“We had hoped…” is how Cleopas and friend express the deep disappointment
at what could have been but wasn't. To have come so close to realizing the
dream, all Jerusalem shouting as Zion’s King entered the city just as Zechariah prophesied, made it all the more difficult. Jesus of Nazareth, the mighty
prophet, clearing the temple of corruption, shutting up Pharisees and Sadducees
and self righteous big wigs with clever answers to tricky questions, in word and deed set the city on edge with expectation.
But people in power don’t give up that easily and while Jesus may speak
mightily it turns out he’s a pushover and his followers are no match for a coup
accomplished in the middle of the night. They woke to find the one who would
redeem Israel already condemned and nailed to a Roman cross along with all their
hopes for Zion. Heads hung in sorrow, Cleopas and friend head home to Emmaus only
to meet a clueless stranger who turns out to know more about the story than
they do. Hearts burning within them they don’t want the conversation to end and
pressing him to stay sit down to dinner. But then the stranger does something oddly
familiar and before they can say a word Jesus vanishes into the breaking and
blessing and passing of bread. Take and eat suddenly means more than it did on
Thursday night and without waiting for morning they rush back to join the
chorus, “The Lord has risen!” This is a story for all who live in that place of
deep regret, of hopes and dreams dashed, of disappointments that weigh heavily
on the heart and cause heads to hang in sorrow. For in the oddly familiar Jesus
appears to us at table when bread broken is a sign of the promise fulfilled and
anticipated. Jesus appears to us when
walking together on the long journey home “Lo I am with you always” makes our
hearts burn within us because it is truer than we can ask or imagine or
believe. And in the “necessary
suffering” the God far off has come near so that all suffering and sorrow and
yes, even death itself, might one day disappear.
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