{"id":6493,"date":"2021-03-01T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T00:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=6493"},"modified":"2021-10-06T04:36:38","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T20:36:38","slug":"267-emmaus-we-were-hoping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=6493","title":{"rendered":"267. Emmaus: \u201cWe Were Hoping \u2026\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

18\u00a0<\/sup>Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, \u201cAre you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?\u201d\u00a019\u00a0<\/sup>He asked them, \u201cWhat things?\u201d They replied, \u201cThe things about Jesus of Nazareth,\u00a0who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,\u00a020\u00a0<\/sup>and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him.\u00a021\u00a0<\/sup>But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.<\/strong><\/span> [Luke 24:18-21<\/span>, NRSV<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0The Pilgrims of Emmaus on the Road, by James Tissot.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is in the afternoon of the first Easter day, when the two disciples leave Jerusalem to return to Emmaus. After a morning full of strange reports, they still do not have a clue what was going on. On the way, they are joined by a mysterious stranger who engages them in conversation about those events. The central point of the story comes up real quickly once the stranger asks them what it was that they were talking and discussing. Upon that question, the two at once begins to verbalise their cherished \u201chope\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

In ministry, we are ever conscious of the power and the lingering pain behind the three words \u201cwe were hoping\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were hoping\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHopes\u201d and \u201cexpectations\u201d can be quite synonymous words, like when your\u00a0expectations\u00a0mean your\u00a0strong<\/a>\u00a0hopes or\u00a0beliefs<\/a>\u00a0that something will\u00a0happen<\/a>\u00a0or that you will get something that you\u00a0want<\/a>. So sometimes when we hear people say, \u201cI expect the Yellow Team will win the competition,\u201d we know what their hopes are. The expectations in a project are what we hope to achieve. They are the goals.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, \u201chopes\u201d and \u201cexpectations\u201d can take on rather different loads of meaning as well. For instance, emergency ward medical staff in a busy city bustling with night life work long and hard most nights. Rarely is a night so quiet that they can sleep enough to feel like a fresh human being the next day. But every once in a while, there is no fires to put out, the phone is quiet, and they do not work all night. They all hope for such a night, knowing how rare this occurs. So they develop a saying: \u201cExpect the worst, hope for the best<\/em>.\u201d The problem is, anytime the staff expect a quiet night but do not get it, the work becomes that much more painful, and the night that much longer than usual. The problem in this case is not the actual work. It is the intrusion of a psychological disturbance. Of all the difficulties to overcome, psychological obstacles arising from unmet expectations are the hardest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, when they say, \u201cWe were hoping that he was the one who would redeem Israel,<\/em>\u201d we can at once sense that this is a hope that has a rich history. How did their hope come about? Where were they coming from? What was their (or Israel\u2019s) problem? The more we are conscious of the history of the Jewish people, the better we can understand what is in the hearts and minds of the two disciples as they converse with the stranger.<\/span><\/p>\n

Early in this Emmaus episode then, Luke is already suggesting to the readers to be conscious of Israel\u2019s history and the hopes and expectations of the Jewish people in ancient Palestine at the time of Jesus. Clearly, they had been living out of a powerful narrative that controlled their lives. It narrates a story that had a long history, one that was filled with prophetic promises \u2013 promises made by Yahweh for which the Israelites have a long tradition of praising in psalms. The backdrop to it all was of course the exodus<\/u><\/em>, their defining story of God\u2019s mighty hands liberating their ancestors from slavery in Egypt, those ancestors\u2019 sojourn in the wilderness for forty years, and their final entry into the promised land of milk and honey. Thereafter, the same thread connected successive narratives in which God repeatedly delivered His Chosen People from various foreign powers and pagan oppression. Whenever the Israelites found themselves in hard times under foreign rules, you hear the psalmist called out: let not the spirit be cast down within you. Hope in the Lord, for He is our help and our God. Praise Him!<\/span><\/p>\n

Under the oppressive rules of the Roman occupiers, Jews in the first century had every reason to believe that the exile was not completely over, for God\u2019s great promises through the prophets had yet to become reality. In other words, Israel would still need to be \u201credeemed\u201d, a word that carried serious overtones of the exodus. As the exodus witnessed to the great historical moment of God\u2019s covenant-making with His people, what they now needed was covenant renewal. Their old Scriptures were awaiting a suitable ending, and many followers of Jesus had built up this hope and expectation – \u201cwe were hoping\u201d (which of course meant \u201cwe were expecting\u201d) \u2013 that the ending would materialize in Jesus. So great was the hope and expectation that now that Jesus had been crucified, all hopes were dashed. That loss of hope was a shocking experience all the more because Jesus the mighty one of God was so thoroughly humiliated and violently killed. Given that background, one must not judge the two disciples negatively in any way, such as thinking badly of them for not at all feeling guilty for leaving town, for seemingly abandoning Jesus\u2019 cause so easily.<\/span><\/p>\n

Actually, far from being a simple statement of reflection, what the two disciples are doing is to hark back to a plea for vindication as in Psalm 43:<\/span><\/p>\n