Thomas J Parlette
“The First Pilgrim Walk”
Luke 24: 13-35
4/19/26
On most days, weather permitting, I try to take a walk around the block in our neighborhood. On days that are too cold or too wet, I usually walk around the church building. A good walk clears your head – it’s good for your heart and your soul.
A while back I heard about another interesting walk you can take in England – the coast to coast walk. The walk starts in St. Bee’s England on the Irish Sea, where you are encouraged to pick up a stone from the rocky beach, and continues for 190 miles across northern England to Robin Hood’s Bay on the North Sea, passing through the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, and North York Moors National Park. At the conclusion, you are then encouraged to toss your stone into Robin’s Hood Bay. The whole trip usually takes about two weeks – but a lot of people break up into a couple of shorter walks. Juliet is determined to go, but I’m still kind of on the fence about it.
If you are fan of the PBS show, “All Creatures Great and Small”, there is a special walk that is much shorter than focuses on the Yorkshire Dales, where the show takes place. That one sounds a bit more my speed.
Both of these walks are a bit much for your average tourist, they’re more for the traveler, or even the pilgrims among us. Let me make that distinction a bit clearer.
I think, broadly speaking, there are three kinds of people who travel. First, there are the tourists. These are the people who are traveling for fun, for pleasure. They want to see the well-known sights. They have their cameras and phones at the ready and take lots of pictures to show “Look where I am.” Tourists are oft-maligned – but I’ve been one on most of the trips I’ve taken, and I don’t see anything wrong with being tourist.
Then, there are the travelers. These are the people who are less interested in seeing the high points, the well-known sights, and more interested in experiencing the everyday culture of the people who actually live in a different country. They tend to enjoy the off-the-beaten trail activities more than the stuff everybody does. These usually include people who’ve already been to a certain location before, and they’re looking for something different. I’ve been a traveler a couple of times too – and there’s nothing wrong about being one of those either.
Then there are the pilgrims. Pilgrims are people who journey to sacred places for religious reasons. They are seekers. They aren’t necessarily interested in seeing the sights and taking pictures. They aren’t necessarily looking to experience another culture. No, a pilgrim is focused on their internal journey. They are looking for meaning. They are searching for spiritual fulfillment.
The 2010 film, “The Way” is a movie about a pilgrimage. It features Martin Sheen as a grieving father named Tom, who travels to Spain after the death of his son Daniel. Daniel was killed in a storm while walking the famous Camino de Santiago – the “Way of St. James”- a 500- mile pilgrimage ending at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, where the remains of the apostle St. James are believed to be buried.
At first, Tom is just there to collect his son’s remains, but instead, he decides to finish the Camino himself. Along the way, he discovers not only the land and the people and their culture, but he comes to a deeper understanding of grief, community and faith. (1)
Pilgrims have always known that the sights along the way are not as important as the journey itself. The journey becomes the teacher. These sort of walks, these pilgrimages have survived because walking changes us. Nothing clears your mind like walking. And nothing leads you to deep questions better than a pilgrimage.
This morning we meet a couple of travelers on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, Cleopas, and another unnamed disciple, perhaps Cleopas’ wife, but as many scholars point out, Luke might have left the disciple unnamed as a way for us to step into the story. I would describe them as the first Christian pilgrims – although they don’t know it yet. As they walk their rather short pilgrimage, they are talking, and questioning and trying to make sense about what has just happened in Jerusalem.
As Luke tells the story, this short 7 mile walk to Emmaus happens during the afternoon of Easter. Cleopas and his companion have heard what happened, how the tomb was found empty, but they aren’t celebrating. They are still in a state of disbelief and disappointment. As they were walking and talking, a mysterious man shows up, they don’t recognize him just yet, and asked what they are talking about. They are astounded that he hasn’t heard about what has taken place in the Holy city. So they relay the story of what happened to Jesus. You can feel their disappointment when they say, with a deep sigh, “We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel, but I guess not.”
Although, they say, we were astounded that some women of our group went to the tomb and found it empty. We checked it ourselves, and we did not see him. Maybe they gave a shrug of their shoulders that said, “we have no idea what happened or what this means.”
So there they are, on a pilgrimage, looking for meaning.
Then Jesus started with Moses and went through all the prophets, interpreting for them what all these things meant.
When they came to Emmaus, the mysterious man kept walking, but the Cleopas and his companion asked him to stay with them for the night. When they sat down at the table together, Jesus blessed the bread, broke and gave it them – and then they recognized him.
It’s a shame that the lectionary stops there, because the story goes on. If we were to read another 12 verses, we would hear Luke’s version of Jesus appearing to the disciples and passing them the peace. There is no Thomas in Luke’s version – instead, all the disciples are frightened at Jesus’ appearance, and they all doubt that its really him. They think they are seeing a ghost. After he showed them his hands and feet, the scripture tells us that the disciples “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.” So Jesus asked for a piece of broiled fish and ate it in their presence, to prove he was real and not a ghost.
It’s an interesting turn of phrase that Luke uses here – “In their joy, they were disbelieving and still wondering.” These first Christian pilgrims were filled with joy that this was indeed Jesus standing among them – but even in their joy, they still weren’t sure. They still weren’t ready to believe.
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Too good to be true.” (2) It’s easy to be lulled into the attitude that something bad is lurking just around the corner – even when something good happens, when something amazing happens, it’s tempting to believe, this is too good to be true. There has to be catch. That’s what Thomas felt last week, and this week, as Luke tells the story, the rest of the disciples felt the same way. This is too good to be true.
But that’s the way God operates. God is always doing something surprising, something that seems just too good to be true. Think about the stories you so well.
Abraham and Sarah, old as dust, have a baby that they name Isaac, meaning laughter – a surprise too good to be true.
- Moses, a stutterer and murderer, becomes the means of Israel’s liberation – a surprise too good to be true.
- David, the least likely of Jesse’s son, a clear after-thought, becomes Israel’s greatest King,
- The disciples themselves, who never seem to understand what Jesus is talking about, become the means by which the gospel is carried into the world – all, surprises too good to be true.
- And now, the biggest surprise of all – resurrection. Too good to be true.
As the well-known seminary professor and preacher John Claypool used to say, “God’s other name is Surprise.” (3)
At the close of this story, after dinner and the passing of the peace, Jesus once again opened the scriptures for them and revealed what had truly happened over the weekend in Jerusalem. And then Jesus leaves them, and us, with a charge:
“You are witnesses of these things, and I am sending you to proclaim repentance and forgiveness to all.” One final surprise.
So it does not end in Emmaus. It does not end in Jerusalem. In fact it never really ends. We are the ones who go forth to share the good news of the surprising God, who does things that are too good to be true.
When I was serving a church out on the East End of Long Island, we used to have fellowship hour after church outside under a big, old tree. One summer day, one of the pillars of the church, a guy who had held every leadership position there was in the Presbyterian Church, whose family had farmed the land for 300 years, brought some fresh honeycombs in his old pick-up truck.
As we watched the kids sucking on the fresh honey and chasing each other with the sticky leftovers, he sidled up to me and asked, “So, when am I done.”
“Done? What do you mean.?
“I mean done with being an elder, done with committees, done hosting fellowship hour after church. When am I done?”
I thought about it for a minute, and then I said, “Never, you’re never done. We’ve always got something else to do.”
We watched the kids chase each other for another couple of minutes. Then he smirked a little bit. He shrugged a little bit, as if to say, “Yea, that’s about what I thought.”
And he went back to his pick-up to break out another box of honeycombs.
On their pilgrim walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, those first Christian pilgrims learned that they are never done. They are never done talking about God’s ultimate surprise – the resurrection. They are never done with telling the surprising story that moves us from fear to trust; from doubt to joy; from disbelief to power; from grief to witness.
And neither are we.
May God be praised. Amen.
1. Tanya Agarwal, “The Way: The Movie That Inspired Thousands to Walk the Camino”, followthecamino.com, Feb 11th, 2025, Homileticsonline.
2. Roger Paynter, Feasting On the Gospels, Luke, Vol. 2, Westminster John Knox Press, 2014, p 355.
3. Ibid… p 355.
