Hope is a precious, fragile thing.
I remember the moment when my husband received an email from an old friend, Andrew. After studying together at the Canberra School of Music, Andrew and Derek had lost contact nearly a decade earlier, but Andrew had now tracked us down. The reason? He’d found a cure for RSI, and was determined to share this good news of great joy with Derek, in the hope that Derek, too, might be healed of the intense pain and disability which had been his companion for nine long years.
And so it was that I was driving along Belconnen Way in West Canberra, indicator clicking right as we made the approach to our little flat in Bruce. Derek was sitting in the passenger seat, reading Andrew’s email aloud. His voice shook as he read. As the words of Andrew’s testimony filled the air between us, tears filled both our eyes. And my heart felt like it would explode in a blast of ribbons and fireworks – if I would only let it.
But I didn’t let it. I held it in. I kept my hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road. I cried a bit, and kept driving, kept crying and driving and saying over and over, “What!? What?! Is this it?! Is this really it?!” After so many failed hopes in the past, so many costly treatments which had led to nothing, was healing now, finally, here?
We both knew this was it. We felt it in our spirit, in our bones. Once home, we rushed to grab hold of this cure with both hands, feet, and all of our teeth; nothing could stop us.
“Truth and fairy-tale endings: when they co-exist, it is almost too much for a human being to bear.”
But the champagne? We waited three months to pop it; we waited to tell the world the wonderful thing that our souls had recognised instantly. We waited until that healing was proven, proven, and proven again, before finally admitting aloud that we had dared to hope—and we were right to have done so.
Truth and fairy-tale endings: when they co-exist, it is almost too much for a human being to bear.
Reading the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), I see a similar roller-coaster happening for them, too. They are in the place of battered hope. The one whom they had put their faith in, whom they had bravely confessed to be the Lord – he has just been executed. When his flesh was pierced by Roman spear and left to bleed dry, so was their hope. When he was proclaimed dead and buried in a freshly cut tomb, so was their dream. The disciples were devastated.
Or perhaps not quite. A big hope, held long and fast, is not so easily dismantled. The two men couldn’t just shrug it all off; as they walked that road from Jerusalem down to Emmaus, they were rehashing with each other everything that had gone down. They were trying to piece together the shards, trying to see if this tragic turn might yet morph into something other than bitter, bitter tears.
But lo! Here’s a twist. While they’re discussing all this, καὶ αὐτὸς Ἰησοῦς (kai autos Iēsous) – JESUS HIMSELF – approaches them and begins to walk along with them. But the disciples’ eyes are prevented from recognising him.
“Now this is suddenly rather fun. Into this gloomy scene, Luke has plated up all the ingredients for a comedy of mistaken identity.”
Now this is suddenly rather fun. Into this gloomy scene, Luke has plated up all the ingredients for a comedy of mistaken identity. And in the dialogue that follows, he doesn’t disappoint.
Jesus channels all his chill and casually remarks, “Yo, guys – what’s all this that you’re chatting about as you walk?”
The next line is beautiful: καὶ ἐστάθησαν σκυθρωποί (kai estathēsan skuthrōpoi) “And they stopped still, looking miserable.” Because I mean seriously? This guy doesn’t know? We’re in the depths of despair, crushed, depressed, mortified at how stupid we’ve been shown up to be, and this guy wants us to rehash the whole terrible tale to him?
Cleopas coughs (I added that bit), and instead of launching into the story, he tries to shame Jesus into not asking more. “Are you the only person in Jerusalem [1] who doesn’t know about everything that’s gone on there over these past few days?”
Jesus blushed and, not wanting to look a fool, he stopped asking questions. Wait… no he didn’t. A picture of innocence, he simply asks, “What things?” HA HA HA I love this. So funny. He doesn’t fudge or say he doesn’t know; he just keeps pressing them to tell. He doesn’t mind playing the fool, and he won’t let them squirm out of storytime.
Why? I wonder if he is giving them an opportunity to voice their interpretation of events. Rather than coming in with the answers (he’ll do that soon enough), he wants them to speak first. He wants them to have a go. What do they make of it all? How do they see it? How have they experienced it? He invites them to share their reality with him, before he shares his reality with them.
“He invites them to share their reality with him, before he shares his reality with them.”
But will they open up to him? Will they let this stranger in to their deep despair and confusion – their fractured, shattered, shameful hope?
Notice it’s both of them who reply now, not just Cleopas. You’ll see why as we go. For now, notice how closely they hold their cards at the start. They adopt a formal, grammatically complex style:
“The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who arose as a prophet, mighty in word and in deed, before God and all the people…”
It’s like they’re writing an academic article: brainy, logical, not emotional. But a crack begins to show in the next bit:
“…how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to the death sentence and crucified him.”
You see that how – it’s a little bit informal and improper. A bit of personality has entered the recount; and I think it has to do with the ἡμῶν (hēmōn) “our”. Our own people did this to him.
And if that how perhaps reflects a tiny loss of composure, the mention of death and crucifixion is like the bomb that blows all propriety out of the water. Suddenly they blurt out:
“But we were hoping that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel!”
“The mention of death and crucifixion is like the bomb that blows all propriety out of the water.”
And with this shocking revelation of just how stupid and hopeful they had been – perhaps still were? – the next sentences all seem to fling from their lips in a narrative jumble:
“But then, on top of all this, it’s been three days, no less, since all of these things happened…”
“But also some of our women gave us a shock – they showed up at the tomb early in the morning and didn’t find his body and came back and started telling us that they’d seen a vision of angels who said (get this) [2] that he’s alive!”
“And then some of the guys who were with us went to the grave and found it just like the women had said…”
“Yes, but they didn’t see him…”
Now they may or may not have been jumping in on each other like I’ve suggested. But from the sentence structure I’ve tried to replicate in those lines, I hope you can see that any poise has well and truly fled the scene. There’s confusion, there’s surprise, there’s conflicting pieces of information (highlighted by the conjunctions δὲ… δὲ… ἀλλὰ… ἀλλὰ… (de… de… alla… alla), and under this flurry of words and disjointed narrative lies a shred, a fragment, a bleeding and dying but somehow still thrumming pulse of hope.
Our own people sentenced him to death and crucified him! But, but, but…!
Jesus senses it, too, and, I think, he matches their emotion with his own.
“O you stupid ones! You slow-(in-your-heart-)to-believe-everything-the-prophets-said ones!”
“This is heady, heavy stuff, and we can’t help but imagine the disciples’ hope rising as Jesus spoke.”
This sounds a teeny bit harsh, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he said it with the same kind of outpouring of warmth and affection that I have with my kids when they reveal themselves to be in deep distress and turmoil over something they’ve completely misunderstood: but I know the truth. “Oh, my silly darlings!” I might say, with a big affectionate hug and a grin on my face; because this problem, at least, will be so very easy to fix.
And Jesus is right: the disciples are stupid. Really stupid. But not, as they were thinking, for having hoped in the Lord. They were stupid in their deep hesitation to hope even harder! To continue believing, despite this apparent evidence to the contrary! “Oh, you darling duffers!” Jesus cries,
“Didn’t the Christ have to go through all this? Didn’t he have to enter his glory?” And starting with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was written in all the Scriptures about him.
This is heady, heavy stuff, and we can’t help but imagine the disciples’ hope rising as Jesus spoke. Like me in that car at the turn-off to Bruce, tears in my eyes, grappling hard with the foolish hope that I can’t help having: Is this it? Is this really it? Can this messenger of impossibly good news possibly be telling the truth?
Luke then lightens up the narrative with a bit more of the charade. The three of them approach the village where the disciples were heading, and Jesus makes as if to go further. But the disciples do something fabulous here: they insist that he stays with them. Not only is this a culturally-expected display of virtue (them roads are no place for a traveller at night), but it’s also a sign that they are open to his message. They want to hear more.
And then comes the next narrative shift (shown by καὶ ἐγένετο… (kai egeneto)). When Jesus is reclining there with them at table, he takes the bread and he blesses it. Then he breaks it, and begins to pass it to them, and then – comedy again as Jesus’s innocent-faced table manners result in seismic shifts in the disciples – BOOM – their eyes open up, [3] and they recognise him! (The way I’ve narrated it there is how Luke’s verbs tell it: he withholds the aorist indicative to create that BOOM effect.) [4]
And then Jesus goes invisible on them. Weird! Sudden! Miraculous! But the lingering effect on the disciples isn’t “Wait! Where’d he go?”, nor do they proceed to freak out. No; the effect on them is to say, “SEE! Wasn’t that burning in our hearts for real? Didn’t it mean something? Wasn’t everything we hoped for right there all along, in the Scriptures which he opened for us?” (And do note that both eyes and Scriptures got opened here; it’s pretty.)
Interestingly, the disciples’ response here starts with the same word, οὐχι (ouchi), that Jesus uses in v26: “Didn’t the Christ have to suffer these things?” There’s a force at work in this passage. Didn’t you know this all along? Didn’t you feel something? Weren’t you right to hope? Weren’t you right to believe the prophets? The thing you knew, the thing you felt, all that you stupidly allowed yourselves to hope – all this has been true and sure, all along – and it has come to pass.
“There’s a force at work in this passage. Didn’t you know this all along? Didn’t you feel something? Weren’t you right to hope”
Oh, glorious day! The fairy tale has come true! What can stop the disciples now? They spring to action, grasping this revelation with hands, feet, and all of their teeth. Yes, it’s rather late at night; yes, the road is full of knaves and robbers; yes, it’s a 10-km hike up a hill to get home, but oh, oh, oh, I think perhaps the Lord has risen indeed!
And so they get up that very hour, and scoot back to Jerusalem, and they find the eleven and the others with them gathered together, and lo, they’ve got news, too:
“The Lord really has risen! He appeared to Simon!”
And the Emmaus pair began telling the Jerusalem crew what happened on the road, and how they suddenly recognised Jesus by his breaking of bread.
Oh, happy day! Oh, joy of joys! Their fragile, battered, bleeding and bruised hope: fanned into flame again. Their stupidity: proven to be wisdom, affirmed by the great prophets of old. Their burning hearts: not false, not deceptive, but a symptom of their unconscious resonance with the true-est truth, that life is a comedy; life is a fairy tale; and, despite everything, you were wise to put your hope in this prophet-man from Nazareth.
Hope is a fragile, precious thing.
“Let praise ring out to our Lord Jesus Christ, who takes our battered jumble of hopes and binds them up together into a comedy of mistaken identity.”
Let praise ring out to our Lord Jesus Christ, who takes our battered jumble of hopes and binds them up together into a comedy of mistaken identity; who overwhelms us in his affectionate name-calling; who shows us, again and again, that’s he’s not surprised, nor are his plans derailed, by the way things have turned so very rotten in the meanwhile; and who opens the Scriptures, and opens our eyes, so that we can see the deep and abiding truth which hides at the core of our stupid, impossible hopes.
May the exuberance of that midnight return to Jerusalem be upon us all this Easter, as we return once more to the scene of the crime, in the hope of there meeting the risen Lord Jesus.
Amen, so may it be.
