Tragedy is often like a giant eraser, cleaning our mental tapes of preceding data. Luke tells of two followers walking hurriedly away from Jerusalem, hoping to hit Emmaus by nightfall. Their journey was fueled by the adrenaline that one possesses when life crumbles and survival is the order of the day. They are together, yet alone. We feel the poignancy of their comment when they meet the stranger and tell of their troubles.

"We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel," they say. ... The stranger--the yet unrecognized Jesus--does not respond by peppering them with homey advice ("It's always darkest before the dawn."); nor does he indulge their self-pity ("Here, here, tell me all about it."). Instead he draws them back to what they know, the Scriptures, and teaches them again the things that drew them to follow him in the first place.