On the Road to Emmaus

Gridlock on the road to Emmaus. Elbows and ankles flying everywhere. Hot sweaty pilgrims from all over the world jostling for a clear bit of road. From time to time, everyone would scramble to the side of the road to avoid an oncoming caravan, no doubt carrying some foreign diplomat - probably Egyptian enuchs. Long after they had disappeared into the distance, us commoners where still eating dust. What i wouldn’t have given for a bath - even the puddles at the side of the road started to look tempting.

this was going to be one long long journey

Still, we have only got ourselves to blaim. Festival time in jerusalem; you can forget about it. There should be some kind of congestion charge if you ask me. The only saving grace was that we were walking in the cool of the day and even that wasn’t much consolation when every other man and his camel had had the same idea.

We had to get out of the city though. It’s always horrible around this time of year for a country boy like me - people everywhere. From the ends of the earth they say. I don’t know why they bother coming really no-one can understand them, not unless they have had a few to many to drink anyhow.

But this year if only a bit of overcrowding was our only worry. Oh yeah, i could deal with a few crowds.

I don’t know how the rest could bear it. They were still holed up on the Upper Room Hotel. I don’t know what they were waiting for. All i knew was that it was time to get out - anywhere but there.

Normally round this time we would be taking the dead sea express right back home - back north. None of this walking business. But we couldn’t face going back yet - burned a few bridges back there you see. dad didn’t take to well to me upping and leaving one morning in the middle of a catch. Can’t blame him really, after all he didn’t have any other sons to carry on the business and what with the fishing quotas just in from rome he needed all the help he could get. But i had to go, you know?

He warned me alright. He said ‘ son i’ve been around the block a bit me. Every ten years or so some joker in some fancy get up gets above his station and thinks he is some sort of messiah, some sort of prophet. Thinks he can chuck the romans out of jerusalem, make israel great again. Thinks he is a macabee. No, i’m afraid those days have long gone. But there are always some gullible ones - usually those that don’t have a job and don’t want one - get all excited and crowd around him. Soon everything gets out of hand people start making up stories about miracles and before you can say ‘julius ceasar’ the romans, come and crucify the idiots and everything gets back to normal.

But there was something about this jesus character. I mean i was there when he fed five thousand people - at one sitting. he gave the blind their sight back, even told a storm to shut up and it did. He forgave people’s sins for goodness sake.
Last sunday seems a long time ago. We were all convinced jesus would do something massive this passover. Those romans weren’t going to know what had hit them. David’s city would be feared again.

But this is the first day of another week. Jesus was crucified three days ago, cursed on a tree and now it looks like his body has been stolen. The romans are still in charge and all i have to look forward to is going back home begging my dad to let me back in the family business, probably as a boat cleaner. Dettol and fish guts for the rest of my days. I don’t know which is worse - the embarassment or the disappointment.


Then the funniest thing happened. It seemed like out of nowhere this complete stranger came up and started walking alongside us. Now I’m not usually one for talking to strangers on the roads; all kinds of nutters out there you know - but this bloke seemed different - I’ve tried to describe him to people so many times but i have never quite had the words. he was, well, not quite of this world if you know what i mean. He didn’t have anything on him, no purse, no bag, not even any sandals.

He asked us what we were talking about. We said something about Jesus. He looked completely blank - not a clue. I don’t know how he’d been in Jerusalem and not heard about it - i mean it was all over the papers, the tv everything. Where on earth this guy had been i have no idea. Heaven knows!

So we got talking. Told him all about Jesus and how he was going to save Israel and how stupid we’d been. Then this stranger, who we thought was a few unleavened loafs short of a passover, if you know what i mean, started having a go at us. Telling us (!) we were slow!

Then he started going through all the scrolls and was saying that the Messiah wouldn’t be a military man but would suffer. At first, i thought that sealed it - this guy wasn’t short of a bit of bread he was missing the bread, the lamb, the wine - the whole lot. a suffering messiah! everyone knows the messiah would be like David, strong and mighty.

But he carried on and the more he talked , the more things started to make sense. It was probably just wishful thinking but he did make a good case. And it wasn’t as if this was just the stuff you got at synagogue every week - he was speaking like he knew what he was talking about and a faint glimmer of something (hope, life - i don’t know what it was) started to grow)

Time seemed to rush by and soon we were near the inn we had booked. It seemed like our traveller buddy (never did ask his name) was going to carry on. But we convinced him to stay with us - it was the least we could for cheering us up. So after washing the dirt off our feet, we sat down to dinner.

and the rest if history as they say. We met Jesus on that road to Emmaus. Yep, I know it’s a tall story. I know dead people don’t come back to life. Especially to come and visit people like me. But what can I say, Jesus did. We met him.

So the first day of the rest of my life didn’t turn out to be so bad after all.

Answers

A lady at work has been stuggling with a son who has got involved with drugs. We were praying with her at our daily devotions. i didn't pray for her. not out of lack of sympathy, maybe even empathy, but because i didn't have anything to pray. i had no strategy, no thoughts that might make things better (whatever better is anyway).

after getting on for five years biblical study, here i am with nothing to say. i think that i have become so concerned with getting stuff right that the very fact that jesus heals and gives hope somewhere got lost in the fog. what good is a resigned 'well that life' do? but in the meantime, i don't think i know what to expect of god anymore. my reflections on the cross as the centrepiece of god's inbreaking love is that jesus suffered. he suffered that we might know the father. i absolutely believe this, but what do it look like? what does this look like to someone who has lost their mother, or got a diseased thumb, or failed an exam?

i'm kind of stuck between a rock and a capstone, and i'm stumbling.

Beauty - the soul's medicine

Lately, i have been down. i think the combination of a great easter followed by a mind numbingly boring working week has sapped the life out of me. plus i think the fact that there is so little beauty around where i live and work. concrete city.

today we went out for a walk along a canal and to a beautiful pub. i came back feeling as though someone had opened the windows and light was shining again. i need beautiful things in my life - beauty confronts us and burrows deep inside. it stops us from thinking of everything as an 'it' and reminds us that there is a 'thou.' beauty reminds us that life isn't about getting stuff done, but it is about the joy of living. beauty isn't to be categorized and analyzed but experienced.

it is a scandal that in our society the rich seems to have colonized the country. it is probably way to simplistic to draw a connecting line between the depravation and social ills of the inner city with its lack of animate beauty, but i know that whenever i am surrounded by concrete and office and metal something inside burns more dimly. what if the church would cultivate places of beauty in the city? places where people were confronted with the miracle of life, of its ebbs and flows, the cycles of death and renewal. sure we have to be good stewards of the earth but isn't it more exciting to recognize the beauty of the earth and celebrate that instead of demanding people add more routine to their already manic lives?

a return to love

"our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. our deepest fear is that we are poweful beyond measure. it is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. we ask ourselves, who am i to be brilliant, gorgeious, talented and fabulous? actually, who are you not to be? you are a child of god! your playing doens't serve the world. there's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won;t feel insecure around you, we were born to make manifest the glory of god that is witihin us. it's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

marianne willaimson, a return to love