Christ Lutheran Church in Aptos, CA
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They were walking away... On that road in Emmaus, the two disciples arenât heading toward Jerusalem; toward the tomb, the community, or whatever might come next. Theyâre heading out of Dodge. Fleeing.
And who can blame them?! The man theyâd put all their chips on was dead. But the tomb was empty, which was actually worse than if theyâd found him there. At least, if they could just see a body, they could grieve. Have some closure.
Humans need incarnate (bodily) hope. Incarnate closure.
They were walking, talking, and rehearsing the catastrophe when a stranger falls into step behind them.
âWhat are you discussing?â he asks, which means heâs oblivious. He clearly doesnât understand how bad things are.
They stop. Stare. Probably give him what my 12yo daughter calls the âbombastic side-eye.â
Cleopas, one of the motley crew, answers the stranger: âYou must be the only one around here who hasnât heard the news.â
The stranger asks them to please, say more. So they do. They lay out the whole sad story. The execution. The hope theyâd had (past tense). They HAD been hoping. But they donât do that anymore.
I think we all know that walk, right?
My dad was born in 1944 in Hot Springs, Arkansas. When he was 6yo, he lost his father (my grandpa, Jewel Ellison) to colon cancer. My grandma Modean remarried a few years later, and from what I hear, the Ellisons didnât take kindly to the new arrangement. There was tension; the kind that builds for years in small towns and tight families.
When my dad was about 10yo, there was a graveyard cleanup day. Those little family-owned cemeteries in the rural South, where the local families tend the grounds themselves. Something was said. And a fight broke out. Not just an argument. It was a family feud. The stuff of Southern Gothic stories. That primal, tribal ping in the hive mind had triggered. It was the Ellisons vs. the McKelroys. But only the women were there (with the kids). It was a lady-fight (ugly). And because it was a graveyard cleanup day, there were shovels and pickaxes involved. No joke. It got ugly. My grandpaâs sister had my grandma on the ground. It got so bad that someone had to flag down a passing train to break up the fight (no cell phones to call 911 in the 1950s).
My dad was there. He saw the whole bloody, traumatic, shameful thing. And shortly thereafter, my grandma packed up the family and headed west with her new husband to California and never looked back. My dad carried that gaping wound of that day for the rest of his life. He never saw a therapist, just held it in the way men of his generation held things: silently, and at a huge cost.
Years later, right around the time I was born in the year of our Lord 1979, there was a family court hearing about some land back in Hot Springs.
My dad flew back, hoping he might inherit a piece of it. But he didnât. He told me the land he thought heâd get went to the aunt who attacked my grandma. Old wounds were reopened.
So on his way out... On the road out from Jerusalem (or Jessieville, AR in his case) â fueled by grief and resentment and whatever else moves a person to do things like this â he went to that graveyard. Found his fatherâs grave. And took his gravestone home to CA with him.
A small marker, maybe forty pounds, with the initials J.E.
He was done. Once and for all. And he took what he could to remind him of what he was SURE, this time, heâd walk away from forever.
When I was a little older, he pulled that stone out of the basement and handed it to me. Told me the whole story. And then he said, with intense sadness in his eyes, âJonas, this stone belongs in Hot Springs, not here in California. Itâd be great if you could return it someday. Itâs beautiful there.â But he had no idea where that cemetery was.
If youâve been to the South, you know that those winding backroads are dotted with little family graveyards. The idea of finding one specific plot seemed impossible. Google brought up nothing. I did some searching, but ultimately gave up. And Iâve been lugging this blasted gravestone around with me ever since. Alex and I have moved 156 times, I think. And every move, I pack this thing in the van.
But then... a couple months ago... I got an email. From a woman named Lynda. She asked if I was Johnny Ellison from Hot Springsâ son. Sheâd found me on 23andMe. I replied: Yep, you got the right guy... I told her my dad died a few months before my daughter Rory was born in 2013. Itâs one of the great tragedies of my life that they never got to meet. Who are you, I asked?
She wrote me a long email, which I read, and wept... Said sheâs my dadâs cousin. In her mid-80s. And sheâd been there that day in the graveyard with the pitchforks and fists and shovels flying.
She described what sheâd seen:
Said my grandpaâs sister had a hunting knife on her belt when she had my grandma on the ground. Lynda (who was a child at the time) had the foresight to go up and take it. Hid it. She didnât want anyone getting stabbed. (When I called her the first time, she told me about it again over the phone - her voice shook as she recounted the details.)
And... She told me the graveyard is right across the street from her property in Jessieville, Arkansas â outside Hot Springs, in the Ouachita Mountains (claim to fame: Mountain Valley!). And then she told me I had extended cousins (kinfolk, as she puts it) back there. Dozens of them!
Resurrection works in the weirdest ways, doesnât it?
Before that email exchange, I thought I had two living blood relatives. Neither of them carry my last name. I never knew any other Ellisons besides my dad (my two uncles on his side have a different father and last name). Now, suddenly, I had an army of fellow Ellisons I never knew existed.
Alex and I flew out to Arkansas a couple weeks ago. I shipped the gravestone in advance. On the first day there, I hiked up above Hot Springs to the Mountain Tower. The tower was closed, but there was this beautiful overlook. I was alone. But I wasnât. I felt my dadâs presence and said out loud, âI finally made it here, dad.â And as the sun set over those mountains, I thought about the generations of Ellisons and McKelroys those hills have held.
The next day, I went to Aunt Lyndaâs property. I call her Aunt Lynda now. When I looked at her face, I saw my dadâs eyes looking back at me.
Resurrection works in the weirdest ways.
Rory got to meet her. When Rory hugged Aunt Lynda, something snapped back into place. A missing piece. Rory was connected incarnationally (in the flesh) to her ancestral Ellison line.
And then, the big event... We went to the graveyard. We passed headstone after headstone with the Ellison name. And finally, we found it: Jewel Ellison. November 14, 1920 - October 16, 1950. I dug a small hole at the foot of the grave (are footstones a thing out here??). Rory helped me lower it into the ground and put it back where it belonged.
What had been broken years ago was finally redeemed. The weight of that moment was immense.
Resurrection works in the weirdest ways.
That night, we had a big gathering at my newfound cousin Charleyâs beautiful home (sheâs technically a cousin, but because sheâs in her mid 60s, I call her âAunt Charlieâ). I met so many Ellisons that night - they all live near each other. On the way to her house, we passed Ellison road. That cemetery is at the base of her property.
The next day, we drove up to Little Rock to visit my dadâs other cousin, Dwayne, who, of course, I now call Uncle Dwain. He and my dad were childhood friends before my dad moved to CA. Heâs also in his mid 80s, but still very sharp. Plays golf multiple times a week and is VERY active. When I walked in and hugged him for the first time, I wasnât just embracing a guy Iâd never met. I was embracing my dad, in a very real way. He smelled like my dad. My dad, who died 13 years ago... Who I never thought Iâd lay a hand on again... Was present bodily in Dwayne. His eyes welled up. Those eyes looked at me like I was someone theyâd been waiting a long time to see. I had to fight my tears back.
His daughter, Anndra, and her daughter, Clare, were there. Clare is 13, Roryâs age, and they hit it off. Rory now has a little cousin BFF.
The disciples on the road to Emmaus had it exactly right: something was over. Something had ended. They werenât wrong about the facts on paper. They just couldnât see what God was doing with those facts.
My dad took that stone in a moment of grief and fury, and he was not wrong to feel those things. He just couldnât see what God was doing with his brokenness. How the very act of breakingâof taking that stone, of moving to CA, of dying before his only grandchild was bornâwas somehow the thing that sent me back with such a burning heart. Sent me to Aunt Lyndaâs email. Sent me to those mountains. Sent me to that graveyard with an awesome kid named Rory and a 40lb stone.
Thatâs the Easter claim.
Resurrection. Works. In very. Weird. Ways.
God has this stubborn habit of working resurrection precisely through the things that look most like endings. You have your own endings. But the Easter proclamation is they do NOT have the last word.
If you look closely enough, I think youâll see that your life is riddled with the same fingerprints of God working the same events of death and resurrection.
The disciples didnât recognize Jesus until he broke the bread. And there it is: the breaking is when they finally see him. And by then, heâs gone again. And also, everywhere.
Sometimes it takes a long Emmaus road before you start to see who was walking toward you all along.
The risen one. Alleluia. Amen.
Made me cry. Thanks J E