17 April 2020 | Home encounters

You don’t normally invite total strangers into your home. Most of us like to guard our privacy. But, during the lockdown, we have been seeing intimately inside people’s homes. Presenters and interviewees on current affairs programmes are often broadcasting now with the help of their computer or mobile from their own home. It has been fascinating to get a glimpse of people’s kitchens, studies or sitting rooms in the background. Mostly, the rooms have been very tidy… I wonder if they always look like that! Somehow, these people now seem much more personal, now that we’ve seen them dressed casually and surrounded by the accoutrements of their homes. We are getting extraordinary access to their private space and we are seeing people in a whole new light.

In normal times, we only see what people want us to see of them. They appear in role and with a carefully maintained public persona. Whether it be the influential people we see on television or the ordinary people we (normally) meet face-to-face in everyday life, we generally get to see just the ‘mask’ they wear that hides the real person behind. Interestingly, the original meaning of the word ‘persona’ in Latin was ‘a theatrical mask’. Of course, at the moment masks have a rather different connotation – we’ll be thinking particularly of the masks that are a vital part of health-workers’ and social-care workers' protection against COVID-19. But, ordinarily, masks are something people hide behind. Occasionally the mask slips, but normally people, ourselves included, project a certain image of themselves. The problem comes if we simply behave for effect. Jesus reserved some of his harshest words for ‘hypocrites’ – the word meant ‘play actors’ in the original Greek.

Currently, we’re getting to see behind people’s normal masks and, thankfully, I think we’re generally appreciating what we see. When on television we see people in their own homes, we’re seeing them not just as public figures but as fellow human beings. There have been moments when our national leaders have revealed themselves not only as hard-working but also as deeply vulnerable. There is a determination to beat the COVID-19 virus, not in the name of any political party or nation, but for the sake of our common humanity. Perhaps we are beginning to have a renewed sense that we are all sons and daughters of one heavenly Father.

It seems fitting that one of the first encounters between the risen Jesus and his followers happened in an ordinary home in a village called Emmaus. Cleopas and another, unnamed, follower of Jesus had arrived at the house, which, presumably, belonged to one or other of them, in the late-afternoon. They had been joined on the road to Emmaus by a stranger and they had begun talking with him about Jesus’ crucifixion and the rumour that his tomb was now empty. As it was getting late, they had invited the stranger into the house, to stay with them. Then something astonishing happened - Luke tells us: ‘When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight’ (Luke 24:30-31). It had in fact been the risen Jesus walking and talking with them on their journey. They now knew why they’d felt that their ‘hearts had been burning’ (Luke 24:32) as they talked with him and listened to him interpreting the scriptures. Jesus revealed himself as their companion and fellow traveller as he shared an ordinary meal in an ordinary home at Emmaus. 

Image: ‘The Supper at Emmaus’, Caravaggio (1571 – 1610), National Gallery London (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License)

I love this painting by Caravaggio of the supper at Emmaus (normally on display at the National Gallery). The artist displays such exquisite handling of light and dark. The details seem so realistic – including the bowl of fruit that seems about to topple off the front of the table. The picture seems to break through into the viewer’s plane and, as it were, draw you into the scene. We are invited into this ordinary home, where something extraordinary is happening. The risen Jesus reveals himself, so that we can, by his grace, find our true selves and fulfil our potential as God’s sons and daughters. I’m so glad that we were invited by the scriptures and the artist into this home at Emmaus! 

Philip