When human experience and the divine word interact. On yearning for God.

Spirituality is about faith experienced. It can also be described as “lived” faith.

But the word experience may be misleading, because it could easily deceive people to think that Sprituality is about emotions or feelings. And this creates apprehension, because we know too well that feelings can be misleading – that what one feels at moments of ecstacy may disappear the next moment when one experiences dark and unhappy feelings.

Spirituality surely includes emotions, but the experience in spirituality is about much more than emotions. The two disciples in the Emmaus episode are involved with all their feelings in what overfalls them after the message about the empty grave. They are deeply immersed in their mutual conversation. In Luke 24:17 they respond to Jesus’ question abouth what they are discussing by standing still with somber faces. They then talk with Jesus – not about their feelings so much as about their experience. But indirectly we see also how they felt about Jesus. They recount the past moments they experienced with Jesus. It is a story which reveals how deeply committed they were to Jesus and how they experienced Him as a powerful messenger of God. “He was powerful in word and deed,” a “prophet.” They admired Him for his piety, his journey with God, his spirituality. They were impressed and astonished by all these things. They experienced Him as the hope for Israel’s salvation. He was for them the embodiment of all God’s promises to God’s people of all ages. Not only their feelings, but all of their experiences and encounters with Jesus fill their memory and their faith.

And then the disaster of the cross and the empty grave overfell them (verses 20 and 24) – with, the greatest setback: Jesus is nowhere in sight.

So they share their emotions, but also their wider experiences with Jesus. They speak about their hopes when they were with Jesus, but also about their disillusionment when He was no longer to be seen. All their experiences of their years with Jesus are shared with the stranger who walks the way with them. Jesus touched their hearts, formed their lives, shaped their expectations, inspired them with hope, but now their hearts, previously so committed to his cause, were broken, in pieces, shattered. They are without hope, shocked, but they also experience that they no longer know what to think. They had seen the Light, but now they are in darkness. They hoped, but now they are leaving all their aspirations and expectations behind to return to their previous, old existence. They have experienced for years the power of Jesus’ presence among them, now they travel without Him, with empty hearts, with only their empty words which they share with each other.

What an “experience – these ups and downs, these light and dark moments in the spiritual journey!” One does not wish this nightmare with the bitter end, their disillusionment, even to one’s enemies. It must have been cruel to them as intimate disciples of Jesus. After the intensity of the divine presence in the live and person of Jesus, there is this void, this loneliness. They are experiencing the valleys of despair after the mountain – moments of glory. This is their “experience.” They are not speaking vaguely about some events among them. They are speaking about what happened to them, how deeply they were aware of the divine acts and presence in their recent experiences. They share their spirituality with Jesus: how they experience their faith and how they are experiencing it, also in this desperate journey to Emmaus.

But, see the other side of this picture. The conversation is not only about their experiences. We see this already in their report about Jesus. They are involved in what they are saying about Jesus, but all the time they are still speaking about Jesus. They are meditating, speaking, reflecting about Jesus, holding on to their memory of Him. They remain focussed on Jesus. It is all about their experience, but then the experience of the divine Presence and involvement in their lives as something and Someone outside themselves. They are still, in this dark moment, looking at the divine intervention in their existence.

Here two poles intersect – the divine and the human pole. They are somber, sad and without hope. But they also have been changed by the divine touch, by something, Someone outside themselves. They are still reflecting on God, Jesus, intimacy, power, hope, life.

There is this polar tension between the divine and the human. This is, then, what spirituality is all about – about the polar tension in the relationship between God and humanity. What we experience and what God does are often in a painful conflict.

Jesus does not make it much easier for the two disciples in this tension. He gives no miraculous self-revelation to them. He does no miracles or does not reveal that He is the resurrected one.

He takes the long road and opens the Bible. Let us trace the footsteps of God through the history of salvation. Look back at the divine deeds of God throughout the ages. Reflect on the divine actions long before you were even aware of Jesus. Remember, always remember that this is your salvation – that you are part of God’s great, great deeds throughout all times, part of the community of saints whose collective wisdom speaks about the mystery of God’s powerful, though often inexplicable involvement in human existence. Always live close to this collective wisdom, this understanding of the divine revelation by the many saints of all times. By engaging with them as they speak of God, you will be receiving new life, you will be initiated into the deeper wisdom, entering in ever intenser manner the mystery of God’s relationship with humanity. This is how Jesus travels with them on their spiritual journey in the new dispensation after his resurrection. If you want your broken hearts to be healed, reach out to the witnesses who spoke previously out of their experience of God’s faithfulness and love. After all, it is not “my” will, but the Father’s will which needs to be done. Bitter. The Father’s will can so often transcend our understanding. But so does, thankfully, the divine peace as well – which comes to those who live according to the divine will.

Later, the two understood this better. Then they realized why this difficult road was the better one. As they listened and meditated with Jesus on God’s word, Scripture once again set ablaze a desire in their hearts: “were not our hearts burning in us when He talked to us and opened up Scripture?” Their experience of Jesus before the resurrection and now their experience of the witness of the ages brought about a new mystical experience in them: fire burned in them. They desire for God was rekindled. They were empowered to pray, to reach out to God who has been talking to them in Scripture.

This is, then, what happens when Scripture as the witness of wisdom meets our experiences. What we have encountered in so many of our experiences, gets tested and challenged by what we read in Scriptures, in the words of wisdom, in the words of life. We reflect about who we are and what is happening to us in the light of the wisdom of all ages. And then, often, we begin to see how God really acts. And we begin to realize with awe how differently God often acts – against all expectations, even against our own will. We understand that our despair is the result of our own shortsightedness and our own servility to our will. And, as the flame of desire burns in us, we realize that our salvation is not to be found in our experiences, or in what we want, but in the divine Love who enters our experiences and opens our eyes for the new life which God gives, for the different, compassionate and unusual new ways in which God often acts. Without this light of Scripture, without the wisdom of the saints of all times, we will not survive.

Our faith is irrevocable and intricately linked to the powerful words of wisdom which God has given us as the light on our spirituality journey. Through them we are empowerd, we are given new hope, our desire for the divine Presence is rekindled. When we have come to the end of the road, in a mysterious way, God touches our innermost being and brings us to pray.