Acts 2.14a, 36-41;
1 Peter 1.17-23;
Luke 24.13-35

THE ROAD to Emmaus is not on any map. It is whatever road we take today. For some, it will be the 8.17 from Surbiton and the day in the City. For others, it will be the trail round Tesco, the dry-cleaners, the doctor’s, and the school-gate. The Emmaus road may be the first-class flight and the conference in New York. Or it may be the slow painful path from bed to tall chair and the drawn-out hours by the window.

On every Emmaus road, there is the possibility of a stranger falling in step with us. We may or may not recognise him.

Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Emmaus road was the wild Antarctic seas, and the peaks and glaciers of the island of South Georgia. The crew of his ship, The Endurance, was stranded on Elephant Island. Shackleton set out in a small lifeboat for the coast of South Georgia, 800 miles away.

He and his two companions traversed the island’s unmapped mountains to reach a remote whaling station. There Shackleton reported the plight of his crew, and mounted the expedition that would rescue them. The great explorer wrote of that journey:

When I look back at those days, I have no doubt that Providence guided us, not only across those snowfields, but across the storm-white sea that separated Elephant Island from our landing-place on South Georgia. I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia, it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to me, ‘Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.’
From South (1919)

T. S. Eliot, moved by Shackleton’s story and its echoes of the Emmaus journey, writes of the mysterious stranger who sometimes keeps us company:

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and
     I together
But when I look ahead, up the white road
There is always another one walking
     beside you.
From The Waste Land (1922)

“The white road” is both the path across the polar snows and the Palestinian road, its dust dazzling white in the high sun, which the two friends walked that first Easter Day. Shackleton himself wrote of “the dearth of human words, the roughness of mortal speech” to speak of such an experience.

The evangelists, too — so exact, albeit so laconic — in their accounts of the crucifixion, struggle with that same “dearth of human words” to account for the events of the first Easter Day and to describe the disciples’ encounters with the risen Christ.

“The Emmaus experience” can be overwhelming, revelatory, and life-transforming, as it was for Cleopas and his friend. They learned that day that redemption is won only at great cost, a truth written in their scriptures, as it is woven into the fabric of the human condition.

They learned that the Messiah had to suffer; that — as our Epistle puts it — “he was destined before the foundation of the world” to do so. They learned that the Lord is palpably present when bread is taken, blessed, broken, and given.

Above all, they learned, when “he vanished from their sight”, that he does not leave those who for “a little while” no longer see him (John 16.16).

Yet the Emmaus experience can be less straightforward. In one of the most extraordinary pictures of a Gospel scene ever painted, the artist Velazquez suggests that, for someone in the house at Emmaus, what took place there was altogether more equivocal.

Velazquez realises — what occurs to few readers of Luke — that someone must have cooked the supper. He depicts a woman in the kitchen, pausing in her work to listen to the conversation going on at the table in the adjacent room. Through a serving hatch, or possibly in a mirror, we can just glimpse the meal in progress. The woman — so sad, so bemused, so weary — looks as if she is the kitchen-maid. (For Velazquez, a 17th-century Spaniard, she is a black African.)

Of course, it might have been the host’s wife who was left out of the conversation to get on with the kitchen chores. Whoever she was, it seems unlikely that Jesus was made known to her in the breaking of the bread that she had baked.

Unlikely — but not impossible. If it had dawned on her who he was, she would not have been the only woman that Easter to have been quicker on the uptake than the men around. The poet Denise Levertov wonders about her.

Those who had brought this stranger home
 to their table
don’t recognise yet with whom they sit.
But she in the kitchen, absently touching
 the wine-jug she’s to take in,
a young Black servant intently listening,
swings round and sees
the light around him.

Text of readings

Acts 2.14a,36-41

On the day of Pentecost, 14Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd, 36‘Let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.’

37Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what should we do?’ 38Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.’ 40And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.’ 41So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added to their number.

1 Peter 1.17-23

17If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. 18You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. 20He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. 21Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.

22Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. 23You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

Luke 24.13-35

13On that same day, two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. 18Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ 19Jesus asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see Jesus.’ 25Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ 27Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

28As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. 30When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Jesus; and he vanished from their sight. 32They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ 33That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ 35Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.