Third Sunday of Easter: Walk to Emmaus, and to Something New
One thing I find in pretty much every post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus is that the people to whom he appears are all weighed down with grief, guilt and fear. But another thing is that he is clearly different. In fact, in several of these accounts, people to whom he was familiar didn’t immediately recognize him. In some appearances, they at first thought they were seeing a ghost. But we know that he’s more than a spirit-being, because he ate with them, he invited them to touch his flesh. He still has a physical and material presence….but he's different.
And so it is with today's reading, later on that Easter Sunday, in which followers of Jesus are suddenly accompanied by him as they make their way home. Who are they? Only one of the two is identified by name: Cleopas. In St. John’s Gospel, we are told that standing at the foot of Jesus’ cross were his mother Mary and her sister, as well as Mary of Magdala and yet another Mary, identified as the wife of Clopas (John 19:25). It’s not clear whether Cleopas and Clopas are the same person. But if so, these two figures that Jesus encountered in today’s Gospel are likely husband and wife, Cleopas and Mary, returning to their home.
In these post-Resurrection accounts, this glorified Jesus not only looks different, but he’s no longer with them in the same way. No longer teaching in parables or healing the sick; no longer with them on a continuous basis, he only appears to them in fleeting moments, coming to them in their troubled state, to bolster them, to restore their hope, but also to set them on course to a new phase of the life as his disciples. The Resurrection of Jesus is not just a change in Jesus from death to life, it changed how his followers would experience him.
HEAVEN
It makes me think of the question that comes to every believer’s mind: What is heaven like? What will life be like in heaven? The Scriptures offer scant details, leaving us wondering. Some have described having seen or experienced it. I think of two books I’ve read: Heaven is For Real and Proof of Heaven. Respectively, a child and a neurosurgeon offer amazing descriptions of what they experienced, but it still leaves us wondering.
One thing I find in talking with people though, is that it seems most of us think of it as sort of a continuation of this life. We’ve all heard one person or another express the comforting thought of a married couple reunited after death, perhaps further assuming that their house in heaven that looks like the one they had in this lifetime. Sometimes people talk about the hope-filled joy of being reunited with their beloved pets. These thoughts would seem as though death simply pauses life, until the after-life un-pauses, only in a different setting. I get it, and I think that we tend to latch on to those thoughts because they give us a certain comfort to overcome the uncertainty of what lies beyond death.
But the post-Resurrection accounts of Jesus should give us a clue that beyond death, something different lies ahead for us too. What God desires for us in death is transformation to something new, something greater—not just ourselves and our bodies, but all things.
NOW - CORONAVIRUS
Perhaps many of us regard this odd period that we’re in as sort of a tomb experience, as though some part of our lives died six weeks ago. Yes, a death of sorts, further felt at any point when hopes we had for one thing or another came crashing down. Yes, maybe it felt—and still feels—like part of us died and we’re stuck in the tomb.
But I remind us that we are Easter people. Our belief about what happened to Jesus beyond death should shape our belief about what God wants for us beyond death, and further, it should shape our outlook about what happens to us on any given day in the course of our lives.
Just as we do with our ideas of heaven, we tend to cling to what’s familiar to us. Fear of the unknown has us clamoring for life as it was before all this happened. But I can’t help but think that as we navigate our current situation toward whatever lies ahead, we are being called to move beyond what was, to leave some parts of our lives behind in the tomb.
Scripture tells us that during the time when Jesus was in the tomb, before he eventually was raised from the dead into glory, he went into the depths to save the souls of the righteous dead (1 Peter 3:18-20). Further, we’re told also that when we die, we begin the process of being rendered pure, in whatever ways we prevented it from happening in this life. It’s transformation to new life.
Like the disciples returning to Emmaus, downcast and dumfounded—a bit like us now—Jesus walked with them, moved their hearts and minds toward something hope-filled, until at last, their eyes were opened and they could finally recognize him. I can’t help thinking in this time, that as Easter people, he’s walking with us toward something new, something different for our families, our relationships, our priorities, our habits, our way of seeing—for the whole of our lives. Let us not prevent him from moving us beyond what needs to be left behind.