May 8 - Easter 3, Year A (RCL)
It’s a familiar story,
the gospel today
about two disciples
on the road to Emmaus,
walking with Jesus
but not recognizing him
until they sit down to a meal
and he takes the bread
and breaks it.
But we read it
so far removed from that day,
even in our own time.
It’s two weeks
since Easter morning
two weeks
since we shouted together:
Christ is risen! Alleluia!
And if you’re anything like me
those two weeks have been so filled with busyness,
time with family, and catching up after Holy Week
and trying to get ready for the end of the school year,
let alone this conference,
and then there’s the garden demanding to be dug
and the lure of simply sitting in the sun that we’ve missed all winter.
Easter Day
seems a long time ago.
And even longer ago
that first Easter.
And in between
we’ve formed pictures in our mind of what it looked like,
pictures often from our childhood story books
that bear as little resemblance to the reality of that day
as a photoshopped portrait
might to the person it purports to resemble.
And so I invite you
to return to that day.
They had woken that morning
later than usual;
there was nothing
to get up for.
Only the memory
of their closest friend
being placed in the grave.
And uncertainty:
what now? They had followed him to Jerusalem;
but there was nothing left for them here.
Go home?
Knowing how stupid they would look - having left with such high hopes and proud speech of following the Messiah,
only to come back
with only regrets
and the reality
of failure.
Perhaps they could go somewhere else, somewhere
where no one had ever heard of Jesus, or at least didn’t know
of their foolishness.
The two of them had argued
late into the night,
and finally decided
it was time to move on.
And so that morning
they’d gone to where the twelve were staying - the eleven now
that Judas wasn’t around -
gone to say goodbye.
And just after they arrived
some women came
hysterical,
babbling about an empty tomb,
and white bright angels,
and insisting that
their friend was not dead, but alive!
There was a moment of hope,
like the catching of breath,
but it didn’t take long
for it to fade.
Yes, the tomb was empty - Simon Peter had checked on that -
but long hours followed
with never a sign
of this supposedly resurrected
Christ,
and they began to wonder.
After all, they’d smelled the blood that ran from his side
and heard him groaning as he died,
they’d seen his agony, and the chill of the body
laid lifeless in the tomb.
That was certain.
But this? This was just a story itching to be true
but so impossible it hurt to imagine it.
And so they said goodbye to the eleven,
and headed out of town,
resolved to put the past behind them,
their stupid hopes and dreams of glory,
determined to live by good sense and fierce logic,
step after step heavy with failure.
They hadn’t gone far
when a stranger caught up with them,
and they began to talk,
anything to distract them
from the hollow emptiness
that made the journey
endless.
He knew nothing;
how could he have been in Jerusalem
and not known
what happened?
So they told him, told him about their friend,
about the stories he told
and the things he did,
and how much they had hoped and dreamed
and it was all
over.
At first
he just listened,
but as they went along - seven miles is a good distance, and you can do a lot of talking in that time -
as they went along, he began to ask questions
and soon his questions became stories too,
stories reaching back to the beginning of time,
stories about God
and their ancestors,
and a Messiah
who they had just seen crucified.
He told them the stories
they had known since their childhoods,
but as he told them
they became somehow different,
filled with a significance far beyond the childhood story books,
almost as if
God himself
were telling them.
An hour passed,
and then another
and the village was in sight.
Dusk was falling, and suddenly their resolve faltered,
and good sense
and fierce logic
could wait,
and there was time for just one last night
to savor their lost hopes and dreams
in the company
of this
strangely familiar
stranger.
He went as if to go on,
but they pressed him to come in, to take advantage
of clean sheets and a simple meal with new found friends.
And as they sat down to eat
he took bread
blessed it, broke it
and gave it to them.
And suddenly they knew
that this stranger
was no stranger at all,
this stranger
was the very Christ
who they had been mourning.
And then
he was gone.
But the bread was there,
warm and fragrant,
hollows
where his fingers had pressed it,
grainy
under their tongues.
“This is my body,” was what he had said to the eleven
the night before he died,
that’s what the eleven had told Cleopas and his friend,
and as they ate
the taste and smell and feel of his life
were just as real
as the memories of his death.
And they got up
and went back to Jerusalem, he really had risen
another seven miles, but this time the journey passed quickly, because yes, it was true, and they had news to tell.
Christ is risen. Alleluia!
It’s a wonderful story,
but I sometimes wonder
if we leap too quickly to the conclusion.
We know
how it will end,
that Cleopas and his friend
will eventually get to see the risen Jesus,
and everything will be better again.
But what about the in between?
Between the time they heard the story
from the women
and the time
when he takes the bread and blesses and breaks it?
A time
when hope
and despair
and confusion
are all jostling for attention,
when nothing is clear
except that each step on a dusty road
will be one step closer
to whatever the rest of their lives will look like.
And they don’t know, they don’t know
what that will be.
That’s the space
that most of us
live in.
Most people,
even in our post Christendom world,
have heard the rumors.
Whether we believe them not, we’ve heard the stories about the Jesus who was born in a stable
and grew up to teach and do amazing things, and we’ve heard about how he died on a cross.
We even know about the resurrection.
But we weren’t there.
And sometimes, often times,
we’re not quite sure
we can believe it.
We’re in that place
between the resurrection of Christ
and our resurrection,
the kingdom of God announced
and the kingdom of God
fulfilled.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week.
The death of Osama Bin Laden last Sunday
has for many of us
brought back the events of 9/11
and with them, the feelings of grief and anger and fear and loss.
With his death, there’s a sense of relief -
we don’t have to worry about him any more, and perhaps he’s got what he deserved.
But at the same time,
we have a sense that rejoicing in the death of any human being, no matter how evil they have wrought,
somehow diminishes us, kind of makes us feel dirty.
And we hear the echoes of Jesus’ voice in our ears,
talking about forgiving seventy times seven, and loving our enemies and praying for them.
And it’s all too hard.
You see, we’ve caught a glimpse of the resurrection,
and it’s been enough to let us know
that there is something better,
that hate and anger will not win the day.
But the fulness of what is better
hasn’t arrived.
And so we’re stuck in the middle,
stuck between the reality of how we feel
and the ideal that Jesus calls us to,
stuck with the limitations of our humanity
and the spirit of God working within us to transform us.
But we’re just not there yet.
In the mean time, perhaps all we can do
is pray.
Pray for ourselves. Pray for others. Pray for our enemies - even if the only prayer we can say for them is,
“God, they’re in your hands.”
That’s all we know how to do.
That, and wait.
Wait
for the resurrection.
And what sustains us as we wait,
as we wait for that time
when all things will be made new
and we will know the fullness of resurrected life
and will meet God face to face,
what sustains us
is glimpses
of the resurrection.
Glimpses
where we have met God.
In children praying
and adults loving,
in relationships healed,
and yes, forgiveness given.
In water poured
and bread and wine shared.
Glimpses of God,
glimpses
of resurrection.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010