1988 March/April issue Part 2

The Ultimate Contradiction- Part 1.
Two people were walking along a stony road long ago. They were in deep conversation about everything that had happened. Things could not have been worse, it seemed, and I suppose the road was longer and dustier and stonier than it had ever been to them, though they had travelled it many times. As they trudged along, trying to make sense out of the scuttling of their hopes, a stranger joined them and wanted to know what they were talking about.

  “You must be the only stranger in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard all things that have happened there recently!” said one of the two, whose name was Cleopas.
  It seemed the stranger had no idea what things he referred to, so Cleopas explained that there was a man from the village of Nazareth, Jesus by name, who was clearly a prophet, but had been killed by execution a few days before.
  “We were hoping He was the one who was to come and set Israel free.”
  Things had been bad for Israel for a long time, and those who understood the ancient writings looked for a liberator and saviour. Cleopas and his companion had pinned their hopes on this Nazarene- surely He was the one God had sent, a prophet “strong in what He did and in what He said” (Luke 24:19 JBP). But those hopes had been completely crushed. Where were they to turn now?
  The story goes on to tell them how the stranger explained to them that they had not really understood what the prophets had written, and that this death which had so shattered their faith was inevitable if the Messiah was to “find His glory.”
  But what a strange phase- “find His glory.” What could it mean? I can imagine the two looking at each other in bewilderment. This shameful death- in order to find His glory?
  When they reached their destination the stranger was about to go further but they persuaded Him to stay with them. As they sat down to eat, he picked up the loaf of bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them. Suddenly they recognized Him. Jesus! The two who sat with Him had not been pessimists. They had indeed had hopes. But what puny hopes theirs had been. In their wildest optimism they could not have dreamed of the glory they now saw. A resurrection, the ultimate contradiction to all of the world’s woes, had taken place. They saw Jesus with their own eyes. What must their own worlds have seemed to them if they thought about what they had said: “We were hoping...?” They could not deny those hopes had died, but what insane dreamer could have imagined the possibility that had become a reality here at their own supper tables? Their saviour had come back. He had walked with them. He was in their house. He was eating the very bread they had provided.
  The resurrection is a fact- and there would be no Easter if it were not- then there is no situation so hopeless, no horizon so black, that God cannot there “fin His glory.” The truth is that without those ruined hopes, without that death, without the suffering which He called inevitable, the glory itself would be impossible. Why the universe is so arranged we must leave to the One who arranged it, but that it is so we are bound to believe.
  And when we find ourselves most hopeless, the road most taxing, we may also find that it is then that the Risen Christ catches up to us on the way, better than our dreams, beyond all our hopes. For it is He- not His gifts, not His power, not what He can do for us, but He Himself- who comes and makes Himself known to us. And this is the one pure joy for those who sorrow.
  And yet... and yet we sorrow. The glorious fact of the resurrection is the very heart of our faith. We believe it. We bank all our hopes on it. And yet we sorrow. It is still appointed unto man once to die, and those who are left must grieve- not as those without hope, for the believed will be resurrected. The “ultimate contradiction,” however, seems very far in the future. There is no incongruity in the human tears and the pure joy of the presence of Christ, for He wept human tears too.