Readings: Acts 2:14, 22-33; 1 Peter 1:17-21; Luke 24:13-35
I am not sure whether it is really right
to have a “favorite” resurrection story,
but if such things are allowed
then I’m pretty sure
that the story of Emmaus is mine.
In part it is because of how
the experience of the two unnamed disciples
connects so closely with our own:
they come to recognize the risen one
in the breaking of the bread.
For them, as for us,
it is the moment of sacramental encounter
in which the hidden presence of Jesus
is made manifest to the eyes of faith
through his gift of himself to us.
Of course, for many of us it has been weeks
since we have been able to receive that gift sacramentally.
And while we believe that this does not deprive us
of the presence of the risen Christ,
it has for many been difficult
to live without the bread of life.
If nothing else, we have come to feel more deeply
how important that sacramental gift is to us,
how crucial it is to our living with the risen Christ.
And even though we know that one day
we will sit once again at the Lord’s table,
we don’t know when that day will be.
Of course, this is just one of the many things
that we do not know these days.
We don’t know when a vaccine will be developed,
or if we’ll find toilet paper at the store,
or how long we will be working from home
or out of work entirely,
or when we or our kids will return to school
or whether plans we have made for next fall
will have to be scrapped.
But though the current pandemic
might make the uncertainty of our lives
more undeniable,
that uncertainty is a part of every life,
every day, pandemic or not.
It is maybe only in retrospect
that we have any idea at all
of what is really going on around us,
and even then we understand our own lives
only partially, in the dark mirror of memory.
And this is the other part of the Emmaus story
that I can identify with.
The two disciples fleeing Jerusalem,
who meet the risen Jesus on the road,
know that momentous events are occurring around them
but they really have no idea of what those events mean,
how they fit into a larger picture,
what they stem from or where they will lead,
which rumors should be believed
and which should be dismissed.
And, of course, the main thing
that they do not understand
is that the stranger who walks beside them
is the central figure in these events,
and the key to unlocking their mysterious significance:
the living one who has conquered death and the grave.
So they are like us in this regard as well:
they are clueless.
Like us, they have no idea
what their past means
or what the future holds.
Like us, they are caught up in events
too momentous for them to grasp,
and too overwhelming for them to ignore.
They, like us, can make their own
St. Augustine’s confession of perplexity:
“I am scattered in times
whose order I do not understand.
The storms of incoherent events
tear to pieces my thoughts,
the inmost entrails of my soul” (Confessions bk. 11).
So they flee, trying to leave behind
all the fear and confusion and grief of Jerusalem,
the fear and confusion and grief of Jesus’ cross,
the fear and confusion and grief of rumored resurrection.
And we flee as well.
Perhaps not physically,
but all of us to some degree
try to flee the messiness and danger of reality,
seeking refuge in fantasy or ignorance,
seeking a safe and easily graspable vision of life
offered by the various ideologies of the world.
But even as we flee, he comes to walk beside us,
unrecognized,
and yet causing our hearts
to burn within us.
He meets us in our fear
to light in us the fire of his truth,
a truth we can grasp only partially,
a truth we cannot ignore.
He comes to show us how his word
can help us find the pattern of love
amidst the seeming chaos of events.
He comes to turn us back
from denial and ignorance and simplistic ideologies,
sending us back to Jerusalem,
that place of fear and confusion and grief.
But he sends us back now filled with his fire
to shed light in darkness
and kindle hope in those grown hopeless.
He sends us back fortified with the bread of life,
our eyes opened to his presence with us,
even in the place of fear and confusion,
especially in the place of fear and confusion:
the place of the cross,
but also the place of the empty, defeated grave.
The story of Emmaus is the story
of hope reborn in the midst of chaos and confusion,
of doubt and disappointment.
The story of Emmaus is our story,
for we too have broken bread with the risen one
and felt our hearts burn within us.
May Christ hasten the day of our deliverance
and may God have mercy on us all.
