“We
had hoped…” is how Cleopas and his 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, cleared the temple of corruption, shut up Pharisees and
Sadducees and the self-righteous big wigs with clever answers to tricky
questions, and in word and deed set the city on edge with expectation. But
people in power don’t give up that easily and while Jesus might 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 his friend headed 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 to them than it did on Thursday night and without waiting
for morning they rush back to join the chorus, “The Lord has risen!” Maybe
this is the best story for us as we commune during stay at home orders. Jesus
disappeared into the bread to reappear in the upper room where the disciples
were hiding. In the same way Jesus reappears when watching on line we hear the
familiar words… in the night in which he was betrayed… and then turn to commune
each other knowing that the same thing is happening in “upper rooms” all over
the metroplex or indeed the world. In the oddly familiar Jesus appears to us at
table wherever we are when bread broken is a sign of the promise fulfilled and
anticipated. Jesus appears to
us when walking together in our neighborhoods “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” that we are
experiencing 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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