My Emmaus Road [A Journey in Pastoral Licensing]

I’d like to share a story with you.

Although actually written as a sermon that I shared a few weeks ago, on Bloomsday Sunday, I’d like to share it with you as well, to give you a window into my Lenten journey. It’s long, but [hopefully] worth it.

I’d also like to note the great timing of our wonderful church fathers and mothers who set out the calendar of readings. How fitting that the Road to Emmaus passage would fall on Bloomsday Sunday.

Here is the passage, in The Voice:

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Luke 24:13-35

13 Picture this:

That same day, two other disciples (not of the eleven) are traveling the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus. 14 As they walk along, they talk back and forth about all that has transpired during recent days. 15 While they’re talking, discussing, and conversing, Jesus catches up to them and begins walking with them, 16 but for some reason they don’t recognize Him.

Jesus: 17 You two seem deeply engrossed in conversation. What are you talking about as you walk along this road?

They stop walking and just stand there, looking sad. 18 One of them—Cleopas is his name—speaks up.

Cleopas: You must be the only visitor in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about what’s been going on over the last few days.

Jesus: 19 What are you talking about?

Two Disciples: It’s all about the man named Jesus of Nazareth. He was a mighty prophet who did amazing miracles and preached powerful messages in the sight of God and everyone around. 20 Our chief priests and authorities handed Him over to be executed—crucified, in fact.

21 We had been hoping that He was the One—you know, the One who would liberate all Israel and bring God’s promises. Anyway, on top of all this, just this morning—the third day after the execution— 22 some women in our group really shocked us. They went to the tomb early this morning, 23 but they didn’t see His body anywhere. Then they came back and told us they did see something—a vision of heavenly messengers—and these messengers said that Jesus was alive. 24 Some people in our group went to the tomb to check it out, and just as the women had said, it was empty. But they didn’t see Jesus.

Jesus: 25 Come on, men! Why are you being so foolish? Why are your hearts so sluggish when it comes to believing what the prophets have been saying all along? 26 Didn’t it have to be this way? Didn’t the Anointed One have to experience these sufferings in order to come into His glory?

27 Then He begins with Moses and continues, prophet by prophet, explaining the meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures, showing how they were talking about the very things that had happened to Jesus.

28 About this time, they are nearing their destination. Jesus keeps walking ahead as if He has no plans to stop there, 29 but they convince Him to join them.

Two Disciples: Please, be our guest. It’s getting late, and soon it will be too dark to walk.

So He accompanies them to their home. 30 When they sit down at the table for dinner, He takes the bread in His hands, He gives thanks for it, and then He breaks it and hands it to them. 31 At that instant, two things happen simultaneously: their eyes are suddenly opened so they recognize Him, and He instantly vanishes—just disappears before their eyes.

Two Disciples (to each other): 32 Amazing! Weren’t our hearts on fire within us while He was talking to us on the road? Didn’t you feel it all coming clear as He explained the meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures?

33 So they get up immediately and rush back to Jerusalem—all seven miles—where they find the eleven gathered together—the eleven plus a number of others. 34 Before Cleopas and his companion can tell their story, the others have their own story to tell.

Other Disciples: The Lord has risen indeed! It’s true! He appeared to Simon!

35 Then the two men report their own experience—their conversation along the road, their moment of realization and recognition as He broke the bread.

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I love this passage. The language is so rich, so sensual; the heart language is particularly powerful. As I studied this passage, I couldn’t help but identify with the experience of the disciples on some small level. Tonight, I would like to share the story of my Lenten journey with you as we look at a few key phrases that speak about the hearts of the disciples.

The first line that really grabbed my attention was the description of the disciples when Jesus approaches them in verse 17: “they stop walking and just stand there, looking sad”. I envision these two as the picture of dejection, exhaustion and pain. They are literally stopped in their tracks by it. The description says everything we need to know about where their hearts are at – full of disappointed hope and pain. They thought Jesus was the One, the one who would free Israel, but apparently he wasn’t. At The Porch we have been talking about the Lenten season as a time of cutting back, pruning, preparing and awaiting new life. These disciples are in the middle of an extremely painful pruning process – their branches have been cut back, perhaps too far. There are no signs that life will return to them.

I can identify with this feeling. I have had a disappointing, painful Lent. There were a few different factors at play in this, but particularly my failed licensing interview. In late March I interviewed to become licensed as a pastor with our denomination, the Christian & Missionary Alliance. Due to some miscommunication regarding what the interview would entail and how I was to prepare, I failed miserably. In the end I was told that I had the character and the call to ministry, but that I needed to have the doctrine piece better memorized and available. They said, “This isn’t no, it’s just not yet.” What an unfortunate misunderstanding.

As much as I tried to ingest this information in a constructive way, taking them at their word and prepping to try again in the fall, I was not succeeding. Although I did not realize it right away, what I was actually internalizing was words like failure, not good enough. I remember clearly, as I sobbed myself to sleep the night of my interview, thinking, “This is Lent; this is everything we’ve been talking about; this is pruning. And it just hurts.”

What we see next in this passage is Jesus speaking directly into the pain of the disciples. In verse 25 Jesus jolts them out of their fog, out of their pain and disappointment induced coma by asking, “Why are your hearts so sluggish when it comes to believing?”. He is saying “Come on friends, you’re almost there! Push through the pain. Wake up; new life is about to emerge! Your hopes aren’t destroyed. Let me explain it to you. This is exactly what had to happen!” Then, as the text tells us, he explains how his suffering actually fulfills the Old Testament prophecies about their redeemer. What we see here is Jesus giving the disciples back their hope.

Now, my natural response to painful situations is to avoid them. I try to rationalize and explain them away without really feeling the emotions that go along with them. After my horrendous interview, I tried to go along ignoring the pain, ignoring the shameful messages I was ingesting. Like the disciples, my heart was growing more and more sluggish.

Sleep was not even a place of refuge, as I began to dream. For as long as I can remember I have had vivid dreams, but these were different. I could feel the physical sensations about which I dreamt. One particularly horrifying dream involved me being choked and then stabbed in the eye, a dream from which I awoke coughing with a throbbing eye. Vision emerged as a theme – aside from the eye gouging, I often dreamt that my eyelids were heavy, requiring all of my energy to open. During a time of group spiritual direction, a friend pointed this theme out to me, and I began to ask God: What am I not seeing? What am I being kept from seeing? Or just, what are you trying to tell me?

After Jesus explains the meaning of the Old Testament prophecies, after he speaks truth and grace to the disciples, they invite him to dinner. And it is in the intimacy of sharing a meal that the disciples finally recognize their teacher. I adore their response in verse 32: “Amazing! Weren’t our hearts on fire within us while He spoke? Didn’t we feel it all coming clear as he explained it to us?” They are essentially saying, “Oh, we see you now, Jesus! Of course, our hearts were sluggish, deadened by pain and fear, blinded by grief. But when you spoke we felt new life!” They are acknowledging the fact that, although they did not see it, new life, renewed hope was right at the edge about to burst forth, all along.

One thing I notice they do not say at this moment: “We’re the worst. Why didn’t we recognize him instantly? What is wrong with us?” They do not beat themselves up over the fact that they missed him at first. They do not experience shame over it. Instead, they simply marvel at the fact that their hearts were telling them it was him all along, it just took some time to fully realize it. Once they recognize Jesus, as Darrel Bock puts it, “a flame relit in their hearts”[1], and they were amazed by it. And then, of course, they run an impromptu Bloomsday course to go encourage their friends with the news.

The day after Easter a group of pastors in town, myself included, headed to Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon to spend a few days in retreat and solitude. I knew I needed to use those days to try to process this interview thing. I needed to recharge, to reclaim some energy and desire to actually do what I am doing. But my first afternoon there, I dreamt again - more difficulty seeing, another needle in my eye. It was pretty unsettling. All I could do was ask God over and over – what am I not seeing?

Over those few days I was able to identify and name my feelings of shame, my sense of failure over this interview. But I was still unsettled; I couldn’t shake this question of marred vision.

It was on our ride home to Spokane that things changed. One of the three guys I was traveling with asked me about my dreams, which I had mentioned at one point during the retreat. Since we had nothing but time, I told them everything. What followed was one of the most beautiful and healing experiences of my life.

You see, these friends interpreted my dreams.

After listening quietly, one friend looked straight into my eyes and said, “It sounds like there’s been a really painful experience that is blocking your vision, your ability to see and follow your call.” I burst into tears as I recounted my interview experience, and my lack of energy and focus since then, my general apathy toward my life, work and ministry. And then they prayed prayers of healing, prayers that I would know and reclaim my vision and the course that God has laid out for me. They prayed that I would know that I am not a failure, rather, that I am enough, that I am divinely known and loved.

In those moments, my sluggish heart reignited. Once again my heart is on fire within me! I can see the new buds growing from the painfully pruned branches; once again I have hope. For three days the disciples in this story were absolutely broken and destitute; all hope was lost. That’s often our story. Life is painful and messy, and fear tries to overpower us.

But then Jesus appears, amidst the struggle and confusion, to speak truth and grace. We hold on to this hope of Easter, this hope of Jesus! I don’t know how you have experienced him throughout your life, but my most recent experience was this. After weeks of questioning and days of turmoil, after specifically making the time and space to listen to God but hearing nothing, it came when I least expected it. It was in community that people spoke grace and truth into my life, and the Spirit revived my heart.

The disciples rushed back to tell their friends, “He is Risen!” I want to say the same to you today, “He is Risen!” I have experienced him anew. I want to encourage you - if we can just keep holding on through the pain and disappointment, if we can keep asking God where that hope, that new growth will be – he is faithful, he WILL show up and explain it, speaking truth and grace. This is not to say that all our problems will be fixed and we will never struggle again, rather, that he has the power to meet us in that struggle. He has the power to restart our hearts as he did with these disciples, and as he did recently with mine.

Father, teach us to be people who know and recognize you.

Help us to ponder the places where we need to experience your Spirit anew.

Let us be people who speak truth and grace into the hearts of those around us.

Amen.

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[1] Bock, Darrell L. Luke. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994; 385.