We were walking together, next to each other along the same path, side by side most of the time, occasionally one hung back, one stepped up the pace, sometimes the path narrowed and we took turns to lead. Our backs where turned on all that had been, on the dreams we had clung to, on the hopes we had, on the future we had been so sure of. Foot fall after foot fall heading back to where we had started, to our old lives, to the things we had left behind in all the excitement and expectation, things we had felt no longer mattered. We where going home. We were walking together, shoulders stooped in resignation, in disappointment, in confusion, but still together, somehow bonded together by all we had been through, still together, perhaps despite what we had been through. We were walking together, going back but not the same as we where before, we had been changed, our lives had shifted, though we walked the old roads it was like we had never been there before, like each stone had just been moulded, like the grass had only just been painted green, like if we walked too fast we would catch up with the process, step into the nothingness that was surely just around the corner ahead. Nothing was quite the same as it had been, we were not the same as we had been and we never would be. But, we had to go back.
As we walked, we talked. We told our stories, sometimes we told the same story from our own perspectives, sometimes they felt like different stories though we had stood together at the time, witnessed the same events, but somehow took in different things. We argued, we remembered, we questioned our memories. We talked about the things we had done together, the things we had experienced alone. We talked about the others, the ones we had loved, the ones we had struggled to get along with. We shared our own issues, the feelings we had deep in our guts, the sadness, the doubts we had of ourselves. We blamed each other, we blamed ourselves, for doing too much, for not doing enough, for how it all turned out. We cried together as we walked, one comforting the other, switching roles, we cried as one for all that had been, for what we had hoped it would become. We talked about ourselves, what had been revealed, what had been stripped away, the way we had been changed. We shared the confusions we had had, the questions we had not been able to ask, the questions we had been too self-conscious to ask, maybe even to scared to ask. We bared ourselves to each other. We even talked about the things we had kept covered up, the things we had buried deep inside, for ourselves, from each other, from Him.
Oh how we wanted to talk about Him! But we didn’t know how to, should we be sad, angry, hopeful, let down? In some ways we felt duped, but not really, we had seen, we had heard, but it was too hard to make sense of it all, too painful. We thought of the others, wondered what they where talking about, wondered what roads they where walking, what lives they where returning to. We talked about what the women had said, wondered what had been going on, what they had really seen. We wondered whether there was any hope in what they said they saw, we wondered if they had seen anything at all, whether it was all just wishful thinking. We wondered if there was any point in thinking about it at all!
Then, we where not alone, a man walked with us. I guess we would not normally have been so open, but we just kept talking. We walked, we talked, we shared, we bared our souls, we wrestled. The stranger talked too, he made connections that we knew of, but somehow couldn’t quite grasp on our own. He helped us work things through together; he knew we needed each other, he knew we needed to talk, he knew we needed to see the other parts of the picture, the way it all fitted together, the way we all fitted together. He showed us our part in the story, how each element we had was like an ingredient, how they had to be bound together to bring out all of the flavour, the richness. He showed us how together we had hope, how together we fitted in the expanse of history. The stranger brought us back to Him, how He had flowed through the whole story, from the beginning. He spoke to us about the man we had known, about the hope we had had in Him, before… well… the end.
It was late, we had reached our place. It had been a long journey, one stretching back years. Finally we turned our faces to the reality of the place we found ourselves in, the moment. Food. We had eaten together often, it was important to us, had been a natural thing for us to do really, nothing complicated, it’s what you do when you live together, when you share the journey. So we did what we always did, we laid a place at the table for our fellow traveller though he began to walk on without us. It wasn’t a formal invitation; we just shuffled up and made room, he couldn’t refuse really, so he sat down with us.
Before we knew it he had taken centre stage, somehow shifted from being the guest to being the host - the stranger was now the host at our table! Then we saw, the stranger had always been with us, had always been the host! The bread that he took in His hands was the same bread we had seen taken and shared less than a week ago - the body we saw across the table was the body we had seen stripped and then, bit by bit destroyed. The wine that He poured was the same wine we had shared together that night, the last night we where all together - the blood that pulsed through the veins of His arms as he held out the cup, was the same blood we saw splattered on the ground, pooling in the dust and sand on the hill. The voice that we heard was the same voice that had drawn us, taught us, loved us, the same voice we had heard cry out his last breath. Now the voice went on, it taught us more, taught us about sacrifice, taught us about total love. The voice showed us that the voyage had not yet ended; there was still a way to go. The voice became part of our thoughts, our hopes rekindled in the sound of the voice, but changed, reformed, totally different. We knew that the voice had always been with us, always would be. The voice invited us to follow. Then it was gone - He was gone - but not gone.
What could we do? We re-packed our bags and we left, to take up the invitation, to follow a strange road where everything seemed upside down, where loving meant dying and dying meant living. Where we would learn to give ourselves, our everyday ordinariness, as a living, vital offering to each other, to others and to Him.
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