Sermon on Luke 24:13–35: The Road to Emmaus and the invitation to encounter the risen Jesus
Reverend Harry Newton preaches at SumRed Church on the Easter story of the two travelers who walk with Jesus without recognizing him.
Summary
Rev Harry Newton delivers a sermon based on Luke 24:13–35, the account of two followers of Jesus walking to Emmaus after the crucifixion, joined by the risen Jesus whom they do not recognize. He argues that Luke's careful, research-based gospel account is not myth-making — and demonstrates this by pointing out that myths are never written with unreliable witnesses, doubting heroes, or an unrecognized divine figure. The central claim of the sermon is that intellectual knowledge of the resurrection, however well-founded, is insufficient on its own: the two travelers only truly encountered the risen Jesus when they actively invited him in for a meal. Newton applies this directly to the congregation, arguing that faith is not a one-time event but an ongoing, personal relationship with Jesus that requires a deliberate, repeated invitation — and that Jesus, unlike in the cases of Paul and Matthew, does not force himself upon anyone.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening: School assemblies and what they're really for
Rev Harry Newton: I said I went to Wellington College — I actually went to, if you include home school for a short bit, nine schools in total, so I flitted around a bit. When I went to Wellington College, my mum and dad sent me there for my seventh form — that means year 13, for those of you younger than me. They sent me there as a finishing year: "We're going to sort you out, Harry," because my attendance record was below 50% and I was failing. So I went there, and my attendance record got worse. Then I bribed my dean with a Big Mac, and I got an award for the best attendance of my year. It shows you that honesty doesn't get you very far in life.
When I went to Wellington College, I came from Paraparaumu — otherwise known as Pram. Pram College had the highest teen pregnancy rate three years in a row. We were not a highly aspiring school. At the end of your sixth form, year 12, was when you had your leavers' dinner, because almost no one came back for the final year of school. It was just not a good school. We had our leavers' dinner at the end of year 12, and we had this girl come from another school to tell us about the time her sister once tried out to go to the Olympics. That was our inspirational talk. It was not a good school.
So then I turned up at Wellington College, and Wellington College has assembly every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Mr. Moses walks out in his billowing gowns and hat, looks out at the school, puts his spectacles down the end of his nose, and says, "Gentlemen, Wellington College is an academic institution. Now, time for the sport results." And then he would read the sport results, get to the end, and say, "Now let us pray the school prayer." And he would pray: "O Lord, we beseech ye this our school to bless us in all our sporting endeavors."
Now, why do I tell you this? School assembly is not what school is all about, is it? Obviously not. So much goes on during the week outside of assembly. Even if you're Wellington College and you're a bit over the top with three assemblies a week, outside of those three one-hour slots each week, a lot more goes on. And yet assembly is important. Why? Because assembly sets culture. The school assembly encapsulates all that the school prioritises and holds dear.
Now, church on a Sunday is a weird thing. When we gather together — if you're not a church person and you're visiting today, awesome, so glad you're here — when we gather for church, it's a weird thing to do. We sit in rows, we look at a screen, we sing some words in unison with other people, hoping we're in key. And then we hear some guy or woman hop up and talk at us for 15 or 20 minutes and hope it's shorter. Here's the thing: church on a Sunday is a little bit like a school assembly. It encapsulates all that's important to us, but it's not the be-all and end-all of the Christian life.
Now, we've been doing this for 2,000 years. People have been doing this around the globe. Millions of people over the next 24 hours are going to be joining together. Millions have already gone before us. Even here in Sumner, the Redcliffs congregation was at 9 o'clock this morning — the Keeneys were there doing church at 9, even earlier than you and me. People are around the world worshiping today, just like we have for 2,000 years. And what we do every single time when we gather to worship is we read the scriptures, open them up, and explore them together. That's what we're going to do this morning.
Luke's gospel and the three resurrection encounters
Rev Harry Newton: When we open the scriptures in an Anglican church and we're going to have communion — which we are today — we always have a reading from the Gospels, one of four accounts of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Mark is probably actually dictated to him by Peter, Jesus' friend, just before he dies. John is probably Jesus' little cousin. Matthew is probably known as Levi. And Luke is my favourite, because — as I've said before — my granddad smoked his way through the Gospel of Luke when he was in a Nazi war criminal camp, and he became a committed follower of Jesus, because he read both sides of the paper before he smoked it.
Luke is awesome because he never met Jesus, and yet he researched the Jesus story in huge depth. He actually wrote two books: the Gospel of Luke — gospel meaning the good news — and also the book of Acts. Now, if you know the book of Acts, you'll know that it opens like this: "After Jesus' suffering, he presented himself alive to them" — that means his followers — "by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during 40 days." Now, 40 days is a long time. And during that time, Jesus appears to a lot of different people.
In fact, Paul — otherwise known as Saul, who was an absolute ratbag, rounding up men, women, and children and having them tortured, sometimes executed, and kicked out of their homes for following Jesus — until he himself became a follower of Christ, he wrote that Jesus appeared to over 500 brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, although some are dead. His point being: back in the day when this was written, if you don't believe the story I'm telling you secondhand, go to Jerusalem and ask the people who saw it happen. Go meet the people who actually saw the risen Jesus.
Now, bring these two stories together. Luke is researching in depth, interviewing people for years to write an orderly account. Paul, who is in the thick of it, is telling us firsthand about a bunch of people who encountered the risen Jesus. And yet Luke, in our chapter today — the last chapter of his gospel account, before he flicks into part two in the book of Acts — only tells us about three groups of people who encounter Jesus. Only three. That tells us something really important about these three. There must be something about them that conveys to us something important about the resurrection — not just that it happened, but something about that fact.
The three different groups are: women at the tomb, eleven disciples living in fear, and then these two travelers on the road to Emmaus.
Why the resurrection accounts don't read like myths
Rev Harry Newton: As I said a couple of weeks ago, if you're going to write a first-century myth and make it up about someone rising from the dead so that a whole bunch of people will follow them, why would you say it was women who witnessed it? Now, it's not a sexist comment. The reason I say that is that in those times, women were not considered credible witnesses. They weren't allowed to give testimony in court. They weren't allowed to own property. They were considered to be second-class citizens at best. So if you're going to write a fabricated story about someone rising from the dead — which no one expected, by the way — why would you say that the people who witnessed it were people who were usually not believed? You wouldn't. It would discredit you if you were writing a myth.
Then you've got the eleven disciples — the heroes of the faith, the men who are going to go on to lead the church into the future and change the face of the planet. Heroes. Legends. Full of fear and doubt. We're told that as Jesus appeared to them, they themselves doubted. That's a weird thing to say if you're writing a myth.
And it's got a similar theme at play in the middle story, which is today's story — the travelers on the road to Emmaus. Because if you were making the story up from scratch, if you're a first-century myth-maker, you wouldn't have your resurrected hero appearing on the road and no one recognizes him. Can you imagine Hercules doing that? Appearing — "Hello, everyone" — and everyone going, "Sorry, who's that?" He'd be offended. He'd probably smoke everyone within a certain radius. Why would you do that? This is not the way myth-making works.
I'll tell you how myth-making works. Has anyone heard of the Gospel of Thomas? If you haven't, your life is better for it. Don't read it. It's absolute garbage. But the baby Jesus in it is a complete psychopath. Another baby or toddler runs around the corner and bumps into the baby Jesus, and the baby Jesus turns him to stone for bumping into him. And the parents go, "Yes, he deserved that." That's weird — but that's myth-making.
Then there's the Gospel of Peter. Even more garbage. Suffice to say that the resurrection account in it was roundly rejected by the early church, in part because of how bizarre it is. Two ridiculously good-looking young men wake everybody up and say, "Come watch." So everyone turns up, and they roll aside the stone. They go in, and they come out with Jesus draped between them — completely exhausted. As they come out, the sky is ripped asunder. It's the middle of the night. A little bright light comes down, and the three of them — Jesus and the two angelic figures — are transformed into giants. Then a voice calls out, "Have you finished preaching to the dead?" And out comes a floating, flying cross with a mouth that speaks, and they have this conversation. It's bizarre. And I'm not doing it justice because it's complete garbage. But the point is, that's how you write a myth.
We all know, regardless of our cultural backgrounds, that there are myths in our cultures that we tell to this day, knowing they're myths, because they carry a certain resonance within our cultural background. And none of this, of course, is doing the Gospel of Peter justice — which is good, because as I say, it's terrible.
The point is: you don't write myths based on the witness of culturally untrustworthy peasant women. You don't write myths based on the doubts of the heroes of your faith. And you don't write myths about your divine hero not being recognized by his own followers. And yet that's exactly what Luke does. He tells us about his three groups — the women, the travelers, and the eleven disciples — because for him they are incredibly important. They tell us not just about the fact that the resurrection happened, but something important about that fact.
The two travelers and the collapse of their hope
Rev Harry Newton: That begs the question: what? What can we learn from today's story about the two travelers on the road to Emmaus?
Well, let's have a super quick look at it. Luke tells us of how these two followers are going to a village called Emmaus, talking to each other about all these things that have happened — all these things being what Luke has written about for the previous two chapters: Jesus having the Last Supper with his friends at the Jewish Passover festival; Jesus being betrayed by his friend Judas; Jesus being deserted by his closest followers; Jesus being tortured and nailed to an instrument of death; his lifeless body thrown in a hole; and then his body going missing.
And as they're talking and discussing these things, we're told Jesus himself came near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other?" And they stood still, downcast. Then — to paraphrase — they essentially asked him, "Are you living under a rock? How do you not know these things have taken place?" To which Jesus replies, "What things?" And so they begin to explain the source of their grief and their anguish.
Now, a little bit of context. In first-century Judaism, there was a widely shared hope that God was going to send a Messiah — a king, a savior. This person would be a descendant from the famous King David. If you haven't heard of King David, he united the twelve tribes of Israel, solidified the borders, and set up a golden era that lasted quite a long time. And this Davidic king would defeat Israel's enemies and reestablish their national fortunes. Because at this point, they had been under foreign rule for between 550 and 600 years, depending on how you count the progression of the original conquest.
Now, what this would look like — this Davidic king coming to save them — would differ according to what subsect of Judaism you subscribed to and therefore your interpretation of the Jewish scriptures. But there was nonetheless an overarching expectation that God was going to send a savior, a Messiah, to rescue the Israelites from their subjugation by foreign powers, by overthrowing their oppressors and establishing God's rule via the royal throne of the ancient King David.
The issue with that worldview is that the idea of a suffering, dying, and crucified Messiah just doesn't make sense. Plus, according to some interpretations of the Jewish scriptures at the time, crucifixion was a form of being cursed — because in Deuteronomy it talks about "cursed is he who is hung upon a tree." And so a man crucified by Rome in the form of a criminal couldn't be God's chosen Messiah.
That explains why the two travelers respond the way they do to Jesus' question, "What things?" They say: "These things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, of how the chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified. But — we had hoped. We had hoped that he might be the one to redeem Israel." In other words: but he wasn't.
When we understand the context of their hope that God would save them from their enemies, I feel like we can begin to grasp the disappointment and the despair they were experiencing. Their despondency in the story is not just because their mate has been killed. It reveals the collapse of their hope. They're experiencing an existential crisis — the dark night of the soul. They had hoped for a redeemer. They had hoped that Jesus was this redeemer who would triumph and deliver them from over 550 years of foreign rule and occupation. And instead, they had witnessed their would-be Messiah be brutally tortured and crucified.
But here's the problem. The issue here is not that Jesus failed to be the true Messiah. The issue is that their expectations of the true Messiah were mistaken. They expected a conquering king because they didn't really understand the Jewish scriptures and how they pointed towards God's long-promised Messiah. They didn't understand that those scriptures pointed to the fact that Jesus had to suffer as part of God's divine plan — not just for the sake of the Israelites who had been under the rule of a foreign empire for almost 600 years, but actually for the sake of the whole world.
Jesus opens the scriptures on the road
Rev Harry Newton: Which is why Jesus responds to them by saying: "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared. Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And then, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
And then — to my personal disappointment — Luke doesn't note down the scriptures Jesus actually referenced. How annoying is that? However, if you ever actually want to, you can sit down and go through the Old Testament and see all the prophetic writings that bizarrely all link back to Jesus. There are just so many that it gets to the point where you can't really dismiss the link.
And if you're a parent or a grandparent and you're looking into it in a way that's engaging for adults but also really good for kids, there's a book called the Jesus Storybook Bible. The tagline is "Every story whispers his name." It's awesome. We use it at home. It's got really good art, and it's all about showing how the main threads in the Old Testament all point towards who Jesus is. Even if you don't consider yourself a Jesus follower, those correlations between the Old Testament writings and Jesus are incredible.
The invitation that changes everything
Rev Harry Newton: But here's the thing. Head knowledge about all that stuff only gets you so far. As the two travelers walked that day alongside Jesus, he opened up the Jewish scriptures and explained them in ways that not only made sense, but pointed them towards God's long-awaited Messiah — what he would actually look like. And it must have been amazing. It must have been pretty intellectually stimulating.
But here's the thing — I don't know if you noticed this. It wasn't until they invited Jesus in for a meal that they truly encountered the risen Jesus. Until that moment, they don't recognize him for who he really is. And notice, too, that Jesus doesn't foist himself upon them. As they approach the town, it tells us that he was going to walk on ahead as if he was going on. I suspect he wanted them to invite him in, but he was waiting for them to make that invitation. He was waiting for them. If they hadn't, he would have passed on down the road. And they would have missed out on meeting the risen Jesus himself.
Luke researched his account of the Jesus story incredibly carefully. He only included stories that he personally could verify. He spent years traveling. He interviewed people who had seen what had happened. He structured his account carefully. He referenced ancient prophecies. He included the testimony of the women at the tomb. He included the doubting disciples, the spiritually blind travelers on the road to Emmaus. He structured his account like a true academic. And throughout both his books — both Luke and Acts — he provides us with all this head knowledge. It's awesome.
But in today's story, he doesn't just give us more circumstantial evidence to support the reality of the resurrection of Jesus. Because for Luke, the resurrection is a fact. What he wants you and me to know about that fact is this: if we do not take the opportunity to proactively welcome Jesus into our lives, we will miss out on the most extraordinary experience of our life — an encounter with the risen Jesus.
When I was at theological college, I had this moment. I was sitting in my dingy little cloister — the office they give you — and I remember being almost overcome. Not by the academic argument or logic of what I was reading. I was flitting between Torrance and Barth and Trebilco, these big heavy thinkers in the theological realm. But I was overcome by this fresh desire to know ever more deeply the risen Jesus. And I hope I never lose that. Because all the head knowledge in the world will only get you so far in faith. It's good stuff, the head knowledge. But unless you invite Jesus into your life, you'll never truly encounter the risen Lord. He'll remain a theological nicety, a philosophical lovely thing, a thing to believe in intellectually but not to be known emotionally or personally.
Jesus waits to be invited
Rev Harry Newton: With the exception of two men — Saul, who became Paul, the ratbag I mentioned earlier, and also Levi, otherwise known as Matthew — with the exception of those two, Jesus never foists himself upon others. Have you noticed that? Instead, he waits for us to invite him in, just like the two travelers did that day on the road to Emmaus.
The Christian faith makes sense philosophically. It actually makes sense intellectually, despite what people like Dawkins like to say. And it makes sense historically. But the faith extends beyond the mind and into the heart. Bishop Sandy Millar, who used to be the head of Holy Trinity Brompton, a big evangelical church in England, and who went on to become Bishop of London, used to talk about having an intimate relationship with the risen Jesus. He would say that Jesus is real and you can experience him in your life. And today's story reminds us that we can know him — personally and intimately. You simply need to invite him in.
Now, this is a standard kind of youth group message you hear at Easter camp, at various places as you're growing up. And it can be easy, I think, for those of us who've been in the church a while to go, "Okay, that's lovely," and shunt it to one side. But here's the thing: every good marriage thrives when the relationship is being invested in. It's the same for the relationship with Jesus Christ. It's not one and done. It's an ongoing interaction with the Lord of the universe, who is knowable to you through the Holy Spirit. And if that sounds kooky, I get it. But it's true.
You have an opportunity to meet the risen Lord — either for the first time, or afresh for the second, hundredth, thousandth time, whatever it is. It's an opportunity, but you need to make that decision. No one else can make it for you.
One of the things that can be unhelpful — and it's great at one level, we all hear wonderful testimonies in church — is that about one in every hundred people has this amazing lightning-bolt experience where they see a vision of Jesus or something, and they give their lives to Christ and throw away the gang life or whatever it is. Awesome. Genuinely, I'm not putting that down. But for 99.9% of us, faith is more like a gentle rain rather than a thunderstorm. And that doesn't mean it's any less true.
You have the opportunity to know your creator and redeemer personally. But if you want that to be your reality, then you need to make that step as well. Jesus has gone more than halfway. He's at the door. There's a famous painting of Jesus knocking at the door — he's holding a lantern. You may have seen it. But there's no door handle on the outside. The point being: the door handle is only on the inside. You have to open the door and let him in.