Friday the phone rang. Could I go and give the last rights to Ellen, a lady in a care home in Benalmadena. Not in my patch, and I had a lot to do, but Father Alaric was on holiday. She was frail and dying. I held her hand and told her about Jesus, I prayed for forgiveness of sins and gave her absolution. Psalm 23, the Lord’s Prayer. She said nothing. When I left she seemed less agitated – maybe it was because I was going!
Christian life is just like the picture Luke portrays in the walk to Emmaus. The couple (quite possibly man and wife) walking the seven miles from Jerusalem, are broken, dejected, lost, valueless and fearful. John Bunyan calls it travelling through the Slough of Despond. David’s 23rd psalm calls it the valley of the shadow of death. You would not be human if you have never put your feet into the sinking mud and be drawn in by hopelessness.
Then Jesus comes along.
At the end of the episode, the two of them compare notes. Did not we feel our hearts burn within us as the scriptures were expounded. The unexpected stranger brought a glimmer of hope, and that was from looking at the Bible. Jesus would have known much of the scriptures by heart, as would they – but it was being interpreted by nothing less than the mind of God.
24th May 1738 was when John Wesley went, “very unwillingly”, one evening to a meeting of the Moravians where one was reading Luther’s preface to Paul’s letter to the Romans. His heart, as he listened, was “strangely warmed”. Understanding the Christian scriptures brings new, surprising, unexpected and delicious hope.
Their journeying together is part of it. Why does the picture of the footsteps in the sand touch so many hearts. It is that Jesus does not fail in his journeying and is most active when the journey is through that slough/valley. The enlightenment is gradual, which makes it all the more secure. Then they meet their Lord and finally only recognise Him in the breaking of bread.
They were all expecting the Messiah to come and redeem them from the pain Israel was going through. What happens is that the Messiah comes and redeems them because of the pain he goes through. The story needed to be clear. Recognise Jesus too early and the story is incomplete.
In the un-recognition they were able to learn, in recognition they were inspired to get up and do.
It happens now. We recognise Jesus when he chooses. To the surprised people standing in front of the judgement seat he says ‘Anything you did for one of these, my bothers and sisters, you did for me. The stranger in disguise can be the ministering Christ. Gardener, a man on the beach cooking breakfast, or a stranger walking to Emmaus.
Then they go wild. They run back to Jerusalem with the news. If you had made it all up you would at give them a good night’s sleep! This was too momentous not to share immediately. Jesus is alive and they ate the first new-kingdom meal with him.
Our job is to remind people of the resurrection, the affirmation of life continuing, the redemption through suffering, (and not from suffering), the unconditional love that underpins it all, the willingness of Jesus to meet us and journey with us. If anything gave peace to Ellen, that was it. Jesus was going to walk, and probably has by now walked the final steps with her.