Jesus came near his friends on the Road to Emmaus and he went with them.
It seems in these post-resurrection appearances of Jesus that he meets his friends who are in some kind of distress – and then he moves them to another way of being. Indeed, he has not left or abandoned them.
These appearances of the Risen Lord seem to be preparing his followers and friends to live with him - but in a different way. They have to live without his daily physical presence. There is a movement from doing ordinary and extra-ordinary life with him travelling from town to town, meeting people, teaching, and healing, to things being different now.
They are being asked to change how they do life with him. In a sense they were invited to be okay when things didn’t seem to be okay. [See Sermon Notes for the entire text.]
