EMMAUS - THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

The Road to Emmaus: Luke 24, 13 - 35)

“He took the bread and said the blessing” (Lk 24,30)

Some of us may recall a personal experience that proved to be a turning point in our life, that gave a new direction to our hopes  -  perhaps the beginning of a new friendship in which we shared life deeply with another, or the first encounter between future husband and wife. Today we recall and try to relive a cardinal event in the history of the world that has transformed the lives of millions of men and women today. William Barclay calls today’s Gospel one of “the immortal short stories of the world.”

Early Sunday A.M. two minor disciples are walking the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus. It is 48 hours since their Leader was brutally mugged and murdered, occurrences that they could not stomach. For centuries Emmaus was considered a village. Joseph Donders, a bible scholar, maintains it was a Roman army camp. So these two Jews were employed there in some modest capacity. Very possibly they were husband and wife. But whoever they were, they were not happy campers. They had waited around for the Resurrection, but they came up empty. Events would establish that they had left Jerusalem too soon. As Fr. Arthur Tonne puts it, they had closed the book before reading the last chapter. They had dismissed the women’s Resurrection stories as women’s stories. So they were heading back to work making beds, emptying slop buckets and eating military chow. They had lost their faith. The whole Jesus thing was a scam and a sting. They were going back to their lives of noisy desperation

Then suddenly a stranger came out of nowhere. For reasons unknown, they didn’t recognise their former penniless Employer. And Jesus with his tongue way up in his cheek asks, “What’s up, you guys ?” They respond incredulously, “Mister, are you the only one in Jerusalem not reading the newspapers ?” So they bring the Resurrected Lord up to date, telling him all that happened to him. The reaction of Jesus is shotgun: “You people must have an IQ of .007. do I have to explain everything to you 16 times ?”  Here is a fresh dimension of Christ we may want to dwell on. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly. There are times he plays tough. We might do well  -  all of us  -  to put our respective acts together.

Emmaus is in the immediate distance. Jesus pushes on: “See you again.”  But they insist, “No, stay with us, the day is far gone.” Actually they were exaggerating; it was not even midday. But they were so enchanted by the stranger that they had to use half a bluff to keep him. Jesus was waiting for the invitation; he never forces himself on anyone. He accepts the invitation and enters the house as guest. But once seated at table he becomes the host; the hosts become his guests. “...He took bread and said the blessing”, and you know how the story ends. They recognised him, he vanished from their sight. They  rush out and rent a high speed donkey for the hurried trot back to headquarters in Jerusalem.

Jesus put the husband and wife in the picture. St. Luke is emphasising the ability of the Lord to make sense of muddy situations. This episode tries to bring home the meaning of the Resurrection and the resurrection of meaning. Human life is overshadowed by suffering, ours and others’. The outlook is bleak. There is enough in life and our personal experience to lead us to disenchantment and discouragement, cynicism and even bitterness.

Can God really be behind all this ? The one who walks through life with us is indeed a stranger whom we cannot recognise in our confusion. It needs a lot of listening and relearning before we can finally grasp the truth Jesus Christ must suffer before entering into glory.  It is a lesson we learn only slowly, haltingly and painfully. One day, perhaps, our eyes will be opened. In a burst of light we shall see meaning in the confusion, new life emerging from the ruins of our too human hopes; joy born in suffering, and achievement mysteriously coming out of failure. Then we shall joyfully recognise the One who was with us all along the way.

PRAYER (Janet Morley)

O God, whose greeting we miss

and whose departure we delay;

Make our hearts burn with insight

on our ordinary road;

that, as we grasp you

in the broken bread,

we may also let you go,

and return to speak

your word of life

in the name of Christ.