On the Road to Where?

Shannon Michael Pater asks, “Who among us have not felt blindsided in times of distress and wondered if even God can see what is around the bend?” (FEASTING on the WORD, A 2: 420)   Scriptures read on the upcoming weekend will give permission to the religious traveler to be unrecognizing of the Presence of God–with the understanding that this is a transitory dimness of sight, and that God’s expectation is that sooner or later even the blind will have an AHA! moment.

Acts 2:36-41 continues on with Peter’s sermon to the formerly ignorant of the Godliness of Jesus.  As the light finally dawned on them, they were “cut to the heart” for their neglect of holiness nearby.  Peter advised them to stop in their tracks and draw into Christ through baptism; and they too shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  And the important verse is for right now, “For the promise is for you, for your children,  and for all those who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”  This force of the Spirit, so recently felt at Easter, continues to pervade through today and into the future.

We also hear from the First Letter ascribed to St. Peter, 1:17-23.  Written to exiles from Judaism in Asia Minor during the early days of the Church, it exudes a parallel to that of current-day people exiled from “normalcy” and feeling separated from society.  By the time of this publication, news of the Resurrection had spread far beyond Jesus’ neighborhood, and a corps of believers had established themselves in many centers.  A couple of generations had passed, yet still no “second coming”…or was there?  What WAS this light spreading across the Mediterranean world?  This, says Peter, is the mutual love resulting from a new life from “imperishable seed”.

The Gospel is Luke’s oft-told tale of the Walk to Emmaus, 24:13-35.  Many would-be disciples have remained in the garden at Jerusalem, or perhaps even at the foot of the Cross on Golgotha.  Luke invites each one of us to become that un-named companion of Cleopas, journeying away touched by the sacred events.  These travelers have heard the rumors, but haven’t yet embraced the Story.  Yet.  We are directed by this story to own this road as ours and to aid those “scavenger angels [who]  sweep over the road searching for signs of spiritual life among the fragments.” (Pater, ibid.)  What are the conversations we might have had before we had holy sight?  When did the grim memories of death turn to the hope of life?

Those of us of a certain age can remember a series of movies called “The Road to ______”, with Dorothy Lamour,  Bob Hope & Bing Crosby.  There were always exotic adventures and silly mishaps on the journey; but it always came out right.  I was also reading Kipling’s old chestnut from 1890 about the Road to Mandalay, the lament of a former soldier who compared the tediousness of the London streets to the delicious air of Burma…as he thought he remembered it.  “An’ I’m learning ‘ere in London what the tenyear sodger tells:  ‘If you’ve ‘eard the East a-callin’, why, you won’t ‘eed nothin’ else.'” Road-warriors all, we journey deeper into the revealed presence of Christ, wherever leads the road of today.

In the process of unfolding,                       Horace Brown King

My travels with lessons and readings assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com