The Biblical story for our postmodern era is that of Jesus and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. We don’t know the nature of the new age we are entering, only that it is postmodern. The sun is setting on the modern idols of technology and secularism. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, only that it is “post-whatever we are in now.”

Ours is a time of disillusionment, even discouragement. Like the two disciples walking away from Jerusalem, we don’t know where we are headed. We might even think, as they did, that all is lost. The Christian Church is in terminal decline.

Little did they know, they were walking alongside the One who embodies new life. The two disciples thought He was dead. Instead, He had risen into a new form of life, eternal living. Living in eternity, even though His feet were planted on earth.

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The Church in the Western world today has much to lament. The story of triumphalism is dead and buried. Christian civilization is gone, although many influences remain. Christian believers ride in the caboose rather than see sunny vistas from the driver’s seat up front. Our glorious history has been vandalized as the stories of clergy sexual abuse, our inhumane role in colonialism and the patriarchal oppression of women have come to light. The Crusades and the Inquisition are no longer seen as victories for God’s power and truth. Rather, they are seen for what they are – violent, brutal suppression of human dignity.

Then there is the sharp decline in vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life. Monasteries that were bustling with activity only decades ago are today almost empty or have been turned into tourist sites. Some churches are near empty or have closed.

Pope John Paul II called for the entry into the second millennium to be a time of repentance for the evils perpetrated in the Church’s name. Only then can the hoped-for new evangelization take root.

This new evangelization is not a return to a past where every newly baptized child was seen as the extension of God’s reign. We are now called less to broadening the Kingdom than to deepening it.

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Have the sacraments lost their efficacy? No, but we believers must assume responsibility for the difficult task of spreading the Gospel. We spread it first with the witness of our lives. Once that witness is clear, we might speak about the Jesus who gives us hope.

The past is not coming back, but the future may be even more magnificent. The Book of Hebrews says, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.”

The basis of community organizing and corporate development is that you must have a plan. If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there? However, Abraham “looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

His task, like that of the disciples at Emmaus, was to be faithful and let God act through history. Draw too many road maps, and no room remains for divine leadership.

The great misinterpretation of the Second Vatican Council has been to focus on externalities. Many reforms were and are needed, but they are not the heart of the matter. The council called us to find ourselves in the person of the Word Made Flesh. Everyone is called to holiness, that is, to live in the presence of the Divine.

To leave behind our status-seeking, consumerism and self-will is an enormous undertaking. We must always be vigilant, not only to avoid evil but to seek God’s presence in the unexpected. The Czech priest and theologian Tomas Halik contends we are on the threshold of what he calls “The Afternoon of Christianity.” The afternoon of life is “a spiritual journey, a descent into the depths.” It can bear fruit through insight, wisdom and peace.

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However, it contains a danger. Bad aging may instead bring rigidity, suspicion, pettiness and self-pity.

Nothing is foreordained except for God’s grace. Easter’s resurrection reveals the fullness of our humanity. Our task is to draw nearer to Jesus in our thoughts, words and deeds – to make time for Jesus and to cross-examine ourselves when even our thoughts go astray. We may not have a plan, but we will meet him in the dawn that will break.