Jesus on the Emmaus Road
Sunday, September 21, 2025
Scriptures: Luke 24: 13-31
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Summary: In the third sermon of our series, Grounded, Jeremy looks at the story of Jesus interacting with Cleopas and one unnamed disciple on the road to Emmaus. He explores how Christian faith must be embodied, not just understood. Jeremy emphasizes how spiritual insight often emerges through relationship and shared experience rather than just intellectual clarity. He highlights that Jesus reinterprets scripture around himself, showing that the entire biblical story finds its meaning in his life, death, and resurrection. Last, Jeremy encourages us to center our lives on Jesus—not just through belief or emotion, but through lived, ongoing encounters that shapes how we read scripture, relate to others, and understand God.
Like riding a bike: Jeremy begins by arguing that faith, like riding a bike, is something we grow into through practice, not just theory. Comprehension matters, but transformation begins when we risk going forward, even before we’ve fully grasped it.
What’s in a name: The disciples that Jesus walks with to Emmaus remind us that God often meets us in the unnoticed and everyday. Jeremy reminds us to slow down and pay attention to the ordinary relationships and moments where Christ is already present.
Honest questions: As Cleopas asks Jesus if he’s the only one who doesn’t know what happened the past few days, Jesus replies with a question, “What things?” Jeremy points out that Jesus asks this not because he doesn’t know, but because he wants to hear their version of the story. There’s value in telling our story, even to someone who already understands. Listening well and asking open questions helps us connect with others and discover what matters most to them.
Good Interpretations: Jeremy shows that when Jesus explains the scriptures he doesn’t just point to a few prophecies. He reveals how the whole story of scripture leads to him. We’re reminded to let Jesus be the lens through which we read everything, especially the parts of faith we don’t yet understand.
Real encounters: The disciples don’t recognize Jesus until he breaks bread with them. Jeremy reminds us that real transformation often happens through presence and shared experience, not just knowledge. Faith deepens when we allow Jesus to shape not just our thoughts, but our daily lives and relationships as well.
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Community is shaped by the conversations we share. These questions and reflections are a tool to help you meaningfully engage with the themes of this week's teaching.
Connect: Is riding a bike your thing or is there some other equivalent activity in your life that you learned once and never forgot how to do?
Share: Share how you feel about the idea that Jesus may have asked his question to the disciples on the road to Emmaus out of a genuine sense of curiosity to know them better. The stories we tell to our selves and to one another matter to Jesus.
Q: What does it mean about Jesus’ character for him to even bother to ask the two disciples for their side of the story?
Reflect: Reflect Jesus’ idea that all of scripture points to himself.
Consider Jeremy’s words:“I don't think Jesus is just talking about prophecy here:
Specific verses they can be read in particular ways to point to Jesus.
I think he means something far more significant than all that.
I think he's arguing that the arc of story has always been leading toward him.That all the way along, through out all of our history
we have been learning about God,
getting glimpses of God,
noticing where God has been,
Perhaps in the words of Saint Paul, ‘as if seeing through a glass darkly.’
But now, in Jesus, in the cross, in resurrection,
we can perfectly see what God has always actually looked like.Where we thought that God was violent, we see that God is self sacrificing.
Where we thought that God played favourites, we realize that God is all encompassing.
Where we thought that God might hate us, we now know absolutely nothing could possibly farther from the truth.And this is where the New Testament picks up from Jesus, takes the ball and runs with it:
Jesus is the word of God: everything the Divine wants to say to humanity
He is the exact representation of God: our clearest view of God's character.
He is the image of the invisible God: divine love on display for us to follow.But importantly, that now changes how we look back—how we read everything that has come before.”
Q: How does this way of reading Jesus into the scriptures—paying attention to the broader unfolding narrative arch of the text—differ from looking for predictive prophecies about Jesus?
Q: What do we gain from reading the scriptures in way (with Christ as the lens)?Engage: with the idea that “Bible studies—even with Jesus leading them—can’t accomplish what an encounter can.” Cleopas and the other unnamed disciple walked with Jesus along the road and did not recognize him until they sat down with him and he broke bread. Despite Jesus sharing the correct understanding of scripture, the right way of thinking about passages, and interpreting them perfectly, they were only able to see Jesus when they shared a meal together.
Q: What do you think the difference is between understanding faith intellectually and encountering Jesus personally?
Q: What significance might there be in Jesus sitting down with these otherwise lesser-known disciples for him to offer them an resurrection encounter?Take away: What is your takeaway from the message or today’s conversation?
Prayer from the sermon:
Gracious God,
We pause in this moment to recognize your presence among us today.
You are the one who has carried us, who has guided our steps,
who continues to open opportunities for us that we could not have imagined on our own.
As so we dream together about our future as individuals,
our story together as Commons.We give thanks for every act of grace along the way.
Every hand that has help us up,
every story that has contributed to this shared narrative,
and, we ask now, that you would steady our hearts in renewed trust,
root us in strengthened gratitude,
give us new courage to take bold steps forward, wherever you might lead.But in all of it,
we pray that Christ remain at the very center of who we are:
Shaping our vision, forming our community,
Leading us along the way of grace and peace.
In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray,
Amen. -
CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 9
MUSIC Curated by Kevin Borst
The McClures - Reign Above It All
Brooke Ligertwood - Bless God
Brooke Ligertwood - Holy Song
City Alight - Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me
CONFESSION FOR LETTING GO
Written by Bobbi SalkeldFall is a great time to practice spiritual letting go. Even the trees can’t enter a restful, dormant winter by hanging on to what they no longer need.
As next year’s buds form on the branches, letting go is a healthy part of a flourishing life. And so today, I invite you into a prayer of confession for letting go.
Let us pray.
God who transforms all of life, we open our hearts to the work of letting go.
We confess that we often insist on our own way. A way is quick to judge, prefers easy explanations over nuance, is insecure in ways that deny our faith in Jesus.
As we pray, we let go of our self-importance, so we can let in more love.
We confess that we have failed to love others as you have loved us.
We have failed to offer undeserved kindness, to seek out the lost and alone, to imagine how near you are to people who are not like us.
As we pray, we let go of stubborn spite, so we can let in more love.
We confess that we put our trust in penalties over mercy.
We do not seek peace, we do not recognize the compassion you offer our complex human stories, we fall over ourselves to blame a side as if there are sides in all that you have made.
As we pray, we let go of those delusions, so we can let in more love.
Amen.
SERIES BUMPER
Grounded
