This Easter week we will explore the Gospel appointed for each day. Today, we hit the road to Emmaus with two of Jesus’ followers. We don’t know why they are going to this village seven miles from Jerusalem, but we are told their conversation is all about the events of the weekend, Jesus’ awful crucifixion and burial, and then the astonishing reports from the women who found his tomb empty and angels announcing that he had risen. How could this be?
Then something more confounding occurs: they are joined by a stranger who asks what they are talking about. Is there anything else they could be discussing at this time? Has this guy been under a rock? They fill him in, and he surprises them further by interpreting all these events in light of their scriptures and what the prophets had foretold about the Messiah. “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” he asks. Had they thought to see the events of the past few days in terms of God’s deliverance? It just looked like God’s failure.
But still they do not recognize their companion on the way as Jesus. It is not until they sit down to supper with him, and he takes the bread, blesses and breaks it, and gives it to them that their eyes are opened – and as soon as they realize who they are with, he vanishes. It is that familiar gesture, which he had done just three nights earlier at the Passover feast, that reveals Jesus to them, just as his saying Mary’s name had revealed him to her.
We don’t have the advantage of lived experience with Jesus to draw upon – how do we know when he is with us? Sometimes we have an experience of our “hearts burning within us,” as these men had on the road when Jesus explained the scriptures to them. That happens to me more often in prayer or song than in bible study, but all of these are forms of worship. Sometimes we realize we’re in Jesus’ company in an intimate encounter with a friend who sees and knows and loves us. And churchgoers have experience of seeing the bread taken, blessed, broken and given – we too can recognize Jesus in that action.
Could it be that Jesus is always on the road with us, always willing to illuminate scripture for us, always ready to sit at table with us? Maybe we just have to open the eyes of our hearts and name him – invoking his name is always an invitation to him to be right here.
The second verse of my song, “Was That You?" goes like this (you can listen to it here – just an iphone recording… ):
Met a stranger last night, just outside of town
He didn’t seem to understand why we were so cast down.
But he sure did know where God had been, and he stayed with us to eat;
When he broke the bread and blessed it, the picture came complete:
Was that you coming close when I didn’t have a friend?
Was that you giving me hope when I was facing a dead end?
Was that you blessing me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, walking next to me.
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