Luke 24
I am sitting in the waiting room of an oral surgeon as our 3rd kiddo gets his wisdom teeth removed. Strange places, waiting rooms: in-between spaces designed not to work or play or dance or harvest but simply to wait. Time becomes both irrelevant and acutely noticed because it doesn’t matter what the clock says: we are waiting for something to finish. We are waiting for our son to wake up so we can take him home and feed him Jell-O and hopefully laugh with him when his face swells like a chipmunk and we strap the preposterous ice-pack apparatus to him as he sleeps off anesthesia watching episodes of Psych. We love him. We all have someone we love. When something happens to those people, our world shrinks down and the scattered thoughts of our busy and complicated days focus like a spotlight on that beloved human, illuminating them on the stage of our minds.
Something had happened to Jesus. He had been betrayed and tried and convicted by men in a nauseating satire of Divine Justice. He was beaten and imprisoned and mocked and tortured and crucified and in a once-in-eternity moment was separated from His Father as He bore the sin and shame and guilt of all of humanity on His beautiful suffering shoulders. Jesus then released His hold on His own life and gave up His lifegiving Spirit and breathed out His life for all those trapped in the deep darkness of their sin. Jesus was dead. He was lowered from the cross by people who loved Him and wrapped in burial cloth by people who loved Him and placed in the tomb of a wealthy man who loved Him. Then the people who loved Jesus waited.
I had never thought of this before just right now, but Jesus waited too. His body was lifeless. He did not immediately become the Firstborn from the dead. He allowed people who loved Him to carry His body. He allowed them to hurt and weep and carry the gnawing ache of unknowing. Jesus waited until that third day in part because He can. He is over all things. No human tells Jesus what to do or when to do it. Jesus said He would die and be raised on the third day, and Jesus does what He says. Always. And Jesus doesn’t seem to care if things are easy. That idea doesn’t enter His vernacular. I think if we’re listening to Jesus at all, the opposite is true. Suffering is part of life here in the shadowlands. Glory awaits us. But before glory comes, we wait. We suffer. And Jesus enters the waiting room of our suffering and sits there with us.
Cleopas and a friend were walking to Emmaus, passionately discussing what had just happened. The Resurrected Jesus walks right into the middle of all their questions and walks beside them while they struggle. He asks them what they are talking about as they walk. Poor Cleopas is so stunned he stops dead in his tracks. Luke says, “they stood still, looking sad.” They are walking, trying to process the horror of Jesus being killed, and Jesus walks with them and not only doesn’t relieve the tension, He asks the question that forces them to talk while wandering through the fog of grief. Cleopas recounts the story. But I don’t think they are walking. I think they are stopped in the middle of the road putting words to pain and loss trying desperately to make sense of things. Jesus simply stops and stands in their sadness.
Does Jesus hug them and tell them they will be ok? No! He rebukes them! “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe…” But then something beautiful happens. I think they start walking. The Risen Christ walks with them and talks with them and explains the Scriptures to them. For miles they walk and listen. For miles Jesus patiently teaches. Jesus does not alleviate their suffering. Jesus walks with them through their suffering and teaches them who He really is. He makes them wait. Makes them listen. Makes them process pain and loss. Makes them walk by faith and not by sight. He makes them stare straight into the face of Jesus in the context of their pain and doubt. And as soon as they get it, poof, He’s gone. But they have seen Him. Seen the Risen Jesus! And His absence cannot erase His revelation. Their excitement swells, gathering speed, until they are running—running back toward the others, their joy pouring over the road like a wildfire of dawnlight, spilling over the horizon with the promise that the world’s night is over and resurrection has begun to sing its way through creation.
That revelation, our Risen Jesus, still walks with us through the aching winters of grief, through the waiting rooms and the sleepless nights and the long echoless silence of sadness and loss. He does not free us from suffering. Not yet. But that day is coming. Until then, Light shines in the darkness and the darkness retreats. So let us run in the crisp light of Day. Let us run with our Resurrected Jesus. Let us run unencumbered in the Way and the Truth and the Life and see where Jesus takes us. Because it truly is OK. Jesus really rose from the dead. And every hope we carry can hang secure in the Man who walks beside us all our days. So walk. Listen. Hope. Run. And if you ever find yourself undone by sorrow, it’s OK to stop right there in the middle of the road and talk to Jesus. He listens. And then He speaks. Listen when He does. Then walk with Him.
