“But we had hoped!” So much is said in those four words, so much human heart ache is packed into them. Did you notice the words – in the reading? To me, they stand out as genuine soul talk in a book that so often stretches our imagination with miracles and above-the-head acts of God. But here, two guys are simply spilling their guts and we can relate, immediately. Because, like Cleopas and the other guy, we have been there, in situations when “we had hoped!”
“We had hoped that this cancer was beatable!
‘We had hoped to get that other job; it sounded so good!”
“We had hoped the marriage would last.”
“We had hoped to mend that broken relationship in our family.”
“We had hoped our parents’ health could last a little longer…”
“But we had hoped…”
Two weeks after Holy Easter, these two disciples on their road to Emmaus bring us back to all the stories we wish had turned out differently, all the things we wish could have been changed. These two grieving men resemble us in their humanity and meet us in our need to speak about stuff that weighs on us. If we don’t speak about certain things, we might burst or go crazy! And so, from time to time we find ourselves in conversations that still cause pain. When was the last time you had one of those conversations with a trusted person – or a total stranger for that matter – when you found yourself saying something like, “Oh, but I had hoped!”
In one of my favorite foreign movies, “The Lives of Others,” a Stasi officer who is quietly switching alliances because he begins to see through the injustices and hypocrisies of the system, meets the woman he is surveilling. It’s a very touching scene. He knows her, because he bugged her house, and his job is to deliver her fiancé as an enemy of state. She, on the other hand, does not know him. He is a total stranger to her. In that movie, boatloads full of human hopes are dashed. The initial idealism of the Stasi officer is slowly eroded. He had hoped for a better system, but now he sees how people in power use the system for personal gain. The desire of the woman, an actress, to have a normal career, is upended. She had hoped not ever to conspire with the Stasi, but was now dragged into it by a high state official who makes sexual advances. The woman and the lowly Stasi officer meet in a cheap bar, seemingly by chance. It is the turning point in the movie, because he speaks not as an intelligence officer, but as a human being. What he says is not calculated; it comes from the heart. He affirms her talents as an actress and gives her hope. In that moment, he, a communist and presumably an atheist, becomes like Jesus to her.
All of this could have never happened if the woman had known who she was talking to. It made me wonder whether there is more to the concept of anonymity opportunities. In our biblical story, Jesus is like a stranger to the two disciples who really should know him. They don’t recognize him. Why? Maybe because their eyes are blind from grief… Maybe because Jesus is out of context, in the same way that we sometimes don’t recognize people whom we know from a different setting. Maybe because Jesus doesn’t want to be recognized. We don’t know. But we do know that the anonymity of Christ does not keep them from pouring out their hearts. Quite the opposite! They can’t stop talking in the presence of this stranger. Fast forward into your life… Do you recognize the opportunities that you may have when meeting total strangers? I know, it’s counter-intuitive, but there are times when we may be able say something to a person we don’t really know that none of the trusted people in their lives could… and you could be like Jesus to them, delivering the gospel on the way to Emmaus!
One of the fascinating thoughts I had when I was re-thinking and re-imagining the Emmaus story is this: maybe these disciples were not used to spilling their guts before Jesus – back in the day when they spent so much time together. Perhaps they had never thought it was appropriate to talk about personal stuff in the days when Christ was out doing so many important things – healing people, meeting needs in the community, proclaiming the kingdom of God, exorcising demons… I am not sure of course, if that was the case. But aren’t we sometimes so caught up in familiar patterns of interaction and pursuing of goals that we forget to talk about important things where you would expect it to be talked about: in our families.
Here, anonymous Jesus and two of his disciples have a conversation deeper than any other recorded in the gospels. It centers around four words: “But we had hoped!” I love those heartbreaking words, not because of some attraction to its darkness, but because they ring true. In the midst of things that make life wonderful, in the midst of the blessings we experience, chances are, there is also disappointment, heartbreak, and failure. And I love it that the risen Christ goes to work right away addressing these heartbreaking topics.
We often gloss over them. Or, if not gloss over them, at least feel the pressure to move by them quickly toward some kind of resolution, fleeing the cross-like experiences of life for the promise of resurrection. A friend shares the news of a death in the family, and we sympathize for a moment before changing the topic. A colleague shares her disappointment at not getting a promotion, and we remind her that at least she has a job. We don’t mean to be callous or insensitive, we are just at such a loss with … loss. We feel inadequate to the task of confronting the darkness of our lives and this world and so, we flee to the light instead.
If this story is any indication, the risen Christ does not flee from our troubles. He walks with you, listens to you, and connects your heartaches and worries with a sense of hope, based partly in scripture, and partly in his very presence. You may not recognize him for a while as he accompanies you. That’s the beautiful intrigue of this story. So, keep listening to the voices in your life that ring true, that meet you where you are right now, that address the stuff in your life few people want to touch, voices that nevertheless bring comfort. Trust that these voices are in some way connected to the One who brings us hope, who infuses God’s presence into our being, who Was and Is and Is to Come, who walks the winded alleyways and hidden corners of your own soul: Christ anonymous. Let him speak to You!
Amen.