On the Move - Luke 24:13-35

As I sat down to write this sermon, my driveway suddenly filled with teenagers. Little Rock Central High seniors, to be exact, moving the way seniors do this close to graduation—rushing from one big event to the next, excitedly marking the end of childhood. The guys moved quickly into the kitchen to grab supplies and snacks, and they were back outside in a flash. Large sheets of foam poster board appeared, which they marked up and cut into three-foot letters. And then they were gone almost as quickly as they had arrived. They were headed to the front yard of a girlfriend’s house to pull off a “promposal.” Proms are no longer just about dresses and suits, or a fancy dinner and a corsage. Now they involve elaborate efforts to ask someone to the prom. So those three-foot letters were placed on her lawn to spell out PROM? in a big romantic gesture. She said yes.

I think parenting a senior comes with an almost unavoidable desire for time to slow down for a moment. We want to pause and take it all in. We want to feel nostalgic. But it’s just the opposite for the seniors themselves. They are on the move, ready to launch full steam toward wherever life is taking them next. And by all measures, that moment is coming quickly.

I wonder if the disciples on the road to Emmaus also wished things might slow down. They had been through so much—the arrest of Jesus, the crucifixion, the shock and grief of it all. Luke says that as they stood on the road talking with a stranger, they were looking sad.

And then, suddenly, as they walked along that road, the risen Christ appears to them in disguise.Their hearts burned within them as he interpreted the scriptures. And when they arrived at their destination, the hour was late, so they invited him to stay with them. Then their eyes were opened, and he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.

The story is beautiful, but it is also strange. The disciples walk for miles with Jesus and have no idea who he is. They do not recognize him even while he is opening the scriptures to them. It is only later, when they sit down at the table and he takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them, that their eyes are finally opened. And then, just as suddenly, he disappears.

Which is exactly the sort of thing Jesus tends to do. During his ministry, Jesus was never one to pat people on the back and tell them they had done enough for the kingdom of God. There was always someone else who needed to hear the good news of God’s love. Remember the rich young man who asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. He had kept all the commandments. Jesus told him he wasn’t finished yet—he had to sell his possessions and follow him. Or Simon Peter, who answered Jesus’ question correctly by calling him the Messiah. But getting the right answer was only the beginning. Jesus immediately began to teach that following him would mean taking up the cross.

That was his style. Jesus led by example, and he was always on the move—teaching, healing, traveling from town to town as an itinerant preacher. And he sent the disciples out, too, to proclaim the kingdom of God. After all, there is always someone else who needs to know about God’s grace.

The great preacher and Methodist bishop Will Willimon once remarked that after the resurrection Jesus seems to be on an endless road trip. One moment he’s outside the empty tomb speaking with Mary Magdalene. Then he’s suddenly in a locked room in Jerusalem, speaking peace to the fearful disciples. He’s on a village road to Emmaus. Later he appears on a mountain in Galilee and on a beach by the sea. The risen Christ is on the move—and he seems to be moving fast.

What do we make of this resurrected Jesus who refuses to stay put? If Easter teaches us anything, it’s that the God we worship is a living God. Not some old teaching or dusty idea, but a God who is alive. Maybe it’s human nature to prefer something a little more manageable—to worship a God we could remember, contain, and predict. A God who stays where we expect God to stay and behaves in ways we already understand. But during his lifetime, Jesus consistently gave answers people did not expect. And after his death, his risenness is beyond anything anyone could have predicted.

We might be tempted to think we have God nicely contained—in beautiful buildings, in our liturgy, in the breaking of the Communion bread. And those things are holy and precious gifts. But even our most sacred rituals cannot contain a living God. The story doesn’t end at the table. The moment the disciples recognize him in the breaking of bread, Jesus disappears. And the disciples do not stay there. Luke tells us that “that same hour” they got up and returned to Jerusalem—seven miles back in the night. Because once they have seen the risen Christ, they cannot stay put.

Our Christian hope is fundamentally this: that the living God is still on the move. A divine grace is arriving where we least expect to see it. Easter tells us that it is in God’s very nature to find us in our lostness and surprise us with God’s presence among us. Once, on the road to Emmaus, Christ was made known to the disciples in the breaking of bread. But surely that is not the only way the living God can be known. To think so would be yet another attempt to box in the Holy One who cannot be contained.

So be on the lookout, my friends. Like teenagers on a promposal mission in the name of love itself, the risen Lord is surely on the move. And as the Gospel tells us, he may already be walking beside us on the road—opening our eyes, kindling hope where hope has faded, and sending us back into the world with hearts burning within us. Christ is risen. And he is still on the move.