Luke 24:13-35
As I began to study today’s passage I could not shake the feeling that this could make a great one-act play! You could call it, “Two Travelers and a Stranger Jesus,” or “What was in that Bread?” or maybe even “Hope Came Back.” We could, of course, just stick with “The Road to Emmaus,” but what kind of title is that? Plus, we want to grab people’s attention with this play, and with a title like that most people who are familiar with the story are going to think they already know what it’s all about.Now, I realize that this play would technically only have two scenes – on the road and in the house – but I think we could probably broaden that out a bit with some creative lighting and dramatic blocking (for you non-theater types, blocking is essentially the choreography of people on the stage). I think it could look something like this:
Scene 1 (vv. 13-18): This one would be all narration. The disciples are joined by a stranger on a dark and mysterious night. The stranger is Jesus, but the disciples don’t know it. They’re so overcome with grief that they are walking, figuratively speaking, in the valley of the shadow of the death of Christ.
Scene 2 (vv. 18-24): The stranger asks them what they are talking about. This would be a great moment for some tension-cutting comedy. “Hey, guys! Whatcha’ talking about over there?” The disciples nearly jump out their skin, startled by the stranger, and they tell the story of the loss of their hope.
Scene 3 (vv. 25-27): The stranger schools the disciples, telling them that all of this was necessary. In the end, they urge him to stay with them out of concern for this person whose faith was obviously so much greater than theirs.
Scene 4 (vv. 28-35): Jesus breaks bread. The disciples recognize him. He vanishes. They get up and go – under the cover of night – back to those with whom they had formed a community as followers of Jesus because their hope has been restored!
Now, if I were pitching this as a play or a film, there might be several plot holes and questions about character motivations and that kind of thing, but unfortunately, we’re just going to have to leave the questions that scripture doesn’t answer unanswered. We don’t know why they didn’t recognize him. Was he wearing a hoodie or some rakish disguise? We don’t know.
In fact, we don’t actually know where Emmaus was or why they were going there. There is some suggestion that the name of the town might have meant “hot springs” but I doubt they were going there for the Roman baths. I think it was more like the line in Casablanca where Capt. Renault asks Rick why he came to Casablanca and he says, “I came for the waters.” Renault exclaims, “What waters? We’re in a desert!” and Rick says, “I was mistaken.”
Rick was, of course, hiding out in Casablanca as a metaphor for the isolationism of the US as Germany rolled through Europe in WWII. My guess is that these two disciples were also hiding out and trying to get as far away from the event of the crucifixion as they could, but all we know is that they were so full of grief that they did not see him. In fact it wasn’t just grief. They were on the past tense side of hope. “We had hoped” they said in v.21 “that he would be the one to redeem Israel.” Then they go on to talk about the vision of the women – which they obviously don’t believe – and the fact that his body was simply gone.
Always the teacher, Jesus then reminded them of what they already knew – that this is the way it had to be, and God had been telling them that from giving of the law and all through the prophets. Now, this is just one of many “Well, duh!” moments for the disciples, but it kind of reminds me of one I had several years back when Treva and I were in Seminary. I know I’ve told a ton of stories (or maybe repeated the same few ones ad nauseum) from our travel seminar in Ghana, but it was a pretty formative experience and kind of a touchstone for me.
Anyway, we were guests in a large church in the city of Kumasi. We were asked to teach something to a class of children, and so we taught them a song, “Father, I Adore You.” It’s a very simple song, and they were very respectful and sang it exactly as we taught them. Then they became very excited, and we thought that we must have done a really great job. Then they started bringing out drums and saying, “We want to show you how we sing it!”
They blew us away. Of course, the joy was not in the fact that they knew it better or that we sang it differently. The joy was in the fact that across cultural barriers we had union in Christ! We knew their song and they knew ours, and because we sang together, our “Well, duh!” moment became an “Ah-ha!” moment, and Christ was in our midst!
Now, the disciples haven’t quite gotten there yet in our story, yet there was something in the memory of the teaching – there was something in hearing a word of hope again – that made them compel this stranger to stay with them. After all, welcoming strangers was what they had been taught to do. Then in the breaking of bread, they recognized him, and he vanished that same instant. There’s really no point in worrying over the physics of all of that.
All that really matters is that they recognized him and it changed their direction entirely. Whatever they were doing in Emmaus or on the way there or somewhere else no longer mattered. Whatever they were running to or from no longer mattered. What mattered was that they needed to be with those that had been with Jesus before in hopes that they might be with him again!
I gotta say, it’s pretty easy to draw some parallels to what we have been going through as a church, but I think it’s also something we have to do carefully and faithfully – just as we have been doing. Personally, I like to start with the questions that I think the text is asking us, even though some of these questions can’t always be answered directly.
So, what about us as followers of Jesus? Are we stuck in the past tense of hope or are we open to revelation? Can we see what has happened to us as individuals, and as a people, as necessary for God’s grace to be revealed?
Now, I want to take a breather here and say that I think it’s counter to scripture to say that God wants us to suffer. You can disagree if you like, but as a follower of Jesus in the Reformed tradition of the church, I don’t think God needs or wants us to suffer so that God can dole out grace and mercy like First Aid kits in the face of cancer. Suffering exists because we oppose the good gifts of God; because we so often choose the Emmaus road over the one to Jerusalem – and that raises the really big question: Where do we go from here?
I believe the answer is found in the breaking of the bread as the body of Christ, and in the ability of God’s people, as the Body of Christ, to be broken for the world. In our Book of Order (which is something we Presbyterians use as a way to build on the foundation of the Bible) we are reminded that “The Church is the body of Christ. Christ gives to the Church all the gifts necessary to be his body. The Church strives to demonstrate these gifts in its life as a community in the world: The Church is to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of losing its life.”
We’ve never felt more at risk than we do right now, but I want to assure you that the risks that we are taking by demonstrating love and mercy are never without reward. I want to assure you that the space we create between us has never been without purpose. Every artist knows that the negative space can make or break a piece of art. Every musician knows the rests are what creates the space for a beat. Every writer knows the importance of punctuation, and every actor and orator knows that nothing makes a scene like the silence of a dramatic pause!
Now it’s our turn, as followers of Jesus, to once again decide how we are going to follow Jesus together. It’s not that we’ve ever stopped. It’s just that we have had a chance to see the space between us as holy space, and now we have to figure out how to keep it holy. We have to figure out how to be broken in a way that moves us all toward wholeness.
At the end of the day, all that matters is that hope is restored. In fact, even the disciples took off at the end of the day – right after they had warned the stranger that it would not be safe to go out – because their hope had been restored! Hope. It’s kind of funny that hope exists in the face of risk. In fact, sometimes hope is the thing that helps us take the risks that are necessary. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what is necessary, but thanks be to God that we have each other to compare notes with – to compare our experiences of revelation – so that we can all get to the table together even while we are apart.
For now, let’s not forget about the negative space, the dramatic pause, and the presence of God in our midst. If anything, let’s focus on it like a hidden eye puzzle until we can see Jesus in our midst, in the space between, and in the longing of our hearts for the opportunities to love as we have been loved.
It’s just that simple, and it’s just that hard, but thanks be to God that we have one another and the space between. Amen!
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