Preached at St. Clement’s, Oxford
Lk. 24.13-35; Acts 14a, 36-41
In today’s Gospel reading we are first introduced to two confused men. They are walking to Emmaus, a town that’s about seven miles from Jerusalem. We don’t know why they’re headed there, but they’re on the road nevertheless, talking with each other about the strange and violent events had been taking place in Jerusalem during Passover. A man called Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified – a man these men had hoped would be the promised Messiah, the one one to redeem Israel. They’d been drawn to this Jesus who had been “prophet mighty in deed and word before God and before all the people”: a powerful, attractive, fascinating character. They’d seen his miracles, heard his words; they’d hoped he’d be God’s promised Messiah who would liberate Israel.
The Jesus these men had set their hopes on did not ride triumphantly to Jerusalem with his armies, waging a victorious war against the Roman oppressors. Instead, this Jesus of Nazareth had arrived riding on a donkey with a group of mostly uneducated fisher men and a few women – some of whom were of questionable reputation. But perhaps none of this was enough to deter the men of Emmaus road; perhaps Jesus was attractive to them precisely because he was so strange, so unanticipated in his ways.
But then this Jesus was handed over to the Romans, he surrendered unresisting and the soldiers of the empire turned his kingship into mockery, casting lots over his royal ropes. No golden crown of the king was pressed upon his head in liberated Jerusalem. His crown was made of thorns, his throne was the hard wood of the cross, his triumph his humiliation – and then he died, alongside two criminals, an excruciatingly painful, violent death.
None of this had been part of the script the disciples of Emmaus had in mind for God’s promised Messiah. Hence, their hope is in past tense: ‘we had hoped’, they say, ‘that he’d be the one who redeem Israel’. But clearly, they seemed to be thinking, crucifixion was proof enough that they had set their hopes on the wrong man – although, to add to their confusion, there has been some bewildering reports from the women of Jesus’s company about an empty grave.
And now, as they are walking along the road, a stranger draws near them, joins their conversation, asking them about the events of the past few days. And, as it turns out, this stranger is an expert in Hebrew Scriptures and seems to have better understanding than the men of Emmaus of the events he himself was first asking about. Once again, there’s something very attractive about this man; the disciples don’t want to let him go, so that as they finally reach Emmaus they urge him to stay with them for the night, to continue talking.
The story of Emmaus, I think, has always been one of my favourite resurrection appearances in the Gospels. There’s something playful about Jesus in this story, something wonderful about his gentle approach, “remarkable merely for the absence of clamour” (as R.S. Thomas put it). They way he catches up with them on the road, asking questions he very well knows the answer to – you can almost see the slightly mischievous smile on his face – and they way in which he pretends to be walking ahead when they reach Emmaus, to be going his way, only to be stopped by the men who urge him to stay and how he makes it seem like he allows himself to be persuaded, as if reluctant; there’s something playful about all this.
It seems like Jesus in this story really has an appreciation for the element of surprise, he relishes the reversal, the turning of grief into exuberant joy, of confusion into clarity and recognition. He’s got something good, something great in store for these friends of his, and he is enjoying giving it to them – it’s almost as if he’s purposely delaying the final reveal, to really savour it.
There’s something here, I think, about God’s great abilities as a storyteller, as a maker of stories, as the author of creation: he writes the story of creation, and of our lives, with great creativity and care, he has an appreciation for a good plot twist, for the element of surprise and reversal.
And that’s what the crucifixion and resurrection essentially are: turns in God’s story, surprising, unanticipated turns. And while the crucifixion is truly a violent, horrendous event – a true horror – there’s also a sense in which, especially in this story of Emmaus road, there’s another side to it all, to the horrors of Good Friday and the silent darkness of the Holy Saturday, revealed through the resurrection: the side of triumphant, divine joy. The cross is an act of free love, after all, and not of gloomy necessity: an overflowing self-giving, an exuberant act of victorious generosity.
Jesus’s playful approach in today’s text points towards this underlying theme of joy, freedom, and generosity in God’s dealings with us – a joy that is not always all-serious, but also has something witty about it, humour-like. He enjoys our company, it seems.
I’m reminded of C.S. Lewis’s little book Grief Observed which he wrote after the death of his beloved wife. He writes about the darkness of his grief, his doubts and unanswered questions, God’s silence. He says that in the midst of it all, he had this impression of God’s presence – of God’s attentive presence in his grief that is “like the sound of a chuckle in the darkness”.
‘A chuckle in the darkness’ – one could perhaps easily read this as a kind of indifference of someone who belittles our loss, and who – unbothered by our griefs, impatient with our confusion – has no time for our tears. But it’s not so in the story of Emmaus; here God himself draws out our recognition of him, he is not in any hurry as he catches up with us on the road, gently and playfully pulling the perplexed, disappointed and grief-stricken back into his story, into his joy. He can linger with our grief and loss.
Maybe in Jesus’s playful approach, we hear some of this divine chuckle in the darkness. It’s the compassionate chuckle of the one who holds the plot, the creative author of all life who knows he can bring this story of his to a great ending. It’s the joy of the one who, although the plot contains some dark turns, is never overcome by darkness; the one who, in descending into hell, destroys it, who in dying brings about the death of death. The resurrection is the triumph of divine joy and creativity over the forces of darkness, the victory of the great divine Storyteller in turning the story of his creation into one of joy.
But to be drawn into this divine joy – to this story of God in our lives – is not always simple and straightforward. For the disciples of Emmaus, the crucifixion did not fit into the story they had in mind about the Messiah and while they were astounded at the report of the women who said the grave was empty, they were still confused, their joy was not yet complete.
Sometimes we lose the plot, we do not recognise the presence of the great Storyteller in our lives, in our world. Sometimes, I reckon, the world can seem to us like its lacks a proper plot – or, if anything, it’s “a tale told by an idiot” (Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, scene 5). Perhaps sometimes, like the men of Emmaus had seen, one confusing, violent event follows another while the voice of the narrator is lost, silenced by the clamour of the crowd that shouts ‘crucify!’
Such heart-breaking turns might invite the tempting thought that maybe there is no story here, perhaps it is indeed all a mindless chaos upon which we impose our feeble meanings, our made-up plots. That the world itself is plotless, without a story, inert matter which we, in our desperate need for meaning and resolution, manipulate the best we can. Certainly, the story of Christ’s resurrection could be seen, by the sceptic, as an attempt at such a manipulation, originating from the need of Jesus’s disciples to find an appropriate ending for the humiliating death of their beloved Master.
But once again, it is not so on Emmaus road. Here the divine storyteller, the author of all life, meets us. And so, in explaining Scriptures to them, Jesus places these friends of his back into the story, helps them find the plot again. And joy is awakened, ignited like a flame as recognition dawns – ‘were not our hearts burning within us?’
Yet, interestingly, they only fully recognise Jesus as he breaks bread with them, bringing to mind the last supper: it’s the image of his broken body, the memory of his passion and death, that opens their eyes to the reality of resurrection. The joy of God that overcomes the forces of darkness is known in the remembrance of Christ’s suffering. In order to know the plot, including the reversal and the unanticipated light, the beginnings of the final act of the play, the men of Emmaus must return to that inexplicable hour of the Crucifixion, to sit in that darkness “as [when] in a theatre, the lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed” (T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, East Coker, III).
There’s a kind of two-way movement here, in this act of recognition: they recognise the risen Christ by remembering his passion and death, but they also truly recognise the Crucified One as God’s Messiah only in light of the resurrection. The crucifixion and resurrection illuminate each other. The story only makes sense as a whole.
Perhaps some of us, like the men of Emmaus, need reminding of the creative power of God, the creativity of the cosmic Novelist who relished the reversal in our lives, who will eventually surprise us as well with his storytelling skills. I do not mean that in this world, on this side of the resurrection, all will be made clear; some of the confusing, broken plots will only be resolved at the final reveal when he comes again. Nevertheless, the risen Christ invites us to orientate ourselves in hope, to slow down our pace a bit, recognise him who appears next to us on the road, to hear that happy chuckle of his.
We are invited by Jesus himself to be placed back into God’s story, mediated to us by the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures and the sacramental realities of the church. We are invited to be formed by Christ’s story, to immerse ourselves in it, as in baptismal waters, to sink into his death and resurrection, and be transformed. We are invited to view the world itself differently through the lens of God’s Word that is at work in the world, making what it speaks and promises. This is the invitation that also resounds in our second reading today, in Peter’s proclamation, in the invitation to devote ourselves, through conversion and discipleship, to the “the apostle’s teaching” (the hearing of the Gospel, brought to us through Scriptures and the church’s tradition), and “the breaking of bread and the prayers” (that is, the sacramental fellowship of the Christian community). These are transformative, story-making practices.
We are called to recognise the risen Christ in the breaking of bread as he approaches us again, to note how he catches up with us on the road playfully, gently. He pays attention to us, he is not in any hurry, nor impatient with us – and so he draws us into his joy, into that joy no one can take away.