Pastor's Page: "We Were Hoping That He Was the One...." (Luke 24)

They are friends, Cleopas and his unnamed companion, walking away from the place of his execution,
their dreams for him having died along with his brutalized body. From a distance, for safety's sake, they
witnessed Joseph of Arimathea wrap his lifeless body in a burial cloth, and carry him off to a tomb hewn
in rock. They are both emotionally exhausted, profound grief and puzzlement among them. Like so
many of their generation, these young Jewish men were tired of Roman rule. The charisms that Jesus of
Nazareth exhibited in his working of miracles, his spellbinding preaching and authoritative teaching,
made them certain that the time of rebellion had arrived.
In every town and village of Galilee he had drawn crowds by the thousands. His entry into the holy city
for Passover had been a triumphant one with the crowds crying out ‘hosanna’ and greeting him as the
Messiah, the royal son of David. Hadn't he driven the money changers out of the Temple, and threatened
the Temple priesthood?
He remained a paradox to them. He evidenced such power over the forces of evil and even of nature
itself, yet he abjured the way of violence and taught a path of nonviolent resistance. He had said: Not an
eye for an eye, and a tooth for tooth, but love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Pray for your
persecutors.
And when the arresting mob came to take him captive in the garden of Gethsemane he refused the use of
weapons to escape capture.
"We were hoping that he was the one...." Their dreams of a new Israel free of Roman oppression had
died with him on Calvary's hill. What were they to make of the latest wild stories offered by hysterical
women who told a strange tale of an empty tomb and angels? These disciples are realists unmoved by
pious fantasies. They seek comfort from one another in their disappointment and their grief. They are
talking even though they know that the reality of his death will not change. Yet in their talking they give
God the opportunity of walking with them and sharing their conversation.
A stranger joins them on the way from Jerusalem to Emmaus. It is the risen Lord. Their companion
on the journey out of despair. They are fleeing from him and the place of execution, but he is pursuing
them. He who is the constant lover. He opens their hearts and minds to the truth of Scripture, and the
great promise of the suffering Messiah who would die only to rise again, and set the human race free of
death. The tree of a man's defeat has become the tree of victory.
They have heard the word from this stranger, and they discover the truth of who he is in the ‘breaking
of bread’. Truly Christ is risen; out of the darkness of the tomb and into the light of a new and eternal
day.
The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus is our story. The divine lover is hidden, but among us
leading us from sadness to a joy that will never end.
Alleluia!
Peace and love,
Fr. Bruce