Today in our gospel reading, Luke is reminding us that we all have a journey of faith to walk with our Risen Lord.  There are many things that we do not understand about the ways of God and his plan for salvation.  As the scriptures so often remind us, God’s ways are not our ways and God’s ways are far above our ways.  God thinks and sees things in a different way than we do.  If we are ever to come to any true understanding of God we must walk a journey of faith with our Lord Jesus to guide us.  Only the Son can truly reveal the Father to us.  Only the Eternal Word, Jesus, who existed in the beginning with God and through whom all things were created, and who takes on our human flesh in the Incarnation, can truly understand and explain to us the scriptures and how things are properly ordered to God the Father’s glory.

     The disciples on the road to Emmaus turn their journey around and truly turn their experience of the crucifixion of Jesus around in their understanding when they begin to walk with Jesus and allow him to explain how things must happen to fulfill the word of God.  When Jesus meets them they are downcast and troubled by what they have experienced because they do not understand it.  I am sure that they had their own explanations of things, none of which included the continuing presence of Jesus in their lives.  They were conversing and debating about all the things that had just happened in Jerusalem.  Jesus is able to help them to see and to cure their spiritual blindness through the gift of Jesus in the Eucharist.  Jesus gives them the gift of the truth which turns their sorrow into joy.  The new hope that Jesus gives them is a living hope for it is a hope based upon the presence of the Risen One among them.  Once again these two who once were disciples of Jesus are disciples again and turn their lives around to once again return to following Jesus.

     In the resurrection we come to see and understand that Jesus is still very near to us and is with us on our journey of faith.  If we remain with Jesus we will be able to listen to his words and see him revealed in the Eucharist.  Only as disciples in faith can we understand the meaning of events that happen in our lives.  When we try to rely upon our own understanding of things or listen to the explanations of others in the world we are misled and can come to lose our hope.

     The Emmaus story helps us to understand how important it is to continue to listen to the Word of God and to seek an understanding of the events of our lives in light of the Word.  It helps us to understand the importance of recognizing the continuing presence of the Risen Jesus in our midst through the Eucharist and the sacraments.  The Word of God, when properly explained and understood can set our hearts on fire with love for God and neighbor and the Eucharist can lead us to the joy of a life full of hope.

     If we are walking away from the Church and the community of faith that is represented in our story by Jerusalem, we are filled with doubts and despair.  The community of faith gathered around the Risen Jesus and sharing in communion with him around the table of the Eucharist helps us to understand the reason for our hope and keeps our lives filled with joy and hope.

     We all have a journey of faith to walk but we do not need to walk it alone.  Jesus will be our guide and our teacher through his Spirit and will give us the strength to complete our journey and to keep walking in the right direction, towards the kingdom of God.  With Jesus as our companion we can bear witness to the gospel with joy and strength.  As Peter reminds us in his letter to the Church, “conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning, realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct, handed on by your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb.”  For our hope is not in ourselves or our own understanding but rather, “your faith and hope are in God.”