Issue 267
Based on Luke 24:13-35
Have you noticed how tiring it is to be disappointed? you were expecting one outcome and you got another. The level of disappointment is directly related to the level of investment: the more you invest the more you risk; the more you risk the more you could lose; the more you could lose the greater the disappointment. So you invest your time, your energy, your money and even your heart in a project, person, financial strategy or a dream and it produces a nasty surprise.
Every day in the market somebody looses; in fact for there to be winners there will always have to be losers. Companies fold, partnerships dissolve, investments go south and people leave. This was not the way you had planned it to be; your gaze goes from onwards and upwards to static and downwards; your heart goes from motivated to paralysed and it just hurts. You will find yourself discussing your disappointments with anyone sympathetic enough to listen and close enough to hear. Your pace slows, your mind ponders and confusion surrounds your frustration.
Such was the Emmaus road: two companions – maybe a married couple – are walking towards the sunset; it’s a seven mile trek. The record shows that their faces are downcast; in their own words “they had hoped” for something but it had all gone wrong.
One of these characters is called Cleopas. His level of disappointment suggests that he has invested quite significantly in the ‘Jesus Project’. He is no distant spectator; he has emotions attached to his words; he is discussing the events with his travelling companion and is clearly hurting.
It is quite likely that this Cleopas was the husband of the Mary who was in the group close to the cross; if so, it is possible that his travelling companion was his wife. Some have also identified him as the father of James the less (one of the twelve); if this was the case both his wife and his son would be grief stricken at this time. One historian identifies him as the brother of Joseph, Jesus’ father. Speculation this may be, but Luke clearly wants us to know both the name and the grief level of this traveller who was close enough to the events to be extremely vulnerable and disappointed.
The Emmaus road is not a road for comfort; when Jesus joins the expedition and hears the explanation of their thinking, ,he is not impressed; his verdict is that they are foolish, slow, and dim in not figuring things out.
The reason for this rebuke emerges early on: these travellers have seen Jesus first hand and concluded that he was a prophet. They have heard his powerful words and seen his spectacular behaviour. They know all about his death and even that the first stories are emerging, of empty tombs and sightings of a living person, but still they don’t get it; Jesus is distinctly underwhelmed with their self-pity.
Why was this? I would suggest a number of reasons: firstly, they were still looking for the wrong kind of results; they measured their investment by whether it resulted in a political and military rescue from Rome.
And before we mock them it might be worth remembering that as followers of Jesus we still expect him to deliver money, goods and services proving his credentials by endorsing our materialistic capitalism; we still use the wrong criteria.
Secondly, they had not taken the women’s story seriously. The tomb was empty – both men and women had seen that, but at this stage it was only the women who had reported the sightings. This was clearly not enough for them, and in today’s world, women are still patronized, devalued and disrespected in society, the marketplace, and religious circles.
Thirdly, they had clearly not read their own data properly. Their sources of information were the prophetic records and they had just not worked hard enough to make the connections between the Christ, the suffering and the glory.
Today we are still faced with the same challenge: to connect our view of Christ with the work he did on the cross and the outcomes of this work. Once we have made these connections we are then challenged to take the cross with us daily.
And still many of us don’t get it; we persist in trudging our own way down a disappointed road complaining and moaning, when the glory is to be found in connecting apparently disconnected truths. So churches still don’t connect the cross with the workplace, individuals don’t connect the struggle with the glory and we still don’t read our data properly to figure out the meaning and the outcomes.
So a deeply unimpressed, exasperated Jesus starts again and explains from cover to cover what it’s all about. Amazingly he waits for them to invite him to eat with them and over the table they finally see who he is. He is not a political revolutionary or military commander; he comesto sit and eat, connect the disconnected and make sense of it all. He comesto buy out the fools, dimwits, and the ignorant majority who are so slow to believe. If you will walk with him he will still show you with infinite patience from cover to cover what it is all about.
Their hearts were now so on fire that they had to connect with others; to do this they had to go back – reverse the route and walk completely differently. The Emmaus journey was a two way street – it still is.
Luke 24:13-25
13Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16but they were kept from recognizing him. 17He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. 18One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19″What things?” he asked.
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!
26Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. 28As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. 29But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” 33They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
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Geoff Shattock
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