Luke 24:13-35
Headed to Emmaus
James Sledge May 8, 2011
If you go to your computer and Google the term “Emmaus walk,” you will find numerous listings for retreats and other events designed to foster spiritual renewal and revival. “Emmaus walk” and “Emmaus road” have become metaphors that speak of spiritual discovery, of encountering the presence of the living Christ.
I suppose that’s just as well considering that no one knows where the real Emmaus is. Luke tells us it was seven miles from Jerusalem, and so a number of places have been suggested, but it’s all speculation. And so we’re left with Emmaus as this wonderful metaphorical destination that people hope for, that they seek out.
But Emmaus does not start out as a happy place. Emmaus is a stop on the way out of town after everything has gone wrong and fallen apart. The two otherwise unnamed disciples in our gospel reading today are not headed there for a spiritual retreat. They are not headed there for enlightenment. They’re headed there because their hopes and dreams have been shattered. They’re headed to Emmaus because hope is gone.
It is evening on that first Easter Sunday, and so these disciples have heard the wild story told by the women about visions of angels who said Jesus was alive. But Luke tells us that the disciples thought their story “an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” And so these disciples say to Jesus as he walks along beside them incognito, “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. We had hoped that he was the one… We had hoped…”
They know the entire Easter story. They even explain it in great detail to the stranger walking beside them. Yet still they journey to Emmaus. Still the mutter, “We had hoped…” We are all familiar with this Emmaus. We’ve all headed there. We’ve all said, “We had hoped… ”
In his book, The Magnificent Defeat, Frederick Buechner writes,
…there is not one of us who has not gone to Emmaus with them. Emmaus can be a trip to the movies just for the sake of seeing a movie or to a cocktail party just for the sake of the cocktails. Emmaus may be buying a new suit or a new car or smoking more cigarettes than you really want, or reading a second-rate novel or even writing one. Emmaus may be going to church on Sunday. Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die; that even the noblest ideas that [people] have had—ideas about love and freedom and justice—have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish [people] for selfish ends. Emmaus is where we go, where these two went, to try to forget about Jesus and the great failure of his life. …[Emmaus] is the place where we spend much of our lives, you and I, the place that we go in order to escape—a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, “Let the whole damned thing go hang. It makes no difference anyway.” “We had hoped the doctors would be able to cure our little girl’s leukemia.” “We had hoped that Obama would bring real change to a bitter and broken political process.” “He had hoped to reconcile with his son before he died.” “We had hoped this would make a real difference in homelessness in our community.” We had hoped… We had hoped…
“We had hoped…” easily leads to cynicism, apathy, anger, and despair. If it makes no difference anyway, then my compassion, my sacrifice, my time, my energy aren’t worth the effort. What’s the point?
I think there must be significance to the fact that the very first appearance of the risen Jesus in Luke’s gospel is on the way to Emmaus. Just as Jesus enters fully into the suffering and brokenness of humanity there on the cross, so too he also joins us in our moments of hopelessness and despair, headed to Emmaus, caught up in the throes of “We had hoped…” Jesus joins us there, though we may well not recognize him. Perhaps he hides himself because we need to learn something along the way. Perhaps we do not see him because at that moment we cannot see beyond, “We had hoped…”
I wonder if either Cleopas or the other, unnamed disciple were introverts like me. When I find myself wondering if there is any point, headed on the way to Emmaus, I want to withdraw, to be by myself. But Cleopas and his companion welcome a stranger into their company, even insisting that he stay with them that evening. They offer him true hospitality and share their meal with him. And in breaking bread together, they meet their risen Lord.
His presence is fleeting – God’s presence often is – but nothing is quite the same afterward. They immediately head back to Jerusalem. Emmaus is forgotten. “We had hoped…” is forgotten.
One of the wrong turns that Christian faith sometimes takes is the notion that faith is mostly a private thing between us and God, that as long as we know the facts of the story and say we believe them, that’s faith. But if the road to Emmaus is any guide, the Jesus who walks beside us becomes fully present to us when we turn out from ourselves, when we welcome the stranger, when we show true hospitality, when we share our fellowship, our hopes, our table, our meal.
The other day a read a story about Anglican priest Desmond Tutu that took place in the days of South Africa’s apartheid system. More accurately, the story was about a white supporter of apartheid who thought Tutu a rabble rousing trouble maker, a communist, and a heretic. That’s what the leaders of his country told him and he believed it. One day this white South African happened to cross paths with Tutu in an airport. Enraged at the sight of this enemy of his country, he moved toward the much smaller Tutu, intentionally and roughly bumping him as they passed, sending the priest sprawling onto his backside with a thud. The man glared down at the stunned Tutu whose dazed look gradually gave way to a smile. Then Tutu said, “God bless you, my child.”
The man stormed off, angered that he had not upset Tutu or provoked a confrontation with his enemy. But over the days that followed, those words of blessing ate at this fellow until he found himself deeply sorry for what he had done, until he saw Tutu in a whole new light. But how could Desmond Tutu possibly have offered that blessing to someone who hated him, who wished him ill, who in a dark alley might have done much worse than simply knock him down? What did Tutu know that allowed him to act in such a strange manner?
Someone headed to Emmaus, someone whom life had beaten into “We had hoped…” could not have offered that blessing. And considering the treatment of blacks in apartheid South Africa, there must have been times when Desmond Tutu thought that things would never get any better, when he lapsed into despair and said, “I had hoped; we had hoped…” Tutu, of all people, must surely have walked that road to Emmaus. But clearly he must have met the risen Jesus somewhere along the way.
