Wednesday 9th April 2008
‘We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel’ Luke 24:21
ONE day I’d like to write a book entitled Seemed a Good Idea at the Time. There’d be no shortage of examples, from dashed personal expectations to failed wars, busted economic policies and Jim Smith taking over Oxford United.
There is something peculiarly awful about crushing disappointment, the death of dreams, the harsh light of reality exposing the emptiness of our hopes. Luke captures it brilliantly in this little cameo of the couple (surely Mr and Mrs Cleopas) on their sad walk back to Emmaus on the Sunday after the crucifixion: ‘We had hoped.’
They were talking to a stranger with whom they were walking along the road – a stranger who appeared unaware of the recent dramatic events in Jerusalem. Yet when they related the story to him, he presumed to tell these disillusioned people that they were ‘foolish’, ‘slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared’. Then, as they walked, he treated them to a master class in the Scriptures, demonstrating how the Messiah must indeed suffer before he entered into his glory.
Despite his rebuke, they clearly took to the man, and invited him to stay with them for the night as it was by now getting dark.
Joining them for the evening meal, he was invited as their guest to give thanks. He took the bread, broke it, and said the words of blessing. As he did so, they realised who he was – in Luke’s words, ‘their eyes were opened’. It was Jesus. They were in no doubt.
As he ‘vanished from their sight’ they forgot all about tiredness or the darkness outside, and hurried the seven miles or so back to Jerusalem to share their news with the disciples.
Full of it, they burst into the Upper Room– only to find that Simon Peter, too, had seen the risen Lord. Nevertheless, they told their story – the ‘stranger’ on the road, the way their hearts ‘burned within them’ as he explained the Scriptures, and how he had been ‘made known to them in the breaking of the bread’.
The road to Emmaus which had seemed in their sorrow long and depressing had become the road to joy. In an odd kind of way, it often does. Perhaps only those who have touched the depths can truly appreciate the heights of glory. They had hoped, and their hopes appeared to have been dashed on Golgotha. But ‘in the breaking of the bread’ they had seen the truth. Jesus the Messiah was alive. They had hoped, and now they could hope again.