We don’t know the back story of Jesus’ disciples who were walking away from Jerusalem to Emmaus, but we can judge by their initial reactions to Jesus that they were filled with the events that had just happened in Jerusalem. They are the kinds of events that begin to define their lives even if they didn’t understand them as of yet.

Have you had something happen in your life that is so monumental that it starts to define your whole life and the rest of the world is an interruption?

When my brother died many years ago at a young age, I couldn’t believe that people were carrying on with their regular routines. Didn’t they know what just happened to me and my life?

In the Gospel passage, the disciples were conversing, debating and they were downcast. Those three words tell the whole story.

When Jesus enters the journey with them, He seems to be an interruption to them. He seemed completely out of touch with all that had just happened in their lives. Instead of berating them, He listens to them. How healing that can be to be listened to in the midst of life-shattering events. They tell Him everything, detail by detail. When they are finished telling the story, He invites them back into the larger story and the larger truth.

I don’t think that He was belittling them when He said, “How foolish you are.” He simply didn’t want them to get stuck in their downcast spirit and their debating. He wanted them to re-engage with the larger truth that they had come to know through Him and His mission on earth. He reminds them of the pattern of God’s faithfulness. Starting with Moses, the prophets and other events of their faith history, He rebuilds the complete story that had been seemingly destroyed by the “events of the past days.” He wanted them to remember the entire story so that the current events wouldn’t hold all the power in their minds and hearts. He asked them a question that re-oriented their thinking. “Was it not necessary for Christ to suffer these things?” The next step in this journey shows us how Jesus acted then and how He acts now.

Instead of forcing Himself into their lives in any further way, He waits for them to invite Him into the inn and to share a meal with them. At the table, He takes bread, says a blessing, breaks it and shares it with them. With that, their eyes were opened and their hearts burned with recognition and desire.

Imagine their desire to hang on to Him and get every second with Him — but with that, He vanishes from their sight. That recognition and desire lead them back to Jerusalem, the city that had contained only sorrow and disappointment. His presence led them to be evangelists, carriers of the Good News, back to those who used to be connected with them. They find the others and are united not in sorrow but in hope, the hope that He is truly risen from the dead, as He had said.

Have you had any events happen to you that seem to have the power to redefine your entire life and take away the rest of the story? Notice how Jesus breaks into your life when you least expect Him. In prayer, in your sorrow and confusion, in the presence and voices of others, He is coming to us. Tell Him your story and then let Him reconnect you with the hope that never ends and the joy that lasts forever.

Father Wester is pastor of All Saints Parish in St. Peters.

Editor’s note: Bishop Robert J. Hermann is taking a break from writing the Sunday Scriptures column.