Emmaus

One of my favourite Godly Play stories relates the mystery of Easter powerfully.

The final plaque of “The Faces of Easter” by Jerome Berryman is as follows:

“that afternoon Jesus died. The sky grew dark. Jesus was taken down from the cross and buried in a cave a great stone was rolled over the opening of the cave to close it like a door.
Saturday was so quiet you could almost hear the whole earth breathing.
On Sunday, it was the women who had the courage to go on to the tomb just to be close to Jesus.
They wanted to remember even if it was sad.
When they came to the tomb they found that the stone had been rolled back and that the tomb was empty.
Jesus had died on the cross, but somehow, he was still present with them as he is with us, especially in the bread and the wine.
When you look at this side – crucifixion – you know that the other side is Easter.
When you look at this side – Easter- you know that this side – crucifixion – is still there – and you cannot pull them apart. This is the mystery of Easter and that make all the difference.”

In many ways, the Godly Play children come closer to the mystery of Easter than we do. Through Godly Play children understand that Crucifixion and its associated terrors of death, violence and evil are an intimate part of Easter with its message of true joy, a new world and a new creation. As adults we have a habit of glossing over “the bad stuff” too quickly and rapidly changing a conversation to the weather when talk becomes too serious and morbid.

Although today’s story is a powerful experience of Resurrection, it is only an Easter story in so far as real space is given for darkness, doubt, and the absence of life.

Tucked away in the encounter of the Easter Christ is the translation of one unusual Greek word “we had hoped.” Four words, yet they are utterly heartbreaking and surely a summary of what it means to gain maturity.

But. We. Had. Hoped.

But we had hoped – these words ring true for so many people that we have each walked alongside on the road to Emmaus.

But we had hoped. (But.we.had.hoped. That: the marriage would be forever…the sick friend would recover…the child would come home…)

The road to Emmaus is the place where we walk when we are tired of it all, when the false optimism of others in all its over sweet saccharine syrup drips like poison on an already darkened mood.

When I hear myself say “I think I need a drink” or when I am in a better place “I think I need a run” then I know I am on the Emmaus path again.

Frederick Buechner writes that Emmaus is:

The place we go to in order to escape – a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, “Let the whole damned thing go hang. It makes no difference anyway.” . . . Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die; that even the noblest ideas that men have had – ideas about love and freedom and justice – have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish ends

The whole Gospel of Luke is structured like a labyrinth. The Gospel edges forward all the time to Jerusalem where the climax of the story happens. However, the story moves towards Jerusalem in circles, not a straight line. This is symbolic of our pathway to God – who among us has arrived at a deeper faith via a straight path? Our own stories are about The story takes two steps forward towards Jerusalem and them loops out and circles around way then back to the path. It seems to be in these circles of walking away from the path that God rocks up.

The image of Emmaus since early childhood has been burnt into my consciousness as a symbol of what it means to be a friend, a human, a partner, a parent, and church to each other. The walk to Emmaus is this: we walk alongside each other, listening in conversation. As we walk Jesus is present within us and among us and nourishes us food that is not just food, but everything is sacramental and a path to tasting God.

Acknowledgements:

Frederick Beuchner, The Magnificent Defeat (New York: Seabury, 1966), 85-86

Alstonville Anglicans30 April 2020