Luke 24: 13-35

A grandmother was trying to help her grandson with his arithmetic homework. She said to him, “Suppose you reached in your right pocket and found a ten-dollar bill, and you reached in your left pocket and found another ten-dollar bill, what would you have?” The grandson answered, “Somebody else’s pants, grandma.”

Jesus asked them what they were discussing as they walked along on their way to Emmaus. They told him. The chief priests handed the Messiah over to be crucified. It was then the third day since his death. Women among the disciples went to the tomb and found it empty. Angels informed the women Jesus was alive. Others went to the tomb and found it as the women had said, but they did not see him. The folks on the road never said they believed Jesus had been raised from the dead. They trusted what they heard had happened, but they didn’t give testimony of his resurrection. The resurrection wasn’t included among the things they shared.  Jesus’ perception, discernment, was that they were foolish and slow of heart to believe. They told about what they heard. Jesus said they were foolish and slow of heart to believe. They were sharing somebody else’s testimony, wearing somebody else’s pants.

In some churches in which I am familiar because I was a member or I pastored there, there were some, and in other churches there were a few who gave accounts of what God had done in their lives. This is not a regularity, a consistency, a characteristic of Christians, of church attendees, I’ve known. This is not an indictment. This is just a reality. Were these two on the road to Emmaus being held accountable for what they hadn’t experienced? They had not seen Jesus after his resurrection. We’re not inclined to believe either of them were among the women who saw the angels and heard them say Jesus was raised from the dead. They heard the story, the testimony from the women, but they didn’t believe. And it’s Jesus who said of them they were foolish and slow of heart to believe. They just were. Again, this is not an indictment against them. They just hadn’t seen him.

On this road to Emmaus, they tell him things they knew. It seems that in response to their slowness to believe Jesus, first of all, gave them his list of things, scriptures from the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Malachi, concerning the Messiah. They gave their list of things they’d heard. He gave his list of things he knew – a young woman will bear a child and will call him Emmanuel, God with us; he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with grief; he was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for iniquities; I will place over my people one shepherd, a prince among them; and there before me was one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven given authority, glory and power; all peoples and nations of every language will worship him; Suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple, the messenger of the covenant, who you desire, will come. He gave his list of things concerning the Messiah.

After they invited him to stay with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. They then recognized him and he disappeared from their sight. He was with them. They not only had heard the things that had happened, they knew he’d been with them. Few of us give accounts of what God has done in our lives. Maybe we haven’t experienced God doing things in our lives. Perhaps more accurately, WE DIDN’T RECOGNIZE HIM IN OUR LIVES. They didn’t recognize him on the road or through the stories of others, but they did in the breaking and sharing of the bread.  We’re not condemned or indicted if we’re slow of heart to believe. We may not have the testimonies that others do. We may not have been encouraged to believe that God moves in our lives as God does in other lives. That’s not an indictment. That may simply be accurate.

There are those people who have a testimony or two of what God has done in and through them. Sometimes we’re envious, sometimes we think about borrowing a testimony. Sharing somebody else’s testimony is fine, but we need to be working on our own testimonies, FROM OUR OWN PAIRS OF PANTS. And if we’re not doing that, we need to believe on some level what others have experienced in God. We need to grow more sensitive to how God speaks to us, what God shows us, and what God has done and is doing with us and through us. Slowness of heart to believe may be an accurate description of your walk with Christ, but we all need to recognize him in us and among us BECAUSE HE IS AMONG US AND IN US. This will make it easier for us to share the good news of God.

(Preached at St Mark United Methodist Church in Anniston, AL, 4-19-26)