Jesus himself came near – Easter III, 30 April 2017

The lectionary presents us with the long passage in Luke about the group of disciples walking to Emmaus, and what happened that evening.  It’s a complex narrative, and biblical scholars love to dissect it and sometimes cast light.  But one of the tasks of senior years, it seems to me, is to look for the simplicities.  I do not mean returning to childhood and the old comforting credulities – although some seem to do that.  I mean the process of finding something central in what we’re told here, so simple in its way that we may have missed it in earlier times, or else thought it too obvious altogether.

And it’s here in this story.  They are walking along the road.  The events of Jesus’s death are raw and recent.  And, says the narrator, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognising him. 

“Jesus himself” (και αυτος Ιησους) – it’s emphatic -- Luke wants us to understand that the person who came near was not some construct of their minds, some product of wishful thinking; neither was it some concept of theology or liturgy.  It was Jesus himself.  And yet he came near as a stranger, another traveller on the road, incognito – their eyes were kept from recognising him, writes Luke.

They realised later who he was, during the evening meal at the breaking of bread.  But that is when he disappeared.  So they can’t enlist him as one of their company.  He won’t be recruited to the team.  They have no proprietary control of him.  What he does is come near on the road, and walk along for a while, and teach… and join in the breaking of bread.  Moreover it is mostly in retrospect that they see who was present… didn’t our hearts burn within us…? 

Well, you may find that eerily familiar.  Looking back… were we not helped, somehow?  Did a door open, or some other door necessarily close…?  Did I realise that unaccountably I had changed, learned some wisdom, been able to do something that had seemed impossible…?  Luke gives us one picture among many of what resurrection might mean in practice – not so much blinding certainties, as Paul experienced on the road to Damascus, but more likely a presence or an awareness along the road, an influence, an inspiration, typically unexpected, quiet and gentle, revealing a way forward…  And also typically, we realise it mainly looking back, retrospect. 

It may be that most thoughtful people in Christian faith, truth be told, experience resurrection mainly as a strange companionship, a sense of presence, sometimes even a presence of absence, that we suspect is Jesus himself.  This presence brings us to a deeper, steadier, quieter place.  That is surely so in our prayer, as ego settles down and we are quietly available for such a coming near.