The Road to Emmaus: From Broken Hopes to Burning Hearts

Easter doesn't always happen in three days. 

We may hear all the signs, sing all the songs..but for some of us, it may feel like someone else's story, not our own -- not the least of us, those who work or study in the church.  It can be a very stressful time even three weeks after Easter, especially as finals week looms ahead.

            

Even though it may be cold outside, rainy, with little sign of Spring, each Easter Sunday, as though on cue, we gravitate toward the hothouse tulips, lilies, hyacinths, bright colors, trumpets and chocolate bunnies, not entirely convinced we're really there yet, but the calendar tells us so.

            

Yet our hearts are unresolved.  We want desperately to believe the resurrection story.  Some of us, like Thomas the disciple last week, insist on seeing the bold evidence -- the empty tomb, the very nail prints in Jesus' hands and feet.

            

When we can't see the signs and just hear the story, the words may sound hollow and empty; because -- let's face it -- that job interview last week that looked so promising fell through,  that relationship is still broken, the cancer we thought was in remission has returned.  Planes don't just fall out of the sky these days.  In some cases, they just plain disappear without a trace, to the point that no one can be found even months later.  There is no closure.

            

People around the world and in our own back yards are still hungry.  Violence escalates on a daily basis. We are still alone.  What should we do when we have reached our wit's end, when what we once thought was worth our lives has left us washed up?

            

Easter may also sound like someone else's story because of all the noise, all the hope infused into the end of the three days.  It's almost like a timer gets switched on at Good Friday and the seconds start ticking away until the Sunrise Service.  "It's Friday, but Sunday's coming!" shouts Tony Campolo, who happens to be one of my favorite preachers.  I don't mean to sound cyncial here.  I really want to believe it, but is that your story today?   If so, how did you get there?

            

Three days, three weeks, three months, years, or a lifetime….Easter can be a journey.  Whenever our own stories don't jibe with "The Big Picture," they become our own personal journeys.  We find ourselves on our own particular "road," away from the big city where everyone else is.  We seek to escape.  We take long walks. To ponder.  To get ourselves into that space where perhaps we can look back with a better perspective, confront ourselves in the here and now, and if we're lucky, meet someone along the way, share a meal, and come away with a better vision of the future.

            

And so it was with Christ's followers on the Road to Emmaus.  It is midday of the same morning Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb, just three days after Jesus was crucified.  They arrived, only to find a pair of guards lying on the ground, struck down as good as dead -- ironic, when you consider that the man who was supposed to be dead was missing from the very tomb he had been buried in, two days earlier.  As if that weren't enough, the stone covering the tomb had been rolled away with what I picture as this sassy angel sitting right on top of it, giving Mary explicit instructions to go to Galilee, find Jesus' followers and bring them the news that He is risen, and that is precisely what she did.  So these disciples heard the story, but despaired and became confused.  

So Cleopas and another one of Jesus' followers (some scholars think it may have been a woman, "Mrs. Cleopas," as Jay introduced her earlier!) set out to take a long walk to Emmaus, a town about 7 miles west of Jerusalem.  Not a trek, maybe not even a journey per se, but a hike nonetheless.

I'm not a runner or even a hiker, but I am one of those people that benefits greatly from taking long walks -- time spent away from the hectic stresses of life as a student and parent.  It helps me process things.  I become energized by the fresh air and the perpetual forward momentum I generate.  It usually helps me get past the mental hurdles and get "un-stuck."

            

The disciples must have sought this kind of respite, especially since they had just spent a bit of an irregular week, what with the celebrating Passover and especially having undergone all the tumult of the past three days. Their words and their hearts are heavier than any of the supplies they are carrying home from their annual pilgrimage to their holy city Jerusalem, now a city of horrors.  They have heard that it is "Easter" from the women at the tomb, but as of yet they do not know it in their very guts or souls.  Walking, getting back to a routine -- this, they hope, will eventually bring them some sense of comfort. 

So they keep walking, "talking and discussing." Perhaps they were debating Mary's story about the tomb earlier that morning.  Was it true or just "idle chatter?"  Whatever the subject, it was clear that they were in despair over the past three days' events.

On this road of broken dreams, they meet a stranger.  It was Jesus, but they had no clue.  Why couldn't they recognize Jesus?  Maybe he looked different.  Maybe they looked at him differently and didn't expect to know him because he presented himself as a stranger.  Maybe they were so caught up in their own grief, despair and frustration they they didn't really bother to look closely.  Yet the very embodiment of their freedom was right next to them!

And we do know a little bit more.  We read that "their eyes were kept from recognizing him."  It was one of those God-orchestrated things -- like the time Jesus tells his mother at the Wedding at Cana - "Woman, my hour has not yet come," or in today's second reading from 1 Peter:  "He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake."  God temporarily shut their eyes until the time was right to reveal Jesus' identity.

            

"What are you discussing with each other while walking on the road?" asked Jesus.  

 They ended up standing still.  At the crossroads.  

Suddenly it was no longer about the miles before them, but the moment at hand and Cleopas answers, "Where have you been?  Have you been living under a rock (Well, indeed, He kinda did!)? You must be the only stranger in Jerusalem that does not know the things that have taken place in the past few days."

"What 'things'?'" asks Jesus.  And Cleopas goes on about the prophet Jesus of Nazareth, how the chief leaders and priests handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him.  "But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel…"

"We had HOPED."  At the crossroads between life and death, dreams and reality, hope and despair.

The stranger retells the story.  Jesus talks about how the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory, and goes on to interpret all the things about himself in the scriptures, beginning with Moses.

They were approaching the village.  Jesus walked ahead as if he were going on.  But they urged him, "STAY WITH US, because the day is almost over."  He went in to stay with them,  they broke bread, and their eyes were opened.  Once they recognized him, he vanished from their sight.

They turned to each other and marveled at their own transformation - "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"    Their burning hearts illuminated their blindness.  We all have our own experiences of how the Spirit has revealed itself to us.  My grandma helped me find it long ago by explaining that warmth in my heart, or how I would feel a faint tug that almost made me cry, and to this day I know without a doubt that this is my perception of the Holy Spirit's presence.  It's different for everyone, but in this case the disciples felt their hearts burning.

They became so energized that they returned to Jerusalem that same day, their burning hearts giving them a sense of mission, going back to tell their fellow disciples what had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Despair.  A walk.  A stranger breaks in.  Conversation.  Hospitality.  Sharing a meal.  Recognition.  From broken hopes to burning hearts.

Sounds somewhat familiar - Despair. Gathering. The Word.  Breaking Bread.  From broken hope to burning hearts.  Our worship.

When we are in despair on the road to nowhere in particular, can we see who walks with us?  When has God's Word interrupted our own idle conversation and called a halt to our own frantic forward momentum?  When was the last time God's hospitality energized you? 

Easter doesn't always come in three days.  Stones are rolled away, but sometimes we stay in the tomb.  Stones sealing the tombs of our hearts can be rolled back, too.   Hopes entombed can be illuminated.  We CAN leave our graveclothes behind.  Sometimes it means letting go of our own dreams and expectations. Sometimes it means inviting in a stranger that we have known all along, and this very act of invitation, of hospitality, opens us up to God's infinite promise of grace…the promise for you and for me.   

The fire of recognition and the light of clear sight spurs us on.  We become Easter people, and the Easter story becomes our own.

Stay with us, Lord Jesus.  AMEN.