Scripture often plays with time – or at least with our sense of time.

Seven days to create the world – 40 years wandering in the wilderness – generations of history compressed into mere paragraphs – ancients who lived for centuries…all this gives us an unreasonable expectation of cosmic events. Things happen with incredible speed in the Biblical narrative…until they don’t.

The best explanation for this is that the Bible is more interested in Theology (talk about God) than Chronology (talk about time.) And the account of Jesus resurrection is a case in point.

After sitting with the story of Jesus arrest, trial and crucifixion so deliberately – hour by hour, marking our days and indeed an entire week in some traditions – we linger over the resurrection event (in three of the gospels) There is no detail we won’t pursue – no angle that doesn’t interest us – so that, three weeks later, we are still reading ‘now, on the same day…’

Luke alone offers us this puzzling story of Jesus hiding in plain sight. He joins the two companions on the road – they talk about the events of the week – they marvel at the news that has reached them by the rumour mill that Jesus may indeed be risen. It is a story worth telling, and the stranger who is Jesus gives them yet another lesson in the powerful mystery of God’s grace.

And still, they don’t get it.

Words aren’t enough when the world leaves us gasping. Tradition and doctrine are supposed to ground us – supposed to give us a way to understand the complexities of the world, yet Jesus accuses these two of forgetting all they had once known about the promises of God – and his own fairly recent teaching. It takes a simple action – breaking bread – to open their eyes. And with that, Jesus is gone again.

And all on that same, glorious, complicated day.

Maybe you have had a similar experience. Maybe you have been overwhelmed by the world, and were roused from your sorrow by something miraculous – something so wonderful that it defies explanation. Maybe you met Jesus on the road, or in the yard, or in a hospital room, or in the middle of the night. And maybe that single moment has extended itself in a way that seemed to make time stand still. And perhaps, while everything you thought you knew was crashing down around you, God showed you something that brought you comfort or joy or hope or peace (or all of them at once.)

These are the experiences that Scripture is trying to capture – and when we find ourselves in challenging circumstances, it is good for us to be reminded that even those closest to Jesus were sometimes caught short.

They could not imagine that the things they had learned during their brief time spent with Jesus could be so suddenly and radically happening. The tomb empty. Their teacher, raised to life again. To see these long wished for promises of God working their way into your reality is a curious thing. It takes time to come to terms…and yet…

On the same day the women worshipped, and the men refused to believe. On the same day, soldiers fell like dead men and the crucified walked free. On the same day, as people questioned and debated and wondered and argued, Jesus gently taught, and paused to feed them…and with that gesture everything changed.

One long, confusing, exciting day – which must have felt like it would never end – brought a new perspective to those who were caught up in the events.

Our churches would do well to remember that.

For years – decades, really – the world has changed at a pace that the church could not match. In our lifetime, those changes have translated into smaller congregations, fewer volunteers and all sorts of practical difficulties for worshiping communities.

We gather in shock and frustration and talk about what might have been. We run toward rumours of revival. We are suspicious of those places that seem to have success. Our reality becomes narrow and perilous. We are like those two friends of Jesus on the road.

And maybe this is just an extension of that same, glorious day. A moment when it seemed all must surely be lost – while all the while, Jesus journeys with us.

The good news in this Emmaus gospel story is not simply that Jesus is Risen – though that is good news indeed. No, the good news is that even while the questions, the doubt, the anxiety and fear weighed heavy on these two, the Saviour walked with them. Jesus did not undo the misery of the previous three days. Jesus pointed out the change that awaited them, and invited them to embrace it.

This encounter – which seems almost a dream (Jesus is gone as soon as they recognize him) – is the perfect motivation for the church. The idea that our understanding of who Jesus is and where Jesus may be leading us is sometimes fleeting – and always wonderful – and is likely to happen precisely when we imagine that all hope is gone.