2026-04-19 Lk 24 13-35 He Is Where He Is
If I asked you to locate yourself, where would you say you are?
At church.
Zoom in.
In the gym.
Zoom in.
About half-court.
Used to be, you could make that shot.
From way downtown, bang!
My family has the Life 360 app.
Day or night, my wife knows exactly where I am.
Surveillance state? Surveillance marriage.
But we like it.
We know where we stand, literally.
We keep a watchful eye on our adult daughters.
If my mother goes to the hospital, I get an alert.
It gives us comfort to locate each other even though we’re far apart.
(I can’t wait’ll I do Prison Ministry in Perdido.)
(I’m gonna get so many phone calls.)
The early church had a hard time locating Jesus.
And that was not comforting.
They couldn’t put an Air Tag on him.
Was he in the ground? Was he in heaven? Where, exactly was he?
Even now, we wonder, where is Jesus?
Especially when times are bad: “Where’s my savior at?”
Last Sunday, we had the story of Doubting Thomas.
The disciple who wouldn’t believe until he had seen him.
Today, we have two disciples on the road,
Moving northwest, 4.5 miles from Jerusalem,
Disciples who’re looking right AT Jesus,
But still can’t find him.
So where does that locate US?
Because, if you can’t believe until you see him,
But you can’t see him until you believe,
Those are some weird Terms and Conditions – right?
I think Jesus is easier to find
when we set aside the terms and conditions –
which only the most OCD rule-followers bother to read –
Put away our Jesus GPSes,
…and we let him find US, wherever we are.
Because that rascally Savior always turns up where he turns up.
He is where he is.
He’s gonna be where he’s gonna be.
That’s Jesus for ya.
And once we accept those terms, we’ll find him.
Spoiler alert: We’ll also find each other.
-–
You – or someone you know – tries very hard to do all the right things.
To follow all the rules.
I hear it all the time, “I’m a rule-follower.”
And yes, you are.
Because you are good.
God bless your heart.
And that’s the goal, right?
Help God find where to make the delivery.
One of you here today sets your cruise control on 20
whenever you enter a school zone.
Day or night.
Rule-follower.
God’s got your coordinates.
You set an alert on your phone to warn you
should you come within a thousand feet of a McDonalds.
You have a “My child is an honor student” bumper sticker -
– and it’s TRUE.
Which makes me wonder,
if your child falls off the Honor Roll, (you know where this is going)
…is there a rule that you have to take the sticker off?
Cover it up with one that says, “Proud parent of a C-student?”
(“Who – face it – your honor student really wants to date.”)
You don’t drink or smoke or chew
and you’ve never gone with boys (or girls) that do.
Thank you.
You’re an example to us all.
And because of that you KNOW,
St. Peter will unlock the Pearly Gates and
you’ll see Jesus on the other side.
It’s just spiritual fairness.
Because you read the Terms and Conditions.
The problem is when the terms are violated.
By life.
Through no fault of our own, life takes a wrong turn.
Horribly wrong.
A careless driver runs a red light.
The doctor calls you back to her office.
Your company says they’re going “a new direction” –
without you.
And there is nothing right about it.
Whether you say it out loud or not, your gut is screaming,
“But I did everything RIGHT.”
“I don’t DESERVE this.”
And we wonder:
Where’s that Savior now?
Did he slip off an exit ramp when I wasn’t watching?
—
Today’s scripture’s about two disciples on their road.
And they’re two of the good guys.
They know everything about Jesus.
They’re shocked – SHOCKED –
that this stranger they bump into is so out of the loop.
I mean, did he lose his phone?
“Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who
does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?”
“Where have you been?”
Listen to them: These two know more about Jesus than Jesus.
They’re really good.
But yet, there he is, right in front of them,
and they can’t see him.
Jesus calls them “slow” AND “foolish.”
Maybe their eyes are too much on the road.
On the way through the Bible,
From the Psalms, to Job, even to Jesus himself –
The road is lined with people who do all the right things,
who eat the right foods,
who associate with only the right people.
And still.
That doesn’t stop life from going south in the blink of an eye.
Even if you’re the Son of God
Life can crucify you.
I hear it said, in good times and in bad,
that classic wisdom from Socrates –
or maybe it was Willie Nelson:
“It is what it is.”
Yep. It always is.
—
Lately, I’ve started buying silly T-shirts for myself
and as gifts for my family.
Which they say they appreciate (and I believe them).
T-shirts are kinda my thing now.
I bought one – just one –
and now Instagram fills my feed with a stream of ads
that Mark Zuckerberg engineered to be irresistible.
So it’s HIS fault.
I guess, in my mind,
clothing myself in the witty quips,
dressing myself in sarcasm,
obscure song references,
And prints of Abe Lincoln shredding on an electric guitar –
I guess I think they make me look like the cool grandpa.
But I’m not a grandpa and I’ve never been cool.
They’re aspirational T-shirts.
So, I wear my $25-plus-shipping T-shirts,
and rarely does a single soul comment on them.
Rude.
But I do have one that always gets a response.
It’s the one that says in huge block letters
all across my chest and belly,
“IT IS WHAT IT IS.”
I wear that one to the beach and people point and laugh.
In a good way.
Men, women, small children –
Even white boys gotta shout,
“I like your shirt!”
I just shrug and reply, “It is what it is.”
As a minister, I talk to a lot of people
who life has brought them to the wrong place.
Whose sweet life has turned sour.
They say, “Well. Here we are.”
Their new mantra is a deep, aspirational sigh of,
“I guess… It is what it is.”
I’ve stood in hospital rooms with more than one who says it out loud,
“I don’t get it.
“I did everything I was supposed to do.”
They say, “I can’t figure out what I did to deserve this.”
I think the universe owes them a T-shirt.
One that says, “It should be what it should be.”
Or, “It should be what it could be.”
“It shouldn’t be what it never should have been.”
“Because… I don’t deserve this.”
Sometimes there just aren’t enough boxes on our checklist.
And the only thing I can say is, “You’re right.”
—
I think the disciples on the Road to Emmaus
must have been Presbyterians.
They were educated, they were bright.
Probably very good-looking.
They knew what was happening in the news.
They knew this week’s troubles in Jerusalem.
(Some things never change.)
They knew all about Jesus.
People ask me what Trinity Church is like,
and I say, (and this is an exact quote),
“The place is filled with so many SMART people.”
I say, “There’s not a “low-IQ” person in the bunch –
excluding the Interim Pastor.”
Cleopas and the other disciple, Who Shall Not Be Named –
they’re articulate,
they’re friendly,
they’re Biblically literate,
they’re on top of current events
and can talk about them for hours and hours without end.
How much more Presbyterian can you be?
When we smart people read the Bible from 20,000 feet
it’s easy to get high and mighty and say,
“Oh, these two Honor Students on the Road to Emmaus,
"they were just too smart for their own good.
“Jesus was walking right beside them on the 10K,
patiently listening as they mansplained everything about Jesus to Jesus.”
But man-splainers or woman-splainers,
how guilty are we of the same arrogance?
The same blinding insistence
that we find Jesus on our terms and conditions?
That he looks like us.
That he sings the right hymns,
reads the right Bible version,
prays for debt-forgiveness not trespasses.
That he goes to Sunday worship at 10:30,
and not 10:45 and definitely not 11
because then you’ll never beat the Baptists to the good places.
That he ISN’T what HE is, but that he’s like WE are?
Doing what we expect him to do?
Locating him closest to us?
When your life goes off the rails,
knowing the answers to Trivial Pursuit Jesus Edition is small comfort.
Having the right boxes ticked off
won’t heal your broken heart or mend your anxious mind,
or make the tumor disappear.
I think we know that.
But still, we wonder, where is Jesus now?
We want better than, “It is what it is.”
–
I was just kidding about the disciples being Presbyterian.
Actually, they and Jesus himself, were Jewish.
And good Jews that they were,
they followed Moses’s law that you always welcome the stranger
and share your food.
Verse 29:
But they urged him strongly, saying,
“Stay with us, because it is almost evening
and the day is now nearly over.”
They invite him for supper. And of course he says yes.
Jesus is always eating.
I mentioned this to my friend, Rabbi Josh, and he laughed out loud.
He said, “Of course he was always eating! He was Jewish!”
That’s one Old Testament commandment we church people
keep very, very well.
And we have the casseroles to prove it.
You bake anything in cream of mushroom soup,
and Presbyterian Jesus will show up.
Something to notice in this scripture is how Jesus ISN’T located,
when he ISN’T revealed.
Jesus isn’t revealed in theological debate.
Jesus isn’t revealed because he’s smarter than the two travelers.
He’s not even revealed in his Bible teaching.
Jesus isn’t revealed because he’s wearing a name tag,
or his robe is glowing, or his feet never quite touch the ground.
He never announces his secret identity like the superheroes do:
“I’m Jesus.”
In verse 30, it says,
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.
Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him,
and he vanished from their sight.
We Christians read it as an allusion to the Last Supper.
But Cleopas and Unnamed Disciple #1 weren’t AT the Last Supper.
For them, it’s just supper.
It says Jesus is revealed in “the breaking of the bread,”
which is just another way of saying, “Supper.”
Jesus is revealed in THEIR act of kindness,
in the sharing of a meal after a long, dusty day,
in the filling of an empty belly,
in the friendship of sitting around a table
and treating a stranger with dignity.
In the non-magical act we all can do,
of turning a stranger into a friend.
It’s been said, “A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met.”
The Bible says that when they recognized him,
the stranger vanished from their sight.
In other words, Jesus the Stranger disappeared.
Jesus the Stranger turned into Jesus the Friend,
their teacher, their Savior,
the one they knew all along, but couldn't find.
Not by some grand miracle.
But by the simple gift of a shared table.
Suddenly Jesus just was where he was.
And where he was, was with life’s travelers,
changed into a friend for life –
changed into a Savior – for new life.
He brought no Terms or Conditions.
Just a growling stomach, and a “Please pass the bread.”
He is who he is.
He was where he was.
And that was more than enough
for the travelers on the Road to Emmaus.
Is it enough for us?
Is it enough for the strangers we meet on the road of our life?
Jesus is always going to be where Jesus is going to be.
We pray with our own hungry, burning hearts –
that he’s where WE are –
And pray that he finds us, and he leads us,
down the road to where we need to be.
[eos]
