Maybe you saw Hylton Murray-Philipson being given a clapping guard of honour by NHS staff as he left Leicester Royal Hospital just over a week ago. He had spent 12 days in the hospital, 5 of them in intensive care after being diagnosed with Covid-19, and in his own words ‘reduced to the state of a baby.’
On Good Friday he was interviewed by Nick Robinson on Radio 4’s Today programme. Because it was Good Friday and because he was following ‘Thought For The Day’ Hylton thought it was appropriate to mention that when he was at his lowest in intensive care he had a powerful image of Jesus calming the Sea of Galilee. He said: ‘I like to think that was Jesus Christ coming to me and helping me in my time of need.’
Nick was obviously a bit wrong footed by this and suggested that in all likelihood this was because of the heavy drugs he had been given. ‘(It) plays tricks with the mind, doesn’t it really?’ he said. Nick himself is something of an inspirational figure having come through oesophageal cancer but unfortunately is no stranger to this kind of careless comment. Whatever his own personal views and whatever sustained him in his time of need more respect could have been shown to another’s experience.
That experience is what I would call an Emmaus encounter. (Luke 24: 13-35) It has been pointed out that nobody quite knows where Emmaus was but so what? It could be anywhere around Jerusalem and the experience could be anywhere in the world. Two followers of Jesus were coming from Jerusalem disappointed by Jesus’ death and bewildered by reports of the empty tomb. They are joined by a mysterious stranger who turns their minds to Scripture and shows them that everything that happened was according to God’s purpose. Later when they realised the stranger was Jesus they spoke of what it was like listening to Him:
‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened up the Scriptures to us?’ (Luke 24: 32)
Perhaps none of us can expect an Emmaus encounter exactly like this but Christians like Hylton do know what it’s like to feel their hearts warmed with the assurance of Christ’s presence with them. Mary Magdalene knew it in the midst of her grief outside the tomb; Jesus disciples knew it in a locked room in Jerusalem; the disciples knew it later as they worked unsuccessfully at their nets; Peter knew it as the Risen Lord probed his inner being and was given assurance for the future.
I prickle a bit when I hear Christians speak about ‘thin places’, locations where the presence of Christ can be especially experienced. He is risen in the noisiest place as well as the quietest, in the hospital ward as well as the cathedral, in the high rise flat as well as the highest mountain. When Auschwitz was liberated an image of Christ was found on the wall of one of the cells. Later it was discovered that one of the prisoners had gouged it out with his fingernails. It is painful to think of that. But it was surely done in the faith that the Christ of the empty tomb was present even in that worst of places. That is the message of Easter. Christ is risen not just in the controlled atmosphere of a Church or the majestic sweep of a landscape. The light from the tomb scattered the darkness of the cross and challenges us to believe with Paul that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 39)
