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Gospel: Luke 24: 13-35
That very day, the first day of the week,
two of Jesus’ disciples were going
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,
and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.
He asked them,
“What are you discussing as you walk along?”
They stopped, looking downcast.
One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply,
“Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem
who does not know of the things
that have taken place there in these days?”
And he replied to them, “What sort of things?”
They said to him,
“The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene,
who was a prophet mighty in deed and word
before God and all the people,
how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over
to a sentence of death and crucified him.
But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel;
and besides all this,
it is now the third day since this took place.
Some women from our group, however, have astounded us:
they were at the tomb early in the morning
and did not find his body;
they came back and reported
that they had indeed seen a vision of angels
who announced that he was alive.
Then some of those with us went to the tomb
and found things just as the women had described,
but him they did not see.”
And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things
and enter into his glory?”
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
he interpreted to them what referred to him
in all the Scriptures.
As they approached the village to which they were going,
he gave the impression that he was going on farther.
But they urged him, “Stay with us,
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”
So he went in to stay with them.
And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other,
“Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”
So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem
where they found gathered together
the eleven and those with them who were saying,
“The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!”
Then the two recounted
what had taken place on the way
and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Have you ever read the short story, Rip Van Winkle?
It’s a tale about a man who wanders off into the Catskill Mountains and takes a swig of a mysterious but powerful drink that makes him fall into a deep slumber, shortly before the start of the American Revolution.
Rip wakes up twenty years later, not with a headache, but with a flowing white beard and no recollection of what happened.
Finding his way back home, he discovers that his village is larger than he remembers. No one recognizes him, until he stumbles across his two children who’ve since grown up.
They share with him how the American Revolution came and went, and the sad news that some of his friends died in the war. Finding it to be all too much, Rip lives in denial, trying to live as if nothing ever happened.
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Something tells me the disciples in today’s Gospel want to be like Rip Van Winkle.
They yearn for whatever it takes to move beyond their pain, their disappointment, and their unrelenting grief that Jesus has been crucified, died, and was buried.
They thirst to take a swig of some mysterious ale, to pull the covers over their eyes, and to wake up twenty years later, well after life returned to normal and people forgot about Jesus of Nazareth or their association with him.
“We had hoped that he would have been the one to redeem Israel,” they say, unaware that they’re actually speaking with Jesus. Notice the disciples speak of him in the past tense; their hope has shriveled, drying up like a grape in the sun.
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Both physically and spiritually, the disciples are retreating into the sunset, away from Jerusalem, away from their past.
I imagine them looking downcast, kicking pebbles as they go – the pebbles being symbolic of how they themselves felt after being pushed out of town by the crowds, by the authorities, and by their own desperate desire to start over.
After listening to their sorrows, Jesus rebukes these two disciples. “How foolish you are!” he cries. “How slow of heart to believe!”
To believe what, exactly?
“That the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory.”
Let’s be clear here.
This is what we are called to believe – and celebrate. The fact that the Son of God lived and died among us. That he wasn’t a mighty king, but a Suffering Servant. That he didn’t avoid pain or death, rather he overcame it. That he still bears his scars after his resurrection.
That suffering leads to glory. That victory sometimes looks like defeat. That death – my death – leads to life.
Thus, pulling a Rip Van Winkle and sleeping through our Good Friday grief is not how we get to Easter Sunday. The only way to genuine healing and resurrection hope is through journeying with the Risen Lord.
Easter is not about abandoning Jerusalem; it’s about re-entering the city changed. It’s about becoming a wounded healer, teaching others how to churn their sorrow and disappointment into joy.
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The story of Emmaus is good news for us.
Jesus reveals that he does not only appear to the Mary Magdalenes of this world – those who are relentlessly faithful, who cling to Christ even after his death, who are not afraid to face their grief, or to return to the empty tomb in the dim light of Easter morning.
He also appears to people like the disciples in today’s Gospel, who don’t know their bibles, who cannot “see” Jesus, the Messiah, spoken of in the scriptures.
He appears to the lost and disappointed, to those with broken dreams, to those who seem to be walking away from “Jerusalem,” away from the Church, away from their faith, away from God.
Jesus appears to them in disguise – in the face of a loved one, a friend, a stranger.
Some may not find the Lord until the end of their lives, much like the author from that famous poem Footprints in the Sand, when they realize that Jesus had been walking with them all along – and in the most painful moments of their lives, it was then that he carried them.
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The story of Rip Van Winkle, while creative, is not the story of Easter. Christians cannot close their eyes and wish time – or grief – away. Rather, we must encounter the Risen Lord in the here and now at the altar.
It is here where our hearts begin burning with us as we discover that Jesus has been raised from the dead and journeys with us still. Alleluia!
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Image credits: (1) Adobe Stock (2) Storynory (3) The Disciples Running to the Empty Tomb, Eugene Burnand
