There’s something profoundly human about the story from the Gospel of Luke, a simple story about two disciples walking along a road, away from Jerusalem. They’re walking away from hope, away from expectation. But these two are not just travelling, they’re processing their disappointment. They believed in Jesus, and they had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel. But now we can see that, in their minds, that hope has died on the cross. Jerusalem represents heartbreak and what they believe is the end of the story. So they walk away.
It’s a familiar story. We know what it’s like to walk our own “road to Emmaus,” those times in our lives when expectations collapse, prayers seem unanswered, and God feels strangely absent.
At the heart of their conversation is “we had hoped he was the one.” And we know that place. We know what it feels to carry a “we had hoped” in our hearts. We had hoped that our family would hold together, we had hoped that the prognosis would be positive, we had hoped that the door of opportunity would open, but it wasn’t to be. We had hoped that God would act in a certain way, but he didn’t.
But here is the turning point of the story, Jesus comes near, not in a big way, but quietly, almost unnoticed. He walks beside them and enters their conversation, so casual. “Hey guys, what are you talking about?” And the striking part about this meeting is that they don’t recognise him; they’re his disciples, they’ve heard his voice and seen his face, and yet at this moment they are unable to see who he really is.
We’re told that their eyes were kept from recognizing him. Their sorrow is heavy and their grief and sadness have clouded their vision. Pain can reshape our perception. Disappointment can make us interpret everything through the eyes of loss; and when our lives break down, we can stand in the very presence of God and still say, “where is he?” How often does that happen to us? We assume God is gone, when in reality, he is there all the time.
In this story Jesus doesn’t reveal himself to the disciples. Instead he invites their honesty. He allows them to tell their version of the story: raw, incomplete, and shaped by their limited understanding. So they tell him about Jesus’ crucifixion, that he was a great prophet of God. They tell him about the women discovering the empty tomb and talking to the angels. But they remain stuck between faith and doubt.
Jesus asks questions, just like we’ve been asked questions in our service today. He invites us to talk about the pain and sadness. Sometimes faith begins in honest conversation with God. Faith begins with naming what hurts, and telling God about it.
And then Jesus does something powerful for the disciples, he opens the Scriptures to them and he shows them the big picture. As they walk, Jesus is retelling their story. He explains that what they thought was a disaster was actually part of a greater purpose. The cross was not the end, it was just the beginning, and what looked like defeat was actually victory, that the Messiah should suffer and then enter into glory.
It was all there in the Scriptures. Understanding the Word of God reshapes the way we deal with the world around us. Our understanding is often incomplete. We interpret our lives in fragments but God sees the whole thing. Sometimes what looks like a catastrophe is actually God working in ways we don’t yet understand. God is always working in the world and in our lives, but it’s only our mindset, our flawed thinking that paints him out of the picture. And it comes as no surprise, that we sometimes end up feeling abandoned, that’s the big mistake we make.
We want immediate clarity. God gives unfolding understanding.
We want visible triumph. God often works through hidden purpose.
We want answers now. God forms us through the journey.
Their hearts were burning within them while he talked and walked with them on the road. This stirring of truth, this fire that we sometimes feel rising up slowly in our hearts is the evidence of God’s presence; it is always a response to his action in our lives. There’s a sense that something is shifting, even if we can’t yet name it. Something inside us begins to gradually come alive again. That’s often how God works, not always through a jolt of clarity, but through a gradual kindling.
Jesus starts to walk ahead of the disciples, and then they ask him back to their place. This invitation is important because Jesus does not force himself into this space, but instead he responds to their openness, just like he responds to ours. When we make room for Jesus in our lives, and we ask him to come in and take a seat, he’s never going to say no.
And then comes the moment: Jesus reveals himself in the breaking of the bread. They instantly recognise him. Their eyes are open, not by teaching or anything momentous, but by the simple act of sharing bread. It echoes the last supper and reflects the pattern of Jesus’ life: taken, blessed, broken and given. In that simple ordinary act, the truth becomes unmistakable. Jesus is there in the simple things of life: in conversation, hospitality, quiet moments of reflection. He is there in the breaking of the bread. The sacred often hides in the familiar, just waiting to be seen.
Hope is restored, faith is renewed. And then, just like that, Jesus disappears. Why? Because they don’t need physical proof anymore, their hearts have already been awakened, their understanding has been transformed. We don’t need to see the physical Jesus either; “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
Everything has changed, and as they rush back to Jerusalem, they travel in the opposite direction, from despair to hope, from doubt to faith. Seeing Jesus changes us too and keeps us heading in the right direction. The disciples return to Jerusalem, not with questions this time, but with testimony. The Lord has risen, and they can’t wait to tell the eleven what they had just experienced. Witnessing for Jesus is the natural result of this great revelation. Jesus shows himself and we don’t keep it a secret. Faithful witness is part of our lives as followers of Jesus. Isaiah 43:10 “You are my witness,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.”
The Emmaus journey is a shared one, a walk we take with Jesus. If we want to arrive at our destination it can only ever be that, because Jesus is our direction. Like the lyrics of the song, “the world behind me, the cross before me.” We’re not walking away from the cross, we are walking towards it.
As we walk on our own Emmaus road we need to pay attention.
Listen to conversations, listen to the Word of God, pay attention to the stirrings of your heart, and pay attention to the ordinary moments, because Jesus is already walking beside you. You may just not have recognised him yet.
And then it will happen, perhaps when you least expect it, your eyes will be opened and you will look back and you’ll say to yourself:
Jesus was there all along, I can’t wait to tell someone about it.
Amen.
Tell Out My Soul 
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