Can you remember the last time your expectations for something
were so high that you imagined that from now on everything is
going to be so different, so satisfying? If you can then you will
know what those first disciples felt when they marched with great
pride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. They must have been so excited;
at last they had backed a winner, they were on the winning side,
Jesus was the winner, all the ordinary people were cheering and
welcoming him and they were 'one of His'.
I guess there are many times when we feel that, at last, my hopes
will be realised. It may be that you are about to be married,
you've found the right partner, one for life when others had let
you down, perhaps you had great hopes that by the end of June
your hard work will have paid off with good grades, perhaps at
last the baby has arrived and he's perfect.
If you can remember just one of those highs you will know what
the disciples felt, they were one of the in crowd, bathing in
His reflected glory.
Depending a lot on your character and if you are a little like
me, there will be a nagging thought, 'Will it really happen?"
I live the life of an optimist waiting for it to go wrong.
The disciples had hoped, depended, expected, given all, and then
it collapsed. Suddenly on that cold early morning in a private
garden the soldiers had arrived and by a kiss from a friend their
hero, their Lord had been arrested, severely beaten up, and skewered
to a cross after a kangaroo court trial. Suddenly they were left
in front of an empty tomb.
it's just like life, the children leave home and never write,
the romance you thought would last forever suddenly is in shatters.
The excellent job that paid the mortgage is about to disappear.
The one you loved for so many years is taken away. Suddenly you
seem to be left with nothing, shattered hopes and an emptiness
that is almost unbearable.
I guess the disciples felt like that, angry, hurt, and let down
as they walked back home to a place called Emmaus. On the way
they met a stranger, so they thought. They offered him a meal
and a place to sleep. It was in this ordinary, everyday event
that they began to realise that this was not a stranger, but the
one that they thought had let them down, the one that have left
them with just an empty tomb for their trouble! To our everlasting
joy the stone had been rolled away, the depression lifted, they
had realised that they were actually with God again in the ordinary
things of life. The one that was dead was with them, at home,
eating a meal with them, talking with them.
Often after the inevitable down has arrived for me, there is hope
again, the dead situation, relationship or hope has come back
to life in a totally different and unexpected way.
I think, perhaps that is a part of the Easter story. God is with
us now, in the ordinary things of life, the hopes, the disappointments,
the joys, the frustrations and the terrors.
A happy Easter to you all.