The road to Emmaus is one of my favourite readings of the post-easter season. In today’s daily gospel reading, this passage was proclaimed, and I am sure we are all familiar with the story – the 2 guys are walking along the road to Emmaus and feeling sad. They are downcast because of the “events that had happened in Jerusalem”. I would think these 2 were secondary disciples of Jesus, they followed him, they thought he would be “The one” to free the Jews from the bondage. They probably would have heard of his miracles, would have probably been there to welcome him with Palms in Jerusalem just a few weeks prior to His death. They must have heard about the riot just a few days prior, how this Man, who was supposed to be The Liberator was instead condemned to death in the most ugliest way. They must have felt anguish, sad, disappointed – wasn’t He the one to save Israel afterall?
And now, they caught wind that His tomb is empty. Bad news after bad news you may think. Hope was just dimming away. From just being hopeful a few weeks ago with his Triumph entry, now its all bleak. I am sure the 2 were also filled with confusion.
Yes. Confusion.
What’s going on here? Its bad enough He died, now he’s missing? It’s easy for us to see this past because we know the story, but imagine you are one of the disciples? Confusion coupled with anxiety and fear would be the mood of the day.
But isn’t our journey with our Lord also like that? – Confusion? anxiety? Sadness? Hopelessness? – especially when God doesn’t answer us? When God remains silent – whether for 3 days, or 40 years or 400 years – and we equate that as God has abandoned us – that Hope is gone.
And yet, in today’s gospel, imagine if you didn’t know the end of the story. Imagine if you were just walking with God, listening to Him expand the scripture. Notice how He didn’t immediately reveal himself to them and immediately alleviate their sorrow.
He was patient. He explained the scriptures, probably quoting the old testament prophet Malachi that the son of man would rise again. He would have quoted Isaiah saying the Son of man would have had to die and be led to be slaughtered – OT readings that we are familiar with. They listened with intent but perhaps would have remarked that “these are just prophetic sayings that we know, these stories, we know these prophets but they are just…texts”. How does that change the situation that we are in today?
And then came that pivotal moment – Jesus mentions that he will move on to another town and is preparing to bid them goodbye, but they pressed him to stay with Him. Had they not pressed him to stay , perhaps they wouldn’t have had their eyes open. And its because they invited him to be with them, to be in their hearts, they could See Him and be overjoyed.
In our own lives, do I invite and ask Jesus to stay with me? Maybe I don’t fully understand the scripture, maybe its just TEXTS referring to some ancient stuff and has nothing to do with me right now – hollow words proclaimed thousands of years prior but means very little just as how I read the words today and they sometimes ring hollow to me. More like a “nice to know” fact rather than this being sacred truth that is backed by God himself.
And yet, something must have happened. Whatever that was said through scripture “burned” within them. It ignited a flame, a hope, a spark in them. And even though their eyes were open and Jesus vanished from them, it did not stop them from making that 15-mile journey back to Jerusalem to share what they had just witnessed.
I see my life as that walk to Emmaus. Starting out sad, a little lost, hopeless, anxious, confused. What is God doing in my life? What is happening? Why hasn’t he shown up? Things are so difficult and challenging that you just want to give up. As a husband, I can’t support my wife at times, as a dad, I am not able to spend that time that I wished to with my kids. I am hoping always in the future, thinking life would be better “when I…” achieve something.
But its only through that walk, can I witness and encounter Jesus. Its only through the walk, by staying with him, and inviting him each day to “stay with us” that my joy will be complete. I talked a lot about the season of waiting in past entries, and perhaps the walk to Emmaus is also a “waiting season”. Had the disciples also chose NOT to walk, to just stay, to not move forward, perhaps they wouldn’t have encountered Christ. I need to walk, to take on my cross, daily, and hope, yes HOPE in Christ – that He will deliver me from some temporal sufferings and that He will also grant my petitions in His resurrection.
Wifey said last week which caught my attention – you have done everything you can, now only God can make us move overseas – I reflected on this during the Tridium. Yes its true, as much as I would like to make things happen, I can’t, As much as His disciples would have wanted to find His body, they could have never been able to do so without Him CHOOSING to reveal himself. And until they could find him and put a closure to things, they would not have been happy. Only Christ could fill their hearts.
And so it is with me as I l keep in mind the Emmaus walk – a journey of hope with Christ. And that journey can be sustained through His Word (just like how he fed those 2 guys) and His bread (just like how he broke bread at the end of the journey).
Jesus, I place my trust and my hope in You.
