Here's my reflection for tonight's Choral Evensong at St Martin-in-the-Fields:
In the English language we have many words and phrases that use the metaphor of a journey for aspects of our lives. When babies are born we say that they have arrived. When we have a big decision in front of us, we say we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. When we are unsure what to do next in our lives we say we are at a crossroads and don’t know which way to go or we might say that our life has no direction and we don’t know where we are heading. The words and phrases we use suggest that we think of life is being like a journey filled with lessons, hardships, heartaches, joys, celebrations and special moments that will ultimately lead us to our destination in life. The road will not always be smooth and throughout our travels we will be confronted with many situations, some joyful and others filled with heartache. How we react often determines what the rest of our journey through life will be like.
All of this means that thinking of our journey through life as a Pilgrimage can be a helpful reflection. Pilgrimages provide an opportunity to meet people, make friends, and reflect on the journey of our lives and on our journey homewards to God. The Emmaus story (Luke 24. 13-35) tells us that Jesus, through his Spirit, wants to join us on our pilgrimage or journey through life.
On the night before he died Jesus told his disciples, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’? Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.’ He explained that he had not said these things to you at the beginning, because he was then with them. Now, however, he was going to the Father who had sent him and because he was going away, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit would come to them. The Holy Spirit, whom the Father was going to send in Jesus’ name, would teach them everything, and remind them of all that Jesus had said to them.
All of that began to happen on the Emmaus Road. The disciples were in pain because of the events of Good Friday. They didn’t understand what had happened and couldn’t believe that Jesus was anything other than well and truly dead. Jesus joined their conversation and walked with them while they were going in the wrong direction. He listened to them before he spoke. His first question was one of open vulnerability to their agenda: "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" In response to their questions and accounts of what had happened he then broke open the scriptures, doing the work of the Spirit by teaching them the things written about him in the scriptures and reminding them of all that he had said to them. Once that happened their pain was turned to joy as they recognised Jesus in the breaking of the bread. Their hearts burned with excitement and their eyes were opened by the breaking open of the scriptures and by the breaking of the bread. They then returned to Jerusalem to tell others as they couldn’t wait to share the good news they had received.
Jesus’ promise to his disciples at the Last Supper was that all these things would also happen for us because, following his resurrection and ascension, he would send his Spirit to meet us and join us and walk with us on our life journey, just as he did for these two disciples on the Emmaus Road. Whatever the terrain of our life-journey, we can walk it in the company of the resurrected Jesus, through his Spirit.
Jesus is the Way to the Father, as he said to his disciples at the Last Supper. He is the Way - the style - in which we travel as we seek to live out his Way of Love. He is the Way - the direction - of our travel, the one who points us towards abundant eternal life and he is the Way - the road - on which we travel, just like the Prodigal Son we can return home to God the Father because Jesus laid down his life to make that homecoming possible. Because Jesus has walked the Way before us, so we can now follow in his footsteps.
Martin Wallace, the former Bishop of Selby, has suggested that: ‘Just as God walked with Adam in the garden of Eden, so he now walks with us in the streets of the city chatting about the events of the day and the images we see’ (City Prayers, The Canterbury Press, 1994). Therefore, he encourages us to ‘chat with God’, as the disciples did on the Emmaus Road, ‘bouncing ideas together with him, between the truths of the Bible and the truths of … life’ and then, as we walk down our street, wait for the lift, or fumble for change at the cash-till to use these thoughts and ideas in order to pray.
When we do so, we will begin to have the same experience as the two disciples had when Jesus broke bread. At the heart of their story and journey is a very simple and ordinary action; breaking bread. Although it is a simple and ordinary thing to do, it becomes a very important act when Jesus does it because it is the moment when Jesus’ two disciples realise who he is. They suddenly realise that this stranger who they have been walking with and talking to for hours is actually Jesus himself, risen from the dead. They are amazed and thrilled, shocked and surprised as something very simple and ordinary suddenly becomes full of meaning and significance. This simple, ordinary action opens their eyes so that they can suddenly see Jesus as he really is.
When our eyes are suddenly opened in this way to see meaning and significance in something that we had previously thought of as simple and ordinary, it is called an epiphany. An epiphany happens when an everyday reality becomes charged with spiritual significance. Epiphanies are those light-bulb moments when the penny drops, everything clicks into place and understanding comes.
That is what happened to the two disciples on the Emmaus Road, all that Jesus had said to them and done with them suddenly made sense and was useful to them because the Spirit had come and brought clarity and revelation in an epiphany. That is what Jesus had promised would happen. That is the work which the Holy Spirit comes to do in our lives. Jesus told his disciples that when the Spirit came he would lead them into all truth. In other words, it is when the Spirit comes that we experience that sense of clarity, of understanding, of coming together, of rightness, and things making sense of which we have been speaking.
That doesn’t mean that everything works out and life becomes easy – Jesus’ disciples (as a whole) were equipped by the Spirit to take the message of Jesus to the whole world and as a result they faced riots, shipwrecks, imprisonment, beatings, and martyrdom. A Spirit-filled Christian life is always a challenge but when the Spirit comes that’s when we experience a sense of meaning and purpose – of epiphany - that transforms the difficulties of the present because we know that the risen Jesus, through his Spirit, is with us in it all and is always with us on our journey through life.
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Herbert Howells - Te Deum.
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