The Darkness of Emmaus

I wonder how many parking lot conversations would suddenly change if we found ourselves asked this question by Jesus:  what are you discussing with each other?  It is a very humbling question. 

I wonder how the chatter of our own mind would change if we stopped and asked ourselves this question.  The story of the disciples' journey on the road to Emmaus is a familiar one.  If you think about the two traveling the road, they are wallowing in darkness: "we had hoped he would be the One to redeem Israel." Perhaps it is natural for humans to want to move when they have experienced something overwhelming, something disappointing, some devastation. Do we have a bodily yearning to be somewhere else, to seek something else, to physically enact movement from grief, depression, sorrow to wholeness and light?

Even as we move through the darkness, it seems we have a hard time recognizing the divine when we are distraught or mired in our own emotions. Somehow our senses are dulled (or maybe too acute) and we are lulled into a shunted existence.  It is then literally a journey through darkness to light and sadly can be a long one. While we may think ourselves alone, while we may feel alone, we never are. That is the promise of scripture, the power of the walk to Emmaus.

As Simon and Garfunkel made famous in their song:  hello darkness, my old friend, I think many of us come to know the darkness too well, to wear it as a cloak, a barrier of protection. How have I made myself blind to those around me? How have I tuned out those walking with me? Why is my innermost being turned in on itself?

If we open ourselves, epiphanies are possible, even plentiful. Growth, transformation, and reaching a destination can be laborious and painful.  Yet, very worthwhile.  

God loves us with a tough love that propels us forward toward the light. As the choir sings so beautifully: I want to walk as a child of the light.  As we move to Easter it is my prayer that the light will be visible in the distance, that we will find ourselves strangely warmed by the presence of the wholly/holy Other.

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

We call out your name in as many ways as we can.

We fix your role towards us in the ways we need.

We approach you from the particular angle of our life.

We do all that, not because you need to be identified,

but because of our deep need,

our deep wound,

our deep hope.

And then, we are astonished that while our names for you

serve for a moment,

you break beyond them in your freedom,

you show yourself yet fresh beyond our utterance,

you retreat into your splendor beyond our grasp.

We are--by your freedom and your hiddenness--

made sure yet again that you are God...

beyond us, for us, but beyond us,

not at our beck and call,

but always in your own way.

We stammer about your identity,

only to learn that it is our own unsettling

before you that wants naming.

Beyond all our explaining and capturing and fixing you...

we give you praise,

we thank you for your fleshed presence in suffering love,

and for our names that you give us.

Amen.