Encountering Jesus On the Road to Emmaus
Easter 2024. Hi, I see you. Only by your mercy God, I want to feel you.
Looking back on my childhood/teenage years, I remember the significance of Easter as a parishioner of a Catholic church. The season of Easter encompassed: specific colors, Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Stations of the Cross, Fasting, Washing of Feet (gross everyone shares), and Resurrection Sunday. And this is just a short list of the activities I remember. I wouldn’t even say I participated or understood the formal traditions of each event. What I do know is all of these shaped my faith in my Savior. I even shared HERE how “fasting” continues to shape my life. What kid wouldn’t remember the gloriousness of bringing home a palm branch on Palm Sunday?
Yet, I needed something more. I needed freedom from the things of this world. I needed intimacy with my Savior.
Easter of 2010, I went to a non-denominational church by myself at the age of twenty-one completely unsure of my future, specifically my career as an aspiring teacher battling for zero to one teaching positions. That Easter service not only changed my eternity, it also changed the trajectory of my earthly life. I watched God unveiling His plans for my life.
I encountered God.
Recently, I binged watched my favorite Chicago T.V. shows cringing in between scenes at the monstrosity of fictional events. Yet, feeling the weight of Jesus’ death doesn’t seem to move me. In more specific words, it doesn’t move my callus heart.
I told a friend this reality. I asked her, is it hard to feel the cross because I look at the joy of Easter Sunday, or is it just the condition of my heart?
How can I cringe at the pollution of fictional plots on television, but not be phased by the final payment for the wrongs I committed and the wrongs I will commit?
While I don’t know why I am numb to the brutality of Jesus’ death for my sin, I do feel this: “The Road to Emmaus.” In the wake of a cancer diagnosis and the early stages of losing my hair to chemotherapy, the account in Luke chapter 24 after Jesus’ followers discover the empty tomb describes Jesus revealing himself to two people traveling to Emmaus. My hometown pastor put it this way, “Jesus still shows up on my road to Emmaus.” HERE is that exact sermon, if you need to hear the truth of Easter in the midst of a life not going the way you “hoped for” (Luke 24:21).
Jesus still reveals himself, so that we may have peace (Luke 24: 36).
Jesus meets me on my “Road to Emmaus.”
Jesus meets you on your “Road to Emmaus.”
Jesus, meets us on our “Road to Emmaus.” We just need to recognize Him.
Lord, have mercy on me. Help me to be more vulnerable in being emotionally present versus closed off in emotion. Soften my heart to the weight of sin I choose every single day, so that I can live differently. That I may better appreciate the people you’ve surrounded me with. Lord, break down my walls, so that I can walk free. Help me recognize you in my coming and going. Help my friend reading this notice your hand on their life. I also pray the person reading this will encounter you God. That they will find security in eternity with you, and the trajectory of their life will honor you.
