The walk to Emmaus in Luke is a walk of doubt. And despite what we think is supposed to happen, that is the very time Jesus shows up.
and when Jesus joins us
Easter 3A | Luke 24:13-35
Most days I sit right in this chair and look through the window behind this screen and see the outside world.
I’ll give you a second to wrap your head around this image—that there’s a window behind you on my side of this glass computer screen. I can see you and I can see past you. And I can see world that is not actually behind you. And yet you can see me as if through a new window. What a strange sensation! Almost like magic!
And just as you can imagine that window, imagine your own window. The sun is shining. Occasionally, there’s a slightly bobbing head of a person walking their dog, or maybe walking with a spouse.
If you’re like me, every glimpse of a person through something other than a screen awakens a longing. Even with total strangers. Maybe there’s something we can talk about.
Of course, I don’t run out and strike up a conversation with a total stranger. Or act like a crazy person and shout out my window at them. I feel that sense of distance, notice that sensation of longing, and sometimes I stop. And I pray. For them. Health. Hope. And I go back to writing or recording or visiting or emailing or…
It is through this image—of watching others walk—or when my family ventures out on our family walks throughout the day that this gospel story feels relevant. Last week was perfect—we know that sense of feeling holed up in that upper room. Cooped up with a mix of fear, frustration, and sadness.
This story is brimming with the same feelings told differently.
Cleopas is running away.
I hadn’t really thought of that until my friend David Henson brought it up. These two are walking away from Jerusalem. Away from the disciples. Even away from the testimony a bunch of people made about Jesus.
As much as that story in the upper room is about fear, so is this one.
We might not literally be walking away from one city to another. However, their concerns are no less familiar. They are feeling lost and lonely. They had put so much trust in this one man, the son of God! Not just a rabbi and a prophet, but the Messiah! The one who came to liberate them!
But he died. That’s not at all how they thought that would go. How can a military general and king liberate a people by dying?
And then some women told a wild story. Some disciples went to check it out. And when they came back, they confirmed that wild story.
They recall these things to the stranger they’re walking with. Some guy they met along the way. Clearly they don’t have to worry about social distancing.
So this story just reminds us of how we have to get all metaphorical to follow it today. And when we get metaphorical, we get distant. So now I’m thinking about needing to take the clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer.
But back up.
They met the Messiah and followed him to Jerusalem. He dies. Then they hear from women they trust that he is alive. And then from his closest friends that yes, he is alive. And still they run away?
The strangeness of expectations
I find this part of the story so arresting. In a sense, it sounds like a traditional story about belief and doubt. The very thing we think the story in the upper room is about.
I find such kinship with these two: Cleopas and his walking partner. Clearly they’re thinking This is not what I signed up for. And this is nothing like what I learned from Scripture or Tradition.
They expected something different from the trip to Jerusalem. We don’t know what for sure, but we’ve got an idea. Something about driving Rome out of the holy city is a pretty solid guess.
But what is sticking with me is the balance between expectations and outcomes.
So what? Things didn’t go the way they had planned. No revolution, huh? Why are they walking out now? After they heard from Mary Magdalene and then Peter. After people they trust attested to the risen Christ. Why did they leave after they were asked to trust one another?
And not just when Jesus failed to live up to their expectations?
Foolish Expectations
Jesus doesn’t ask why they’re heading away from the city. And he doesn’t ask them how they got from the disciples confirming Mary’s story to their walking on this road. He cuts in, right in the middle of the story, and calls them fools.
“Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!”
Jesus seems to be saying Just stop right there. Why aren’t you believing what the prophets actually say? He nails them at the point of their expectation—not their doubt.
Just because they didn’t get to slaughter Romans doesn’t mean God isn’t liberating them as they speak.
I don’t think Jesus could care less about the doubt. It is how they use faulty expectations built on bad theology as an excuse to stop listening. That seems to be the problem.
Jesus doesn’t insult them. He turns them back to the story.
It is after they’ve reconnected to the story that they invite him to dinner. The place he breaks bread and they recognize him. And he disappears.
That’s when they head home; back to the disciples. And they declare that Peter was right. And then they describe what they experienced.
In Doubt
Jesus arrives to them in their doubt, when they need him most. He walks with them in their fear. And when they finally start to act like disciples, welcoming the stranger and eating with him, Jesus disappears.
This is the testimony Mother Theresa offered posthumously in her diaries; how she hadn’t heard from God in decades—decades in which she was arguably most aligned to the work of Jesus.
I think we always expect it to be the other way.
Maybe at this moment we’re feeling off. Distant. Like maybe we’ve struck out on another road and maybe we’re thinking this isn’t the right one.
Or maybe there’s a way of looking at this encounter with Jesus like those imagined encounters with our neighbors or the virtual encounters we have on Facebook. Maybe this strange warmness we feel in spite of these glass screens or these new connections we’re making are telling us a different message than the one we expected.
This, ultimately, is the substance of the gospel.
That it doesn’t matter so much that we were running away. But that Jesus helps us see when it’s time to turn around.
And then, when we get home, we’ll have something to share. Something we will all rejoice in hearing.