4-24-17 - Strangers on the Way

I’ve known several people who have walked all or part of El Camino del Santiago, the pilgrimage route through France and Spain to the shrine of St. James (Sant’Iago) at Campostella. They observed that people who came together did not always end up walking together. Walking speeds and rhythms diverge; disagreements can crop up. For varied reasons, people often fall in with strangers on that trail, and sometimes those strangers have just the gifts they need for the spiritual journey that parallels the physical one. (For a decent film about this, check out “The Way,” starting Martin Sheen as a reluctant pilgrim on the Camino…)

If I ever make that pilgrimage, I will be thinking of this week’s gospel story, about the disciples on the road to Emmaus and the traveling companion who joined them. In our Sunday readings, it's still the Day of Resurrection. On Easter Sunday, we visit the events of that morning. On Easter 2, it’s that evening. On Easter 3 this year, we find ourselves in the late afternoon of that same day, on a road outside Jerusalem, with two of Jesus’ followers:

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?"

Why were their “their eyes were kept from recognizing him?” Sometimes we just don’t see what we don’t expect to see, especially if it is far outside the bounds of probability. These two were already under great stress from the events of the past few days – watching their Lord betrayed, arrested, tried, mocked, flogged, crucified… and just as they were coming to terms with that reality, Reality itself was turned upside down with the empty tomb and reports that people had seen Jesus alive, had talked with him. Could these things be? Was it a conspiracy? A hoax? Could it possibly be true?

We process things by talking about them. So these two, in the midst of great upheaval, were discussing it, trying to make some sense of it all. And along comes a stranger who doesn’t even seem to know the events of which they are speaking - yet knows more than anyone they've ever met. He helps them understand, and sends them running seven miles back the way they’d come, their world transformed.

Have you ever found yourself talking about traumatic events with total strangers? 

Sometimes such conversations happen in hospital waiting rooms, or in the midst of disasters. 

Have you ever been the stranger that helped someone else process something painful? 

Were you aware of the presence of Christ in such an encounter? Of Christ in you, or in another?

Today, let’s give thanks for the companions who join us along our way. If you’re willing, ask God to send you alongside someone today who needs the gift you bring, the gift of the presence of Christ in you. Tonight, think back and see how that prayer was answered. Try it again tomorrow.

If I ever walk the Camino, I will assume that Christ is showing up beside me in the people with whom I walk. In fact, this principle may well be true on the roads I find myself walking today, actual or virtual. Where is the risen Christ joining you on the Way today?