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When people experience a terrible tragedy or the sudden and unexpected death of a family member or someone to whom they felt very close it can bring on a state of shock. People of faith often feel that God does not care about them, perhaps even that God does not love them anymore. This is the situation the two disciples on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus found themselves in.
Even though Jesus had, on a number of occasions, told his followers that he was going to Jerusalem where he would suffer, be put to death and on the third day rise from the dead, they had not grasped this message.
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St Luke tells us that these two men had completely different expectations. Their ‘hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel free’. (Lk. 24:21) At that time there was a popular expectation and longing among the Jewish people that some charismatic leader would come along and lead them in a glorious revolution against the much hated Roman authorities and set up a new Jewish kingdom modelled upon that of King David. The signs and miracles that Jesus had worked had convinced them and a good number of the Jewish people that he was the one to do this. They explicitly say this to the stranger who was accompanying them when one of them said: ‘Our own hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel free’.
Furthermore, these two disciples may also have had a secret hope and ambition that they would be offered important positions in this new kingdom. When they saw Jesus hanging dead on the cross their dreams were shattered. Any idea of resurrection from the dead was furthest from their minds. They just wanted to get out of Jerusalem as soon as they could and start a new life.
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It is in this particular context that Jesus joins them though they did not recognise him. What is important is to note how Jesus deals with these two men who had given up all hope. He begins by inviting them to share their worries and concerns. They have no hesitation in telling this strange about their grief and shattered dreams because of the death of Jesus from Nazareth who had been put to death on a cross – a punishment reserved for the worst of criminals – and about how their own hopes and dreams had been shattered. They even told him about what some of the women disciples reported about the empty tomb but fobbed their story off as make-believe.
Jesus then began to teach them the meaning of the teachings of the prophets about the Messiah and explain to them that it was God’s plan that the Messiah would have to suffer, die, and then rise from the dead. It was because of their openness and willingness to listen to what he had to say and their generous spirit of hospitality that Jesus was able to reveal to them that they had actually been speaking to him all along.
Jesus treats us in the same way that he treated these two disciples. No matter how we might stray as those two disciples did, Jesus does not give up on us. He will always come and seek us out if we stray or ‘get lost’ as those two disciples did. However, like those two disciples, we too need to keep the door open to Jesus when he comes to look for us through the events and people in our lives.
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