Inescapable

Propers: The Third Sunday of Easter, A.D. 2020 A

Homily:

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Road to Emmaus is one of my favorite Easter stories; for indeed, this tale yet takes place on that first Easter morning, the day of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead.

Cleopas and a companion, most likely his wife, are leaving Jerusalem under a cloud of disappointment, confusion, and grief. They had been close to Jesus. Tradition tells us that they might even have been related to Him. But after the betrayal, the arrest, the trial, the torture, the crucifixion, the murder, the impromptu burial—after all the wild things that occurred, the darkening of the sun, the quaking of the earth—it’s all just been too much for them.

Indeed, it may have been too much for anyone, as it seems perhaps that some of Christ’s disciples have gone a bit mad. They claim that Jesus’ body is missing, His tomb shattered and gaping. Some even claim to have seen Him arisen from the dead. Cleopas and his wife don’t seem to know quite what to think, other than that it’s clearly time to get the heck out of Dodge. They don’t want to end up on crosses of their own. And they certainly don’t want to see whatever happens next, if tombs truly are breaking open and the dead are now witnessed walking about.

So they travel homeward, fearing, grieving, hurting, trying to suss out between themselves what on earth actually happened, how it all so suddenly went wrong. And they encounter a stranger on the road, on the way, who overhears snippets of conversation and asks them, “What in the world are you talking about?”

“Are you the only one who hasn’t heard?” they ask, incredulous.

“Heard what?” He innocently replies.

“The things about Jesus of Nazareth!” they sputter. “You know, famous guy, raised the dead, put all of Judea in an uproar, got greeted as King in Jerusalem before being killed on a Cross by Rome? Any of this ringing a bell? Where have you been for the past three-and-a-half years?”

But that’s not the worst of it, Cleopas and his companion concede. The truth is, we had hoped that He at last was the one who would redeem our people Israel. We thought He was the Messiah. We thought that He was the Christ. And here now it’s been three days since He was put to death and hanged on a tree. “But we had hoped”—are there any sadder words in all of Scripture? It wasn’t just Jesus who died on the Cross that day. It was their hope for grace, which had survived for centuries: the hope of liberation, of redemption, of love. Alas.

“Oh, how foolish you are!” laughs their strange traveler, at which Cleopas and his wife are almost certainly taken aback. They might have expected sympathy or wonder or grief, but to be chuckled at? Gently rebuked? “How slow of heart you are to believe all that the prophets have declared,” He pushes on. “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter His glory?” Everything you’re describing is precisely what the Scriptures have proclaimed! This proves that your Jesus is the Messiah. Your hope is not in vain.

And as they continue along the road to Emmaus, the stranger unfolds to them the Scriptures, interpreting the Law and the Prophets of the Bible in such a way as to make clear the victory of God in Jesus Christ, the defeat of sin, death, and the devil, the harrowing of hell, the hallowing of Heaven, and the firstfruits of the Resurrection of all the ransomed dead.

And they are amazed at this peripatetic’s ability to transform their sorrow into wonder, their grieving into hope, their deep and weeping wounds to fresh astounding joy. Could He be right? Could their disappointment actually be the fulfilment of God’s promises to all of His people, to all of Creation?

And as they approach the village where they plan to spend the night, it looks as if this stranger-scholar intends to travel on, but Cleopas and his wife don’t want Him to stop now. They insist that He spend the evening with them, share a meal with them, and He does.

He joins them at the table. He blesses and breaks their bread. And then suddenly they see Him clearly revealed for who He truly is: their own Jesus Christ, Risen again from the dead. And as soon as He is revealed, He vanishes from their sight—and they rush back, their hearts afire, heedless of the darkness, all the way back to Jerusalem, all the way back to the Apostles. And they tell everyone breathlessly what had happened to them upon the road to Emmaus, how He had been made known to them in the Scriptures and the breaking of the bread. Alleluia!

What a wonder for us to read this story in the midst of our Eucharistic fast, our exile from the Holy Sacrament and from the gathered Body of Christ. What a blessing to know that Christ is with us, on our path, in our grief, even if it can be hard to recognize Him, hard to discern Him, before the breaking of the bread. It truly is Good News that the presence of Christ among us, of Immanuel, God-With-Us, is not dependent upon our awareness of Him; that He is here, beside us, comforting us, even when He seems to be distant, even when He seems in fact to be dead.

We do not come to Church to meet Christ as though His presence were limited to these four walls one or two days a week. Rather, we come to Church that the love and the presence and the Spirit of Jesus might be revealed to us, in Word and in Sacrament, so that we see clearly how He has been with us, within us, amongst us, all along, everywhere, no matter how we may roam.

He is the divine stranger, the hidden God, who opens our hearts and enlightens our minds. He is the companion, the traveler, who guides us and keeps us safe along life’s long and narrow way. He is with us even now, in exile, in quarantine, though it may as yet be hard for us to discern Him in our trials, in our angst.

And when we gather again, as surely we must, for Him to bless and break our bread, we shall see clearly, with eyes undimmed, how He has ever been with us, never abandoning us, always sustaining us, even in this time of our exile, even in our wonder and our sorrow and our grief. For the love of God in Christ Jesus is utterly inescapable.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.