel about leaving friendly territory and moving into potentially hostile territory to follow him?
• Who exists outside friendly territory in your world? Hint: this is necessarily a literal question – some spaces are hostile to a person without being violent.
• Are there ways for you to meet the people who live outside the borders of your comfort zone?
• Could healing happen if you were to meet those people? What kind of healing would it be?

Activity Suggestions

Grab a bunch of maps, ideally one of your town, one of your state, one of the country and one of the world. The bigger the better. (If you have the space and the resources, have the students draw the maps on strips of butcher paper or poster paper taped together, accuracy isn’t the goal). Spread out all the maps and give your students markers. Instruct them to draw the borders in their lives, the lines that divide us and them. It might a school district border, a line between rich and poor neighborhoods, etc. Reflect together about the borders that exist at all scales of our lives, local, national, global. Reflect further about what it would take to cross those boundaries and get to know the people who live on the other side. What kind of healing would that look like?

Closing Prayer

Gracious and loving God, we know that your presence covers the whole earth and that you are present wherever two or more are gathered in your name. Help us to uncover all of the places where you are, especially if they lie outside our comfortable and safe boundaries. Help us to find ways to cross those boundaries in ways that will bring healing and wholeness to those on both sides of the line. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.