Luke 24:28-49
W.H. Auden wrote a poem that became very famous when it was included in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. It begins,
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
It is a poem about the loss of a loved one, someone so near and dear to the heart that it just feels like the world has ended. It goes on,
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead.
There is the sense of the earth shifting beneath us and nothing will ever be the same. It is cosmic in its scope:
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
I don’t know any other words that speak so well about grief.
I have read the Emmaus Road story so many times, but it never fully dawned on me just how raw the grief and shock are for these two disciples. Two days ago, their lord died on the cross. Only this very morning they learned that his body has disappeared from his grave. They are not buzzing about the news like it’s the latest gossip. They are numb and confused as they walk on the road to Emmaus.
I don’t know what’s in Emmaus. Maybe the disciples don’t know either. Maybe they are walking there just to be moving; maybe they are trying to shake off the grief, walking because they don’t know what else to do but they have to be doing something.
And for as long as they have been walking, they have been talking, talking about all the things that have happened. Not in a purposeful, logical manner – their talk was compulsive, repetitive, driven by shock and grief.
The man who approached them on the road didn’t seem to be up to speed on the events of the past three days, and this fact shocked them into silence. Stop the clocks, cut off the telephone. How is it that you don’t know these things, friend? They stopped walking for a moment, they were so stunned.
They began talking again, going over everything that happened once more, walking and lamenting, now sharing their lament with someone new. But this new person adds a new voice to the conversation. And he begins to shed some light on their experiences – going back through what they have known already from the scriptures and opening up to them new ways of understanding, which they had not seen before. Perhaps because of this they are able to begin processing their grief.
They feel a connection with this man and they don’t want to lose it, so when they reach Emmaus, they ask him to stay the night with them – they strongly urge him to stay. And if you’d asked them why they needed him to stay, they probably would not have been able to tell you. But they knew they did.
Because all along this journey they have been engaged in, struggling with, the reality of change. The earth has been shaken beneath their feet and they are walking and talking and trying to adjust to the change. What happens now? What does any of it mean? How do we go forward and live?
And now this stranger is a part of their journey, the change they are going through. And so he stays. They go into the inn together. They sit down at the table together to eat. The stranger picks up the bread…he blesses it and he breaks it…
And they see Jesus in their midst. Their eyes are opened now.
It is only a fleeting moment, but once again the ground has shifted. Jesus is not dead. He lives and he is with them.
And they know they must return to Jerusalem. Unconcerned now about the fact that night is falling, they get up and go, they make the seven-mile trek back again to Jerusalem. But it is not the same journey –
Because they are not the same men that they were. They are full of new spirit, new vision. Their world is no longer closing in on them, getting smaller and smaller. They are no longer circling over the same events that traumatized them, again and again. Because the presence of Jesus has opened their eyes and shattered the past and they are ready for the new thing God is doing in their midst.
There are more sightings of Jesus. People are terrified, they are confused. In some cases they don’t recognize him, just as these two disciples did not recognize him.
Just as so many of us, over the past 2,000 years, have failed to recognize him.
The church likes to say that God is unchanging. But more important than that, God is constantly trying to change us, to draw us closer and closer to Godself. We might miss it, we might resist seeing it, because change means loss. The loss of the way things used to be.
And we miss the way things used to be. We grieve and in the darkness of our grief we cannot see. We move around aimlessly, soothing ourselves with the knowledge that we are doing something…
like the disciples on the road to Emmaus…walking…talking…stuck.
When the butterfly becomes a chrysalis it dwells in utter darkness. But a fascinating thing happens when it draws near the time to break out. The outside becomes transparent. Suddenly, you can see the colorful wings of the butterfly inside. Suddenly, there is light breaking through. Perhaps this is designed to begin preparing the butterfly to emerge. Perhaps the light is a signal to the butterfly that it is time for a change, new life.
When God is urging us to emerge into new life, it is like God is inviting us to see the light.
When the stranger, who turned out to be Jesus, approached the two disciples on the road, he brought new light to them, making them ready to see him for who he was. When Jesus appeared to the other disciples at the garden, in the upper room, at the lakeshore, together they could see the light. Together, they could navigate this change, walk this journey.
And that is how we do it. We grieve our losses. But even in our grief we can begin asking ourselves: What is God doing in this new thing? Where is God leading us now?
We never go back to the place we were before. But we must know that whenever the ground shifts, God’s arms are always extended toward us. Jesus is always with us. Together, we walk into the light.
