Easter 3: walking to Emmaus (Fr. Phil)

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

Year A

April 6, 2008

Ss. Peter & Paul – 9:30 a.m.

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Why, we might ask, were the two travelers in today’s Gospel “headed for the hills”?

If they had been anything like the rest of the disciples—and there is no evidence to think that they were not—then these Emmaus walkers had given up. They, too, had left Jesus in the lurch. When the chips were down—and they were down as low as they could go—these individuals were interested primarily in saving their own skins. Although Luke never gives any reasons why these particular followers of Jesus were headed to this obscure, little-known village, it is a safe guess that Emmaus was as good a place as any to “get out of Dodge.” To wimp out.

Frederick Buechner wrote eloquently about “Emmaus” in his book The Magnificent Defeat: “’Emmaus’ is where we go when life gets to be too much for us: … the place 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.’ … 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 men have had—ideas about love and freedom and justice—have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish ends.”

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A large part of the Exhilarating News of the Resurrection is that the Risen Lord comes to us anyway. In the midst of our wimpishness. In the hour of our faithlessness. Under the spell of thrown-up hands and drained resolve. Under the pall of disillusionment and despair. On our way to our favorite “Emmaus” to escape reality. Jesus comes to us—even though “unrecognizable” at first , and even though believed to be a “stranger” (Lk. 24:18).

Albert Schweitzer said that Jesus was “the man who fit no formula.” And indeed his coming to Cleopas and the other disciples walking toward Emmaus fits no formula. The Resurrected One will be who he will be. Whereas he speaks immediately to Mary, calling her by name (Jn. 20:16); whereas he makes himself immediately recognizable to the disciples squirreled away behind locked doors, showing them his wounds (Jn. 20:19-20)—on the road to Emmaus, Jesus remains “incognito” until he reveals himself to them in blessed and broken bread at table (Lk. 24:30-31). It seems that Jesus kept his identity secret so that a key post-Resurrection truth could be imparted.

It is a truth that in most religions (or distortions thereof) there is no Divine welcome for the sinner until he or she has “gotten right” with God. The message is: “Get right with God and God will get right with you.” Get acceptable, and God will accept you. But here we see just the opposite: Jesus comes among the sinful apart from any sign of repentance whatsoever. Jesus comes among them as a gift. God remains faithful even if we do not. Emmaus demonstrates that Jesus does not appear among us demanding newness of life; he confers newness of life.

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Amendment of life is a consequence of grace, not its precursor, something required beforehand.

Another truth Jesus makes known to them when he asks the question: “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” (v. 26). The implication here is that people in their waywardness and sinfulness still remain instruments of God: Pilate and Caiaphas; the Sanhedrin; Judas; Peter, James, and John; the Emmaus disciples themselves—all, in their own way, despite their twistedness—still remained instruments of God in the Paschal Mystery. That God is able to use us, not just in our fleeting moments of righteousness, but in the depths of our waywardness, is a profound truth of the Resurrection faith. As Peter would declare to the crowd at Pentecost: “… this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power” (Acts 2:23-24).

Yet another truth is that the only way we can make sense of Easter—as these disciples struggle to do on the road to Emmaus—is to encounter the Risen Christ ourselves. To have our eyes “opened” so that we may recognize the Lord in our midst. Returning to Frederick Buechner’s The Magnificent Defeat, he says: “It is not the objective proof of God’s existence that we want, but, whether we use religious language for it or not, the experience of God’s presence. That is the miracle we are really after. And that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get.”

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How do we experience the miracle of Resurrection Presence? St. Augustine said that he had lost much time in the beginning of his Christian experience by trying to find God outwardly rather than by seeking inwardly. And this may well be true for us. The miracle of Emmaus happens when we turn the heart toward the Risen One with the receptivity of a child. When we wait with open hands in a simple act of prayer, in the reading of Scripture, in the breaking of bread, in listening to a friend, in making love, in giving sacrificially without thought of reward. In countless ways, Jesus comes among us. Easter happens for us when we are present to recognize and receive this Presence with the eyes of faith.

As the canticle Benedictus expresses it:

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,

He has come to his people and set them free;

He has raised up for us a mighty Savior

Born of the house of his servant David.

Barry Vaughn has written about Emmaus:

We may not go again to walk with Cleopas and his companion from Jerusalem to Emmaus. But we may find a stranger walking with us as we go down the roads of our lives. For surely, the experience of Jesus’ disciples will be our experience, too. We, like them, may find our hopes shattered. What Cleopas said to the mysterious stranger was deeply poignant, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

How often have we said, “But we had hoped …”?

“But we had hoped … that we would be successful in getting work …

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but we had hoped … that this relationship would last and bring love and contentment to our lives … but we had hoped … that the doctors would find a cure…”

And perhaps as we wondered if we had hoped in vain, did someone draw near and speak a word of comfort and hope to us? Did someone remind us that God has entered into human life in all its joy and sorrow? Did someone remind you that on the Cross God took and blessed and broke God’s own life and offered it to us in the midst of suffering so that all human sadness and pain might become vehicles of God’s presence?

Are you saying even now, “But we had hoped …”? Then draw near to this table, where Jesus invites us to take again the bread that he blessed and broke and gave. And open your eyes and your hearts and be hopeful. The women who went to the tomb were right: he is risen.

Alleluia! He is risen indeed!

[Things consulted: H.K. Synthesis 4/6/08, including Buechner and Vaughn quotes. The Magnificent Defeat by Buechner is New York: Seabury Press, 1966.]