Emmaus Places

It was Resurrection Day!  But of course, hardly anybody knew that yet – even those who did know weren’t sure about it or have a clue about what it all meant.   Luke tells us that two disciples decided to hit the road and head toward a place called Emmaus.  Emmaus - so where and what was Emmaus?   Well, quite frankly nobody is sure.  All we know is that it was not too far from Jerusalem, but if you look Emmaus up in a Bible dictionary all you really get is speculation.  There is little known about it.  Except for this reference in Luke, it is never mentioned in the Bible.     
But you know what?  I know where Emmaus is!  I know exactly where Emmaus is.  I am standing here this morning to tell you that I know all about Emmaus.  I can describe Emmaus in great detail.  I will let you in on the secret. But it’s not really a secret for you already know.  Emmaus in where we go when we feel we have lost something sacred.   Emmaus is where we go when our dreams have turned to ashes; when things don’t work out in life like we’d hoped.  Emmaus is our destination when we have been hit with the rude realization that the world holds nothing sacred; that even the wisest, most courageous and loveliest die and decay; that even the most noble human ideas of love, freedom and justice can be perverted and twisted out of shape by selfish people for selfish reasons.  Emmaus is what we do to lick our wounds and find some kind of superficial solace, because we cannot help ourselves to do other.  

Emmaus is a bottle of cheap wine, expensive whiskey or a six-pack of beer.   Emmaus is smoking too many cigarettes or going on a shopping spree.  Emmaus is sitting home alone stewing in a pot of paralyzing self-pity.  Emmaus is going to a cocktail party for the sake of the cocktails.  Emmaus is meaningless sex, going to lousy movie, or living in a state of unfocused anger.  Emmaus is where we go when we lose whatever it is that is tenuously holding the fragile fragments of our life together.  Emmaus is trying to insulate ourselves from life’s burning, frigid winds.  I doubt that I have to tell you much more about Emmaus because you, like me, have been there.  Emmaus is where these two disciples were headed to try and forget about Jesus and the great disappointment of his life.  They had invested all their hopes in him.  They saw him as the fulfillment of their deepest longings.  They had great expectations for him, but now he was dead - as dead an anyone has ever been dead.  There was nothing left to do but get out of town and go to Emmaus. 

The one characteristic of all the resurrection stories in the gospels that strikes me is how mundane and subdued they really are.  I know that if someone were to have put me in charge of writing the resurrection stories I would have put a lot more pizzazz and drama into them.  The resurrection stories are pretty anemic in contrast to the birth stories of Jesus in which choirs of angels filled the night sky with heavenly music, and a guiding star appeared leading foreign strangers bearing precious gifts. 

In contrast to his birth, the resurrection stories reveal Mary Magdalene heavy with grief mistaking the risen Jesus for the gardener; disciples hiding out in fear behind locked doors; Peter dragging both his empty nets and heavy guilt along the Galilean lakeshore; and today two despaired disciples walking along a dusty road to nowhere.   We could say that for each it was their Emmaus place; where they had gone to lick their wounds and to begin to try to put their lives back together again.   And, in every case that’s exactly, where Jesus showed up and made his risen self known – in their Emmaus places.  

Do you see what is happening?   Do you see what the message is?  Do you see the dynamics of resurrection?  The places where the risen Jesus is most apt to show up are our Emmaus places, the places we go that lie in the inescapable shadow of death.  And he comes not in a blaze of unearthly light, not in the midst of an inspiring sermon, not in the throes of a religious daydream, but at suppertime or walking along a road to nowhere in particular; in our ordinary everyday moments and transforms those moments into something more; something filled with life where there was only the smell of death; something filled with hope where there was only despair.

In March of 1992 my dreams turned to ashes. I was a broken, defeated man. I had crashed and burned in a personal burnout that was result of being a compulsive workaholic.  At that point I didn’t understand the inner forces and demons that were driving me to be the obsessive-compulsive person that I was.  Some days after I had resigned my position as senior pastor of a large, prestigious congregation, I had descended into a gravity well of depression.  I could not believe I had any kind future.  I felt alone, cut-off, was angry at myself and had retreated into my Emmaus place of isolation. 

One afternoon the doorbell rang and a woman from the congregation was standing there, someone I knew only a little, but held in high regard.  She was a person who had class, always seemed to have her act together, a great mom and active in the life of the congregation.  Let’s call her Jane.  At first I was shocked to see Jane standing there and I felt embarrassed and even uncomfortable in her presence.  Her shining presence, at first, only reminded me that much more of my own pathetic state of brokenness. 

She asked to come it.  She sat down and she began the conversation.  I couldn’t have imagined in a million years the words that she was to speak next.  She looked at me and asked, “Joe, I need to ask you a question.  You don’t have to answer, but I need to ask.  Did you grow up in an alcoholic, dysfunctional family?” 

It is impossible for me to put into words what went through my heart and soul in those next moments.  Shocked and even more embarrassed that I must have been so transparent, I answered in a shaky, barely audible voice, “Yes, how did you ever know?”  She sighed and said with a little smile, “It takes one to know one. I did too, and I have been where you are right now.”  

We talked that day and she shared her story and the bottom line was she became a symbol of hope for me; someone who had been to the Emmaus place that I was in and had come through it more or less put back together in one whole piece – filled with life. 

As I have reflected on that specific event of my life over these 16 years since, I now see even more clearly, that I was visited that day by no one less than the crucified and risen Jesus.  It was he who came knocking on my dark door.  He looked a lot like Jane, but it was Jesus himself sitting with me in my Emmaus place with so much love and concern, and as a result the beginnings of a little miracle of healing and hope began to grow from the tiny seed that Jane/Jesus planted in my fractured and fragmented soul.

My friends, if you are looking for proof that he is really alive, you need look no further that the precious witness of your own life.  We have had those deep moments when if only for a moment or two, we have seen his face and felt his touch; in a visit or call from a friend; a reassuring hug; in a word of timely grace; or in the breaking of a piece of bread; but not just any piece of broken bread, but bread broken for you and me in love and forgiveness to give us life in place of all the death we are caught up in.  My friends the love that suffered agonies on that hill outside the city walls so long ago is a love that has no limits, not even death. It’s a love that follows and pursues us into all of our Emmaus places, bringing life and hope and leading us far beyond…