In a way, it’s hard to understand what the problem was. The two disciples on the way to Emmaus had certainly spent enough time with the greatest teacher ever so that they ought to have understood perfectly. No one could blame the instructor if the students were lost. There was nothing Jesus told them that day that they shouldn’t have already known. The Scriptures had always told of a Messiah who would suffer for the sins of his people. Jesus himself had taught them to understand the way of salvation. He had taught them repeatedly that he was going to suffer and die and rise again.

But they were overwhelmed by the whole series of events. Their emotions had taken over and shifted their brains into "park." Jesus had been a great prophet. Nobody had been left untouched by his powerful teaching. Even his enemies were worried about how many people were following him. A week earlier he’d entered Jerusalem to the shouts and songs of great crowds. He’d been delivering powerful sermons in the temple courtyards. But then everything had suddenly gone wrong. He’d been rudely arrested, quickly arraigned on trumped-up charges and hurried through an all night trial. He’d been brusquely handed over to the governor, whose every attempt to free him had been shouted down. The very same day he was led out to a hillside and summarily executed by Roman soldiers as though he were some kind of a mass murderer. People walked by and shook their fists at him, shouting obscenities. What a whirlwind of events! What an emotional trauma! It’s no wonder these two disciples completely lost their bearings and couldn’t think straight!

Still, that was no excuse for being so thoughtless and dense. Jesus scolded them, and that was fair, because they certainly should have known better, even under the circumstances. In fact, that very morning they had heard from not only a group of the women who followed Jesus, but even from two of the Apostles themselves that there were angels sitting in his empty tomb, saying he had risen. Wasn’t this exactly what Jesus had told them in advance—that he would be handed over to the chief priests and teachers of the law and be crucified? Wasn’t this the same Jesus who had even made the most outlandish prediction ever—that he would rise from the dead on the third day? Why couldn’t they believe him? Why couldn’t they remember or trust what Jesus had said? Their denseness hurt nobody more than it hurt themselves. Our text tells us they stood "with their faces downcast." Their slowness to learn and their inability to believe made them downhearted and depressed on the most exciting day in the history of the world. It’s enough to make you shake your head.

But before you do, let’s take a look in the mirror. We human beings have a tremendous capacity for stupidity, ignorance and forgetfulness. Adam and Eve met God face to face and talked with him, and their own son Cain learned absolutely nothing from their firsthand account of the consequences of sin. Humans have been running amok ever since. And even as Christians, people who have been instructed in the truth, we have an overwhelming propensity to forget the most basic lessons of life and get mixed up—when we get caught up in the whirlwind of events and our emotions get the best of us.

Why? Well, we can blame the devil and his temptations, and we’d be right in doing so. But we’d be wrong to pass all the blame off on him. Our own laziness bears plenty of responsibility. We pass up needed opportunities to learn God’s Word—just look at our measly Bible class attendance. When we do hear God’s Word we’re always ready to think it applies to the guy sitting next to us. We yawn and fail to commit to memory the important lessons God teaches us. And when we do, we hurt nobody more than we hurt ourselves.

We need to be scolded just like Cleopas and his partner were. And we need Jesus to patiently re-teach us the basics, just as he did those two disciples on the way to Emmaus. What would have happened to these two disciples had Jesus not gone out of his way to give them his Word all over again? Would they have become atheists? Would they have simply dropped out of religion all together? We need Jesus to walk and talk with us. We need to keep hearing his Word. We need to repent of our laziness when it comes to studying and treasuring his truth. We need Jesus to abide with us, so we’re prepared when we have to go through the kind of a week those two disciples had just been through. There are plenty of confusing, depressing, sometimes even shocking things that happen to us here in this life. We don’t want to be so jarred, we forget everything we’ve ever learned, like these two did. When hard times come, we don’t want to be standing around with our faces downcast, because we’ve forgotten all our Savior’s promises. We need to pray "Abide, O dearest Jesus, among us with your word." We need to let him speak to us. We need to take the opportunities he gives us to learn from him. And we need to take to heart what he says.

When we let Jesus instruct us, when we put in the effort, and redouble our efforts to learn from him, we get a lot more than simply instruction. Look at what happened to these two Emmaus disciples. They’d been moping around wondering what value their lives had. Had they been total fools? Had they placed their hopes in a false prophet? Were they going to have to admit to their friends and families that they’d been totally duped and joined a false cult? But when Jesus instructed them—when he shared with them the treasured truths of the Bible their happiness returned. Their whole outlook on life was changed by Jesus’ Word. They could feel their zest for living come back. It was like someone was giving them an adrenaline injection. They had been entirely downcast and depressed. But as Jesus talked with them, that old feeling returned—the excitement they had first experienced when they began following Jesus and listening to him. They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" No, it wasn’t an outward, emotional excitement, but a very real, deep inner burning—real and lasting hope and confidence, based on the truth of redemption and resurrection. It’s like the hymn writer says:

Jesus gives us more than just knowledge when we let him teach us his word. He pours meaning back into our lives. He gives us hope. He gives us faith. He gives us the Holy Spirit. Have you ever sat there in a church service and truly been moved? Maybe it was the words of some hymn that did it, or a sermon that touched you just when you needed it most. That’s what Jesus wants to do for you all the time. That’s what happens when we keep on hearing and studying his Word.

As they walked on they arrived at Emmaus and Jesus acted as if he were going to continue on. But they weren’t willing to let him. They pleaded with him to please come to their home and continue talking with them. They couldn’t get enough of his gracious words. So Jesus went in with them. They prepared a meal and Jesus sat down to eat with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. ³¹ Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.

Three days earlier Jesus had taken bread, broken it, given thanks and distributed it to his disciples, saying "Take and eat, this is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me." As their unknown guest repeated those very words and actions, they realized that Jesus was with them. Now their joy was complete. They realized that Jesus was still with them. They realized that he had given his body as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. They realized that Jesus was risen and glorified and would never, ever leave them or forsake them. When they had rushed back to Jerusalem, they told the disciples everything that had happened, and that they had recognized Jesus "in the breaking of the bread."

Today, our risen Lord has come into our midst again and spoken to us. And I pray that his words have warmed our hearts as well. But Jesus wants to do one more thing to assure us he is with us. He wants us to know for certain that he is truly in our midst. And so we will give thanks, break bread, and let him feed us. And we will hear his own voice and recognize him in the breaking of the bread, as he, truly present, gives us to eat his own body and his own blood to drink. How like the disciples on the way to Emmaus we are. We make our way from one station in life to the next, and often get lost on the way. We fail to take comfort and encouragement from the Word. We lose sight of Jesus, and sometimes even act as if he had been a failure. But then he comes to us again in his Word and Sacrament and revives our sinking spirits. Let’s not lose sight of what joy and encouragement and understanding and peace are ours when we let Jesus talk to us and feed us. Let us ask him to keep coming to us in Word and Sacrament and Abide With Us forever. Amen.