Dock Resource Kit
Sunday sermon, 11 January 2026
Summary
This week Brigid invited us to reflect on how prayer opens our eyes to recognise God’s presence in our lives and in the world around us. Drawing on the story of the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, Brigid explored how Jesus walks with the disciples long before they recognise him, gently revealing himself through Scripture, honest conversation, and the breaking of bread. We were reminded that prayer is not about making God come closer — God is already near — but about realigning our focus so we can see what God is already doing. As our hearts are stirred in prayer, even before our understanding fully catches up, we are awakened to God’s presence, renewed in hope, and invited to join in with his work in the world.
Key Points & Takeways
God is present before God is recognised - Jesus walks alongside the disciples even when they cannot see who he is. God’s nearness does not depend on our awareness, faith, or emotional state. Prayer helps us notice what is already true: God is with us.
Prayer realigns our vision - Like putting on the right glasses, prayer adjusts our perspective. It doesn’t change God’s location, but it changes our posture, helping us see more clearly where God is at work in our lives.
Honest prayer reveals what is really going on - Jesus invites the disciples to share their disappointment, confusion, and unmet hopes. Honest prayer doesn’t inform God — it forms us. Bringing our true emotions before God allows healing, clarity, and transformation.
God meets us before understanding arrives - The disciples’ hearts burn before they recognise Jesus. Prayer often works the same way: God stirs faith, hope, and awareness in us even before answers or explanations come.
Seeing God fuels participation in God’s work - As our eyes are opened, we are better able to recognise where God is moving — in our lives, our communities, and our world — and to join in with what he is already doing.
Dock Discussion Questions
Have there been times when you later realised God was present or at work before you recognised it? What helped you see it in hindsight?
What makes honesty in prayer difficult for you? How might bringing your real thoughts and emotions to God change your relationship with him?
What practices might help you become more aware of God’s presence in your everyday life this week?
How might seeing God more clearly shape the way you engage with the needs of your community or the wider world?
Long-form, edited transcript
Manifest.
Seeing God.
Luke 24:13-35
A while ago, I spent a summer being a nanny for a couple of kids in London and we went on some great day trips, including a trip to the Science Museum. We packed our lunches and headed over there on the tube. The kids were super excited, and a little bit cheeky, and the moment we walked through the doors of the museum, they ran. So obviously I ran after them, and by that point they’d offloaded their tiny rucksacks onto me, so I was carrying these child size rucksacks that stuck out on each of my shoulders. As I rounded the corner after the kids, I went full pelt into someone tall, wearing a dark suit. I quickly apologised and was about to head on my way when I noticed another couple of tall suited people behind this man. Have I walked into the Men in Black I thought? I looked up to see who I’d run straight into and it turned out it was Ed Miliband, MP and at the time, leader of the Labour Party. Whatever your politics, literally running top speed into a serving politician with two security guards behind him is never a good idea.
I was so focused on finding the kids that I hadn’t taken a second to open my eyes. And how often is that the case for us, right? We can be getting on with our lives, but finding it hard to see the bigger picture, the fuller story, the end goal. What’s going on? Where do I find God in everything that’s going on? I ask that question about things in my own life but also about our world - war and dishonesty in politics and crises across the globe.
Today we are continuing our series for our month of prayer which Phil opened last week, thinking about how God is manifest, real, tangibly present in our world. And how God loves to be found. To be seen and known by us, as we are seen and known by him.
So today we are going to think about how prayer can open our eyes. How prayer can help us to uncover what God is doing and bring hidden things into the light. And that same question is at the centre of our Bible passage today - where do we find God in all that’s going on?
Luke 24:13-35.
13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him.
17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”
They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”
19 “What things?” he asked.
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”
25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
This story takes place at the very end of Luke’s account of Jesus’ life, just after his death and resurrection. Here we have two followers, likely married couple Cleopas and Mary, walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus. These aren’t casual bystanders. They loved Jesus, had listened to his teaching, had wept at his death. And yet, they don’t recognise him now walking right beside them. The man they had seen dying on the cross, the one they had hoped would redeem Israel, standing, speaking, alive, is invisible to them.
They are bewildered and disappointed. They thought Jesus would defeat the Romans, restore God’s people, and yet he was crucified. And now there are rumours he is alive. Their hearts are full of questions: Where is Jesus? What is he doing? What does it all mean? Even as he walks beside them, they can’t see the bigger picture.
And into this moment of confusion, Jesus meets them. He doesn’t scold them, he doesn’t rush them, he just walks alongside them. He begins to help them see. First, by interpreting Scripture. Imagine walking with Jesus as he opens the promises of God across Genesis, Moses, Isaiah, showing how God’s rescue plan had been unfolding all along. That’s a sermon I would love to hear. These two disciples knew the words, they could recite the prophecies, but they hadn’t recognised them in action.
And then, Jesus shares bread with them. They probably had shared this meal of bread and wine many times before, but now it is different. This is the first meal of new creation, a new reality. Life-giving, revelatory, and full of hope.
The presence of Jesus, time unpacking Scripture and then sharing communion together opens their eyes. Their hearts burn. They see Jesus for who he is and what he is doing - not just in the world, but in them. There are three brief points I want to take from this passage about how we see God for who God is, especially through prayer, and how that helps us see the world differently.
God is present before God is recognised.
Verse 15 tells us: As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognising him. We don’t know exactly why they couldn’t recognise Jesus. But they didn’t and I don’t know about you but if I’d just been reunited with some friends after a complicated weekend like Jesus has just had, if they didn’t recognise me, I’d be pretty upset.
But that isn’t Jesus’ response at all. Jesus starts walking with them. A simple presence, walking with them and listening to them. God is present there with these two before he is recognised as the saviour. Jesus doesn’t wait until their faith improves to be with them. Or until their mood lifts. He just walks with them.
Sometimes we pray that God would draw near to us. Now that’s okay of course, but perhaps we need a little perspective change on this. Again and again through the Bible, Old Testament and New, we are told that God loves to draw near to his people.
In the Psalms, Psalm 145 for example: The LORD is near to all who call on him.
In Acts 17, the author writes: God is not far from any one of us.
Jesus himself said: I am with you always, to the end of the age.
In fact this is the promise of Christmas, isn’t it? God with us. Emmanuel. God taking on human flesh and moving into the neighbourhood, as it says in John 1. Just because it’s January, doesn’t mean God has gone anywhere. God’s presence does not fluctuate. He doesn’t tease us or hide from us. It certainly doesn’t change based on our prayer performance.
Because prayer is not about changing God’s location to be near us, but perhaps it’s about changing our posture, our focus, to see where God is in our lives. Prayer can awaken our senses and awareness of God with us. It trains our eyes to see him. Are you aware of God walking alongside you each day, in each moment?
In his letter to the early church, James encourages his readers to draw near to God, and God will draw near to them. He’s describing a relational closeness. As we draw closer to God, we can find an increased awareness of his presence, a greater openness to God’s actions in the world, a call to repentance that removes the distance that brokenness causes, an alignment of our will with God’s will. All things that help us to see God.
We can be blinded to these things sometimes - like when you forget your glasses. When I was eight, my parents took us to Italy and one day we drove to Florence and went to a viewpoint to look over the city. I had just started wearing glasses and I’d forgotten to put them on that morning and so there I was, at this viewpoint, desperately squinting, missing the details, missing the beauty. Ten years later, I went back to Florence with some friends when we finished school. That time I was determined to see this view, with my glasses, and it didn’t disappoint. The view was breathtaking. The right lens through which we see the world changes everything.
I wonder if for many of us, it’s not that we don’t know that God is close, that God is walking alongside us. It’s that we sometimes forget to put our glasses on. I knew the view was there, even when my glasses weren’t on, but it took that moment of deliberate engagement - remembering my glasses - to really see.
Pete Greig is the author of Dirty Glory which is our month of prayer book club book, and this week along with lots of you I read this particular quote which really challenged me.
Pete Greig writes about the early days of starting a 24/7 prayer room. When they started to pray as a community in a deliberate, intentional way, starting seeking God’s presence, this is what he wrote:
“Sometimes in those days I wondered just how long the Lord had been standing on the church doorstep, ringing the bell, before we stopped doing Christianity long enough to let him in.”
God is standing at the door of your life and knocking. God is already close, ready to give you himself by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes busyness, or grief, or pain, or even trying to be a really great person can make God seem a little blurry. Like he’s far away or uninterested. Through prayer, our vision can be realigned.
When we pray: God, draw near to me, perhaps what we are really saying is: God make me aware of your presence, remove what dulls my attention, let me experience what is already true.
We don’t need to pray that God would be close because there’s a risk he’s absent. He’s not. We pray because the nearness is already real, but to be relationally close with God, to really see God, that takes response from us. Which isn’t always easy. Which is why I love what Jesus does next. He doesn’t give them a lecture or a telling off. He asks a question. He slows the pace. He creates space. And in that space, honest conversation begins.
Honest prayer reveals the real issues
This is our second point this morning. To see God in prayer, bring your honest conversation.
I love that Jesus asks this pair what they are discussing. Jesus already knew. And yet he asks. And they respond by pouring out their emotion. Their pain and their questions. God knows us inside out - the Psalms remind us that God can number every hair on our heads - and so honesty in prayer is not about giving God new information that he’s not aware of.
Honesty does not inform God. But it does form us. When we hide parts of ourselves in prayer, we aren’t protecting God. Instead we begin to fragment ourselves. We block God out of the hard bits. And over time, unspoken fears or resentments can slowly begin to distort our understanding of God.
Perhaps God isn’t really interested anyway. Perhaps God doesn’t really want to hear me. It can be easy to end up praying to a God who we understand to be like a harsh judge, or like a disappointed parent or distant authority figure. Perhaps even a vending machine for good behaviour.
But if prayer remains polite and filtered, it remains shallow. But when we pray truthfully, when we pray like these two did on the road. We had hoped he’d be the one to save us. Unmet expectation, disappointment, confusion. When we pray like this, we discover that God does not withdraw from us. Instead, honest prayer can purify our vision of God.
Sometimes, in prayer, our deepest wounds and vulnerabilities surface so God can bring healing. Lament becomes revelation. Honest prayer exposes that which has been hidden away. Then Jesus reframes the situation: “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter his glory?”
Prayer can realign our hearts with God’s perspective when life doesn’t make sense. It dismantles deception, exposes the lies we’ve started to believe, and brings clarity in confusion. Sometimes in prayer we need God’s help to see what is true under the circumstances we are facing. Whether they change or not. Then we are able to look back over circumstances and see God’s hand in them.
In April 2020, I was furloughed and then made redundant as a result of lockdown from my dream job. I was gutted! But in the midst of that hardship and confusion, I brought it all to God in prayer and remembered that I’d had a gut feeling at the start of the year, whilst on a retreat day, that I wouldn’t be in that job as long as I thought. It wasn’t easy but I wouldn’t be where I am now if that hadn’t happened. Taking the confusion to God in prayer meant that I could see his hand on my life in the midst of it.
Seeing God reignites our hearts
And finally to our third point. Seeing God reignites our hearts. The pair reach Emmaus. Jesus acts as if He will go further. Stay with us, they urge. There is something about this man that has piqued their interest and they want more time with him. They invite him in. They want him to stay present with them.
And then he breaks the bread and starts to hand it to them, and they suddenly realise who he is. This simple act of sharing food together - this simple act that we do each week together still - helps them to see that this man is Jesus.
After Jesus has left them they ask each other: Weren’t our hearts burning when he was talking to us about the Scriptures on the road? Their hearts were burning. Such a visceral description of their reaction to the presence of Jesus.
I want to give a tangible example of how our hearts can be stirred even before our minds fully catch up.
Let’s briefly pause to play a short game of name that tune!
Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel
Armed Man - A mass for peace XII Benedictus - Karl Jenkins
South of the River - Tom Misch
These might seem like entirely disconnected songs and like I’ve gone on a total tangent. But there’s something about each of these songs that creates that heart burning feeling in me.
Solsbury Hill is my mum’s favourite song - when I listen to this I think of my dad playing it on the CD player to make her smile, and lots of happy car journeys listening to Peter Gabriel music as a kid. This song brings me memories of my childhood and my mum in a way that goes deeper than just the cognitive memory.
The armed man was one of the first pieces of classical music I got the privilege to see live. It’s moving and poignant and stirs emotions in the listener that you don’t just get from talking about the themes it addresses.
And South of the River by Tom Misch was the countdown music that I used for Alpha Online through lockdown. It was at the top of a boppy playlist I hastily put together to work as an intro to Alpha when we all rushed onto Zoom. It means whenever I hear this song, it transports me back to all the complexity of the pandemic, but also all of the amazing ways that God worked through Alpha Online during that time, and the people who got to meet God over the power of zoom even in a global pandemic.
These pieces of music don’t just stir emotion, they awake memories and moments that have been significant to me. And it’s usually subtle if these songs come on on shuffle - my mind hasn’t fully processed the song yet but my heart is awake to what they stir in me.
On the road to Emmaus, Jesus is walking with the disciples, opening the scriptures and their hearts start burning even before their brains fully catch up and understand. God is moving in them, they encounter God’s love and transformation, before the recognition comes.
Prayer - because it is spending time with God - can act a bit like listening to these important pieces of music. When we spend time honestly in prayer, bringing our thoughts, feelings, doubts, and questions before God, we allow our hearts to be stirred.
Even if clarity or understanding doesn’t come immediately, God is at work, opening our inner eyes, shaping our perceptions, and planting insight in us. For those travellers on the road, the ‘burn’ was the felt sense of God’s nearness and truth, the manifest presence of God through the Holy Spirit working in them and in the situation, even before their reasoning caught up.
Sometimes when we encounter God, we do experience that physical sensation, but whether we do or not, we can trust that God’s presence is making a difference in our lives when we look to see God in prayer. Prayer sensitises us to God’s movement. Prayer stirs faith before understanding catches up. Prayer helps us to see God because really it’s about taking a moment to deliberately draw near.
This is Important for our lives but for so much more. We want to see God in our communities, in our world. As I’ve read the news this week, there are so many places that need us to be able to see what God is doing. If we want to see peace in conflict, addition strongholds broken, those without hope given hope, those sleeping rough given shelter, if we want to see revivals break out, all of this requires us to see where God is moving and join in.
If we, the precious children of God, can’t see God, then how can the rest of humanity? Might we draw close to God for our sake, but also for the sake of God’s world!
So as we’ve seen on the road to Emmaus, God is already present and walking alongside us, even when we don’t recognise him. Prayer isn’t about bringing God closer - he’s already near - it’s about noticing what he is already doing. God always moves first. Our prayers awaken our hearts to see him, to recognise his work, to align our lives with his good plans.
You don’t need a dramatic miracle to see God. His presence is in the everyday: moments of wisdom or provision, unexpected peace in challenges, and the quiet growth of our hearts. These are the subtle ways he reveals himself to us. Sometimes, like the disciples, we only notice after the fact - our hearts were burning before we fully understood. Prayer helps us pay attention, to tune our hearts so we can see him more clearly, sooner.
So as we close, we are going to pray again the prayer that Phil prayed last week - Lord, reveal yourself, make yourself known, make yourself seen.
Burn in our hearts, help us see what you are doing. We leave space for you to walk into our lives, into our streets, into our hearts. We lay down distraction and busyness, and ask you to awaken us to what You are already doing.
Show us the hidden things, Lord. Reveal what the enemy has tried to hide. Let us see Your glory breaking into our lives, our homes, and our city. Amen.
Closing Prayer
Lord,
reveal yourself,
make yourself known,
make yourself seen.
Amen