Easter 03: The Road to Emmaus
Community Group Questions
1. One idea that Cole worked with during his sermon today was the way in which the travelers on the road to Emmaus were kept from recognizing Jesus. Framed within the larger message and emphases of the book of Luke, Cole asserted that it was not, as many think, God who kept the men from recognizing Jesus.
How have you previously understood that part of this story? If it had been God blocking them from seeing, why might God have done so?
How has Cole’s positioning and contextualizing impacted your ideas about this same question. If it wasn’t God, how would you articulate the reason for the not-seeing? How do you imagine the dynamics playing out for the travelers, and for Jesus, in light of Cole’s teaching?
What, then, are your thoughts about the story itself and how you might allow your present understanding to shape and influence you?
2. One of Cole’s slides read as follows:
“The Resurrection is not just a miracle; it is a political act of defiance. It proves that the community formed by Christ is not disbanded by the Empire’s violence, but is actually solidified by it.”
Take a moment to reflect on this. What responses arise in you? How does this idea speak to you? What do you hear it saying? What does it mean?
3. In Cole’s closing prayer, he prayed about the ways in which the story did not go the way we thought it was going to go. He attributed this, in part, to the fact that our imaginations and expectations are shaped by something else, something(s) outside of this story.
Reflect on places and ways within yourself in which you have found this idea to hold true. Where, in your life, have you realized that your expectations and conceptions blinded you, and that those expectations were shaped by something you might not want to be influenced by any longer?
Share about the difficult parts and the beautiful parts of this process. How did you come to that awareness? Where did they lead you? What has it helped to unfold within you and within your life?
