Introduction
By the time we arrive at this text, most of us have already proclaimed the resurrection twice, maybe thrice, maybe more if we’ve walked through the Vigil and Easter morning. The alleluias have been sung. The tomb has been declared empty.
And yet, Easter has a way of leaving us with as many questions as answers.
Because resurrection is not just an event to announce, it is a reality to make sense of. And that takes time.
So what do we do in the meantime? We tell stories.
We try to piece together what has happened, what it means, and where we go from here. We rehearse conversations. We interpret events. We draw conclusions.
And sometimes, the stories we tell aren’t the whole story.
That’s where the Road to Emmaus meets us, not in the clarity of Easter morning, but in the confusion that follows it.
Narrative Context: Walking Away with a Version of the Story
It’s a bit of a liturgical pivot to land in Luke here. We’ve been immersed in Matthew and John through Palm Sunday’s processions, the Passion narratives, the empty tomb, and now Luke steps in with this long, slow resurrection account.
But Luke gives us something the others don’t: space to process.
Two disciples, one named Cleopas, the other unnamed, are walking away from Jerusalem. They are not running toward resurrection. They are leaving the place where everything fell apart.
And as they walk, they talk.
They are doing what all of us do after something disorienting or painful: they are trying to make sense of it by telling the story.
When Jesus joins them (unrecognized) he doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t correct. He asks a simple question: “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?”
And they stop. They look sad. And then they begin to tell it.
It’s a faithful retelling, in many ways. They get the facts mostly right. Jesus of Nazareth. A prophet mighty in word and deed. Handed over. Crucified. The empty tomb. The report of angels.
But then comes the interpretive center of their story: “But we had hoped…”
That’s the lens through which they understand everything. Their story is shaped not just by what happened, but by what didn’t happen. By the expectations that were not fulfilled in the way they imagined.
And so, even with the empty tomb, even with the witness of the women, their story still ends in disappointment.
Jesus Doesn’t Correct, He Reframes
What’s striking is how Jesus responds. He lets them finish.
He allows them to tell the story as they understand it. Even though it is incomplete, even though it is misinterpreted, even though it misses the very truth standing in front of them.
And only then does he begin to speak. “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?”
And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he reinterprets the entire narrative.
This is not a correction as much as it is a reframing.
The cross, which they understood as the end of hope, becomes part of God’s unfolding promise. The suffering they saw as failure becomes the very means of redemption. The story they told, while not entirely wrong, was too narrow to hold what God was actually doing.
This is where the text becomes deeply pastoral.
Because many of us know what it is like to tell a story from within our own hurt, frustration, or confusion.
We rehearse what happened. We assign meaning. We fill in motives. We come to conclusions that make sense given what we can see.
And sometimes, if we are fortunate, we have someone in our lives who listens.
Someone who lets us tell the story fully. Who doesn’t shut us down or dismiss our experience.
But then, gently, begins to ask:
Is it possible there’s more going on here?
Is it possible you’re seeing this from only one angle?
Is it possible the story is bigger than you thought?
That is exactly what Jesus is doing on the road.
He meets them in their story.
He honors their telling of it.
And then he expands it.
Resurrection, in this moment, is not just about Jesus being alive, it is about the story being told differently. And even then, recognition doesn’t come immediately.
It is only later, after the scriptures have been opened, after the bread has been broken, that they say: “Were not our hearts burning within us…?”
Recognition comes in hindsight.
Which means that resurrection is not always something we see clearly in the moment. Sometimes it is something we come to understand only after the story has been reframed.
Preaching Possibility
Allowing Christ to Reframe Our Lives (and Our Communities)
This text opens up a powerful and deeply relevant preaching direction.
Because our people are already telling stories. Stories about their relationships, their disappointments, their failures, their understanding of God.
And many of those stories sound like: “But we had hoped…”
We had hoped the diagnosis would be different.
We had hoped the relationship would last.
We had hoped things would turn out another way.
Those stories are real. They deserve to be told. And this text does not rush to silence them. But it also doesn’t let one narrative be the final word.
The good news here is not simply that Jesus is risen. The good news is that the risen Christ comes alongside us in the middle of our storytelling, not to invalidate it, but to walk with us long enough to reframe it.
To show us that what we thought was the end may not be the end. What we understood as failure may be part of something larger. What we assumed about God may need to be expanded.
And that reframing doesn’t just happen in our personal lives. It happens in the life of the church, too.
Because congregations tell stories as well. We tell stories like:
“We just can’t get young families anymore.”
“People don’t give like they used to.”
“No one wants to serve.”
“The church just isn’t what it once was.”
And maybe there is truth in those observations. But are they the whole story?
What if, like those disciples on the road, we’ve told a story that makes sense based on what we can see, but have missed something deeper?
What if instead of assuming younger families aren’t interested, we asked:
What are the pressures they’re carrying? What schedules are they navigating? What would make space for them to actually participate?
What if instead of lamenting financial strain, we asked:
Have we created space for honest conversations about money, fear, and generosity? Do we even know how our people are doing?
What if instead of concluding that no one wants to serve, we wondered:
Are people burned out? Have we asked the same few people for too long? Are there gifts in the community we haven’t taken the time to see?
What if instead of saying “the church isn’t what it used to be,” we asked:
What is God doing now that we haven’t yet recognized?
Because reframing doesn’t deny reality. It deepens it.
It widens the lens just enough to begin seeing where Christ might already be present, walking alongside us, even when we didn’t recognize him.
And like the disciples, that reframing often happens in very ordinary places:
On the road in conversation and listening.
In the scriptures as God’s story reshapes our own.
At the table where Christ is made known in shared life.
Which means the church becomes a community where stories are not just told, but re-told in light of resurrection. Not erased. Not denied. But redeemed.
And when that reframing finally takes hold, when Christ is recognized, it does something to us.
It turns us around.
The disciples who were walking away from Jerusalem now rush back to it. The place they had left becomes the place they return to, because now the story has changed.
And they cannot help but tell it again. This time as witnesses to resurrection.
Micah Krey 
Leave a comment