Daring Hope

Parish Letter Third Sunday of Easter 2008

The Road to Emmaus – Jesus our Hope

In today’s Gospel we encounter the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus. They had spent Passover weekend in Jerusalem. They had gone up to Jerusalem with great excitement and expectations. They had real hopes that this Passover would change their lives significantly.
Upon arriving in Jerusalem, they were told that, only the week before, Jesus had been welcomed into the Holy City as a King. They quickly joined onto the great expectation that during Passover week Jesus was going to transform their lives. He was the Messiah who they had waited for and they hoped that he would liberate them. They had been oppressed for far too long. They could not imagine going into another week of the same wretched living they had been subjected to. So this change was welcome. The Messiah was badly needed and the stage had been set for the final showdown between their Saviour and all the forces that assailed them.
The death of Jesus must have been a disappointment of unimaginable proportions for the Emmaus disciples, and all the people who had pinned their hopes on him. When people are making sacrifices in anticipation of a new dispensation, they don’t care about the cost. When that dispensation fails to come, then people feel utterly crushed by the cost of the sacrifices made. They feel robbed, cheated, used, fooled, taken for a ride and betrayed. They feel bad about themselves. They get depressed; see no point in living and some may even take their lives. Sad things do happen to people whose hopes have been shattered, whose dreams have been stolen, and whose chances for change have slipped out of their grasp like a handful of sand. It is very difficult to find a new reason for living, a purpose for going on and even the desire to do anything that was formerly pleasant. The saddest human thing is not just to die – it is to have one’s dream and hope killed, taken away or in some other way destroyed.
This week I have seen the Emmaus disciples on the streets of Harare. I have been one of them. I have seen our people walking back to the same life that they had hoped much, and sacrificed much for, to change. The recent elections have given us an acutely painful experience of anxiety. We could never have been more similar to the frightened Emmaus disciples. We walked in the dark, trudging home-ward, downcast, wounded, bruised, hurting, to face the same fate we have been trying to shake off our backs for almost a decade. We walked homeward dreading the worst.
I found great solace in the prayer that we say after the Our Father: “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” I leant anew, that Jesus is the Lord who comes in the times of our greatest human need. Through this prayer, at Mass and at many other times during the day, I felt the presence of Jesus in the midst of our collective national darkness. That presence was comforting for me, and I shared that prayer with many others, who felt the same. Jesus is not far away when we come face to face with evil, when we are tempted to sin, and when we are harassed internally by anxiety. Tuning in to his presence is what made the day for the Emmaus disciples. We can learn from the Emmaus turnaround.
On the road to Emmaus, the Lord Jesus joined the dejected disciples. They opened up to him, and he opened the scriptures to them. He opened their minds and hearts to a new vision, a new hope. He restored their shattered dreams. Through their generosity and care, they invited Jesus into their home. He took their bread, broke it and shared it with them. Then they realised it was he. They realised that he had been with them all along the path of dejection and hopelessness. They were filled with a new enthusiasm and even the darkness of the night did not bother them. They were galvanised to go and share the good news that he had risen, all was not lost, a new life was still possible for all.
We have come to the Eucharist today after a week of walking like the sad Emmaus disciples. We come to meet Jesus who is risen, who has conquered death and evil. We come to meet our Saviour, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. May our Eucharist be a meeting with Jesus; to walk along the difficult road of our lives with him, to listen to the enlightening scriptures with him, and to break and share bread with him. It is by inviting Jesus into the sadness of our life, that we are filled with a new and transforming enthusiasm, and no amount of darkness and evil can take that away from us. Let us allow Jesus to feed our tired hearts with his word and sacrament in this Eucharist.
Yours in the Risen Christ Fr. William Guri, C.Ss.R.