When A Stranger Shows Up: Sermon on the Emmaus Road

When A Stranger Shows Up
by Bishop Brian Cole
Sunday, April 19, 2026
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Athens, & Tyson House Campus Ministry, Knoxville

 

My friend’s name is not Cleopas. But like Cleopas, my friend can talk about many things.

When he calls, and I pick up, I am aware I have agreed that this will take some time. For you see, I know and love my friend. When I pick up, and he says, “Can you talk?”, I remind him I answered his call. In for a penny, in for a pound.

My friend is from Texas and grew up in the Episcopal Church. My friend went to Sewanee and has strongly held convictions. One of the strongest is about what does and does not constitute chili. Before meeting my friend, I did not know there was a controversy. Now I know, and my friend has convinced me he is in the right.

Did I mention that I love my friend? Did I mention that when he calls and I answer, there will be many words? But after all the words, once the words are played out, what will remain, is that we are friends. To become a true friend, you must discover together where the words go. Then, you find the place of true communion, where there are no words. But to get there, first, there are words, probably lots of them.

Talking, talking about all the things, about all the things that have transpired over these past few days, that is how the story of the road to Emmaus begins. It is a story about people and about people talking.

At first, there are two friends talking. Then, a third person, a stranger, joins them. “What are you talking about?”, the stranger asks. We know the stranger is Jesus. But the two friends talking are kept from knowing that. All they see is a stranger who does not know what everyone is talking about.

So, these two friends tell the stranger, after being a little befuddled that the stranger is not in the know, about what everyone is talking about. Everyone is talking about Jesus. We know that the stranger who they are talking to is Jesus. But they do not know that. They are kept from knowing that.

It is not clear what is keeping them from knowing. For they are most definitely JESUS people, named in the lesson as disciples. They know what they are talking about, even though the one they are talking about is in front of them, and they do not know that.

Do not judge them for not knowing who is in front of them. Perhaps, you and I can take comfort in knowing that many of us know a lot about Jesus, while we also fail to see him when he is standing right in front of us. Jesus is always a little strange to us. And the more we know, the stranger he becomes, I believe.

Once they finish talking about all the things, all the Jesus things, Jesus, who is still the stranger to them, tells them what they do and do not know. They know many things. Yet, Jesus, the stranger, tells it to them again, through the story of Moses and the prophets. Somehow, the story of Jesus and all the things, according to the stranger, began a long time ago, even before time.

Then, the stranger does the strangest thing. After all those words, after all the talking, the stranger was going to leave, without saying a word. The gospel writer tells us Jesus, the stranger, was walking the way someone walks when they intend to keep on walking. No final word, just a stranger walking away at the end of the day. How very strange.

“Stay with us,” they say. This is not the time for walking. This is the time for end of day, for sharing of bread, for resting after a day of walking and talki

ng. Jesus, the stranger, allows them to ask something of him. Instead of walking away, not needing anything from them, Jesus, the stranger, intends to stay with them.

Then, after so many words, after so much talking, the story shifts. Now there is bread, which the stranger takes and blesses and breaks and gives. After so many words, so much talking, so much not knowing who was in front of them, now the two friends know a new thing.

The stranger was Jesus. After the bread is taken and blessed and broken and given, now, looking back, of course, this stranger was Jesus. He told us he would be in unlikely places. He listened to us. And then he taught us. And then he was planning to keep on walking, going on to the next place that needed to know the stranger was Jesus.

My friend from Texas, the Episcopalian, might be quite convicted that Jesus was known in the breaking of the bread, reading into the story that a Eucharist took place. And I think my friend could convince me of that, with enough words.

But before we go there, consider the story to be all of a piece. All the words, all the talking, they matter, too. The two friends talking about all things. When you and your friend talk about the things, the talking and the listening, the giving and the taking, something happens. A kind of table is prepared.

Then, a stranger shows up and is now walking with you. You do not send the stranger away, saying there is no more room at this table. Rather, the stranger joins you, in the walking and talking, near the table that is being set.

And the stranger joins in the talking and goes from talking to teaching. You, the disciples, who were so in the know, allow the stranger to become the teacher, the one who helps you understand, in a new way, Moses and the prophets. You do not tell the stranger he does not know what he is talking about.

Later, after the bread is broken and shared, you will remember what it felt like to be taught by a stranger. The stranger knew something you did not know. And like you received the bread from him, you also received the teaching. The stranger, in teaching, is helping further set the table where you welcomed him.

And just like the stranger appeared from nowhere, so Jesus, once recognized, appears to go to nowhere. But the two disciples do not grieve that Jesus has gone. They celebrate that Jesus was with them.

They do not cling, assuming he belonged only to them. They run, to tell the others, too.

“We have met the stranger. And his name is Jesus.”