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I know I can't possibly express the humility and honor that I feel to be here invited by my pastor as you heard. Um It is a joy to be here with you not because I'm preaching because we

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share together in the word of christ and I'm honored to be in your midst to hopefully do just that . Will you please join me in prayer, God of grace? We humbly ask your presence with us

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for you indeed our our strength and our redeemer, our men here with me, this familiar story, a portion of Lukes resurrection stories, Watch and listen once more for the word of the Lord. Now

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on the same day two of them were going to a village called Amadeus about seven miles from Jerusalem and talking to each other about all these things that had happened while they were talking and discussing Jesus himself came

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near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him and he said to them, what are you discussing with each other while you walk along? They stood, still looking sad. Then

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one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answered him. Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place here in these days? He asked them what things they

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replied. The things about jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty indeed, and worried before God and all the people and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death

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and crucified him. But we had hoped that he would be the one to redeem Israel. Yes. And besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place more over, some

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women in our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning and when they did not find his body there, they came back and they told us that they had seen a vision of angels

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who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said. But they did not see him. Mhm. Then he said

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to them, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared was it not necessary that the messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory? Then beginning

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with moses and all the prophets. He interpreted to them the things about himself in the scriptures. As they came near the village to which they were going he walked ahead as if he were going on.

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But they urged him strongly saying, stay with us because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over. So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them

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, he took bread, he blessed it and broke it and he gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other were

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not our hearts burning within us. While he was talking with us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us. That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem and they found the

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11. Their companions gathered together. They were saying , the Lord has risen indeed and he has appeared to Simon. Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to

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them in the breaking of the bread. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God . Yeah. When I was a little girl growing up in Tallahassee florida swims at the local YMCA were

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the best thing about the summer. They were a welcome retreat in the first of what has turned out to be kind of a long line of semi tropical places I've lived with. The exception of Rochester new

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york, not tropical At about 10 years old. My friends and I gained the privilege of being dropped off at the pool by ourselves. Sweet freedom. By the time we were picked up at the end

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of the day, we were always sunburned and waterlogged with our fingers pickled and our eyes burning from the chlorine. Now our eyes were burning because of one particular game. You might be thinking sharks and fish

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is or perhaps market marco polo. No, this was the diving gang. It was really the game of the kids who were a little older than us , but they let us join in. Once we

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had reached the age to be at the pool on our own, they're reluctant acceptance was even better than the freedom from our moms. Watchful eyes. The game, if you've never played it involved dropping pennies

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or hair. This is pretty good dropping pennies or hair clips or washers or keys. If we could get our hands on any, anything that would sink into the deepest part of the pool and the pool

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at the Y. Was really deep, way deep . We'd watch them slowly sink. And then on the count of three, all of us would simultaneously dive down and see how many things we could pick

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up before we ran out of breath. It was a great game. Now the real test of being one of the big kids at the Y was whether or not whether or not you could get all the

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way down to the bottom of the deep end in one breath. Whether or not you then came up empty handed or not. I remember well holding fast to the side of the deep end or hopelessly treading

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water while the kids popped up around me, one arm in the air waving and calling out. I've got two quarters, I have a penny, three bobby pins. It was a long time before I

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would dare even dive. It was longer before I could make it to the bottom and it seemed like an attorney an eternity when I just came up coughing and empty handed. Nobody wanted to come up empty

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handed. You know the feeling don't you coming up empty handed you? I'm sure know it in small ways. You know the feeling of watching your friends all around you speed through an exam while you meticulously

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write your name at the top and read the questions over and over again because you're really not sure where to start. Yeah, you know the feeling of working all day and having a sense, you haven't

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gotten anywhere saying yes for me to preaching here months and months ago and then realizing afterwards that it was the week after holy week. But we all know , I think the feeling in ways that shape our

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lives in the bigger ways, the moments when we reach over to grasp a hand on the other side of the bed only it's gone the moment when you realize that the call you have prayed hard about is

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not yours or the pregnancy that you long for isn't again today, in this portion of luke's post resurrection stories, luke places us with two disciples on the road from from Jerusalem to amaze and then again later

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back in Jerusalem in the early part of the evening , exhausted from the events of the past week, you know the story and perhaps even exhausted from the events of the last years, A couple of followers

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are applauding away from the place of their destiny and they are empty handed, disheartened, sad, the wind knocked out of them. What happened? They must have wondered how did we get here? Where

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will we turn now? What now, as luke tells it and luke is the only one to tell it. They walked along together and a stranger came and walked with them. One of the pilgrims,

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they must have thought returning from the Passover festival, this stranger, matching his step with theirs ask about what they're talking about, he was, they were stunned that he wouldn't know because everyone on the road

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was rehearsing the events of the last few days. And so they tell the story to him, The story of jesus. They tell who he was and what he did, what happened to him and how

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they had had hopes that he would be the one who at last they could hold onto count on the one who would at last set them free. It was almost like their first sermon. If you think

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of it that way, they tell the story right up to the moment when the woman and peter report that the tomb was empty and then they end the story there with an empty tomb to go with their

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empty hands and they're empty hopes. It is then that the stranger, like any good home politics professor , points out to them what in the story that they missed or perhaps he told them what they missed

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in the promises of their own sacred texts, In the promises of the people of faith that had gone before them. He told them what they had missed about what would happen, what had happened and what

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was still present in christ. I wonder as they told him if he thought I told you I was going to be betrayed into human hands, or perhaps I would be betrayed in human hands. I told

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you to let it sink in. But from all they can see and tell, they have nothing as the evening advances and the trio approach to me is the stranger makes as to keep on going. But

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it was getting dark and so they invite him to stay and he does. Then they ate and the stranger in a gesture that was really strange for a guest and yet strangely familiar, took bread and blessed

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it and gave it to them. And of course they knew as if the dark glass was raised for a moment and it sank in there. He was face to face as if all the sands of time

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and truth that have been slipping from their fingers were scooped up as if the events of a lifetime were suddenly rich and full of meaning, as if they had been given a fresh gulp of air as if

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they actually had something and then he was gone again . The story has in it the echoes of all the stories of people of faith who might have thought themselves empty handed abraham and sarah, ruth and Naomi

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moses and the Israelites slaves. The list is long . You could add to it all. The exiled imprisoned baron, out of breath, treading water, hopeless ones who have gone before us. It echoes

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with all the stories of the ones who, somewhere along the road, realized if but for a moment that the gospel of christ is not about success or prosperity or perfect sermons, the ones all along the

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road who did and still realize that they were not empty handed, but in fact have more than they could grasp as the story goes on. Later that night, the two had run to tell the others

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another a sermon attempt you might say, and jesus then appears in their midst once again with patients reminding them of all they had seen and heard, giving them yet more time for it to sink in.

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He reminds them eventually that what they had seen and heard, we're not just operations through which the need of their lives was going to slip. And eventually he shows them his hands and feet and ask for

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something to eat, telling them again and again. I am real. This is real. You have seen and heard and tasted and touched all there is you have been all the way to the bottom.

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Now whether or not you are preparing to ever stand in a pulpit or not. These are our stories , not just the empty handed ones, but the stories of the way christ appears again and again with

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patience, waiting for things to sink in for preachers and for all of us really, I'm guessing who sometimes get considered professional christians, we need to hear sometimes again and again the stories, the truth of

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who christ is perhaps more than ever on the week after easter, the stranger who to has lost seemingly everything comes again and again to remind us along with those on the way to um areas that in our

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hands that may seem empty, we hold everything. One of the things I've learned about preaching is to sometimes change the stories. And so I'm going to tell you a story tonight today that I didn't think

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I was going to tell you. It's the story of a moment in my life when I felt the most empty handed. Mhm. Almost 10 years ago , my husband of 22 years died. And on

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the day that he died, I was in my home with my two daughters Asleep and they came to pick up his body now to tell the story. You must know that for two years he had been

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sick and we had cared for him to the best of our ability. During those two years I was want to find words for prayer and I discovered that the only thing I could do was every morning,

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sit down if but for a moment, like my little candle and open my hands and all I could ever say was one more day. It is yours . Show me how to do this. Mhm.

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It was nothing in the face of what we faced . Mhm. And it was everything. It was the miracle of christ's presence now on the last day when my husband died as they took his body away

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. Just purely by instinct. At that point I stood in the window. Years later, a member of the congregation said to me, a member who had shown up at my house perchance just as that

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moment as they were taking Tom's body away and saw me standing in the window and she said, whatever it is that you have, I would like strangely , she said to me, I've been on the

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road all my life. But those empty, empty hands were what showed me what the road is about now. Did I have what she wanted? What did I have? I had nothing. My hands

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were empty. Who was it that walked along the two going to um areas on the toughest day of their lives. It was only a stranger. What is it that we give witness to? What do

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we have to offer a church, A world that is broken, filled with injustice and hate, A world that is afraid and yet longing, seeking so deeply and yet often giving up or settling. What

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do we have that will sustain when our hands are empty? We have word. We have promises. We have an empty tomb. We have commonplace elements and a circle of people gathered and walking on the

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road. I don't know you, I'm not your pastor and I don't know if you've really ever felt anywhere near as empty as the two on the way to a mess. As desperate for something real to

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hold onto as their cohorts felt later that night. Perhaps you have. It seems as though that that kind of emptiness, that kind of desperation, that longing is still with us and part of being a

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person of faith. It seems that we know what it is to be empty handed and out of breath . But perhaps empty hands are called for. On this journey that we share with Abraham and Sarah,

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the disciples and all the rest, all the other witnesses. Two everything perhaps that is our communion, a communion of empty hands before our hearts can burn , or our eyes can be opened before feet can

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run to tell the good news as luke tells The story, the two on the way is on the way to amaze come full circle. They are empty handed without the teacher. They'd come to depend on

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the one they hoped was the messiah. And then he's in their midst suddenly and then just as suddenly gone again when they returned returned to the place of empty hands again. It was as though they knew

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it for the first time. The presence of christ was something different and they were maturing into a new kind of living like disciples with eyes opened and heart spurning, running the same road they had tried before

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back to Jerusalem to tell the others we are not empty handed. In fact, we hold in our hands, The one true thing. Eventually on those hot Tallahassee summer days, even I to dive deep

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into the wide pool with my eyes wide open, deeper and deeper, all the way to the bottom . Eventually come up from the depths out of breath with the joy of it with my fingers clutching hair

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clips and house keys shouting. Look, look,