That very day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, which lay about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were discussing with each other all the various things that had taken place. As they were discussing, and arguing with each other, Jesus himself approached and walked with them. Their eyes, though, were prevented from recognizing him.
'You're obviously having a very important discussion on your walk,' he said; 'What's it all about?'
They stood still, a picture of gloom. Then one of them, Cleopas by name, answered him.
'You must be the only person around Jerusalem,' he said,'who doesn't know what's been going on there the last few days.'
'What things?' he asked.
'To do with Jesus of Nazareth,' he said to him. 'He was a prophet. He acted with power and he spoke with power, before God and all the people. Our chief priests and rulers handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. But we were hoping that he was going to redeem Israel!
And now, what with all this, it's the third day since it happened. But some women from our group have astonished us. They went to his tomb very early this morning, and didn't find his body. They came back saying they'd seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Some of the folk with us went off to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they didn't see him.'
'You are so senseless!' he said to them. 'So slow in your hearts to believe all the things the prophets said to you! Don't you see? This is what had to happen: the Messiah had to suffer, and come into his glory!'
So he began with Moses, and with all the prophets, and explained to them the things about himself throughout the whole Bible.
Life can have it's disappointments.
We don't get into the college we had been trying so hard to get into. We can't seem to land that job will provide that sense of meaningfulness we long for. Our favorite football team can't get out of this losing streak. Our country is ruled by people obsessed with money, power and this global economic empire...people gas our children and publicly humiliate and kill our freedom fighters, all the while our religious leaders are pressing for this elusive thing called holiness and revival, with the more powerful lobbying to implement it by legislating it, enforcing it through violence rather than doing the hard work of making disciples of Messiah, developing character and raising children up in the way they should go. Which equates to not lifting a finger to help the situation, but rather makes it worse.
And yet in the midst of that, we go on walking...having the conversation, arguing and mourning the way things have turned out...it's not supposed to be like this! Why don't they just do what it says in the Bible! The answer, Jesus says, is that they are doing what it says in the Bible...the question is what role are you walking in today? What role is your church playing as a body? The city your planted in? Your nation your planted in? One of faith or one of doubt? One of truth or one of lies? One of destruction or one of healing? One of violence or one of peace? One of darkness or one of light? One of death or one of Life?
Today that's what is set before us, death or Life? I urge you to confront the darkness in you and around you by choosing Life. Chose Life now...and chose it again tomorrow and the next day and for ever more.
Are you in Messiah? The one who prayerfully suffers for the sake of the world and thereby overcomes it? Who refuses to try to overcome evil with evil, but rather to overcome evil with good? Are you one with the only hope of the nations? Or are you walking in the role of the world?
Perhaps you're the young radical who's decided that physical violence or destructive rebellion is the only way to bring healing? Perhaps you're the Sadducee who is just trying to keep the peace, as long as your bank account is filled up and checkbook balanced? Perhaps you've been the Pharisee who knows the bible like the back of your hand, but can't stand the thought of having a beer with the landscape guys, the painter and the unemployed plumber down at the pub? Or maybe you've become like Pilate who just wants to keep all these backward thinking desert people in line and stop them from bringing their violence to your doorstep or worse to upset your boss and then you can forget about re-election?
Or maybe, just maybe...you've come to the foot of the cross...or perhaps you've experienced the cross, that place of death...and on the other side of it you're finding new life springing forth in ways you never could have imagined...perhaps you have found yourself to be a fulfillment of our Lord's prayer...you've been caught up in the love of the one true God and are becoming like the man from Galilee...now you are in the world, but, strangely, you know you are not from the world, your being kept from the evil one, here to boldly announce the King and bring forth the Kingdom, the sovereign reign of God, his glad, wise order. You are a part of a royal priesthood in Messiah, the one they called a prophet, mighty in word and deed...who turned out to be the Son of God.
Maybe...hopefully...you have turned your whole self to our Father, in Jesus' name, and that is exactly where you are at. Want to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling?
This is how it works out. Everything exists for the sake of God and because of him; and it was appropriate that, in bringing many children to glory, he should make perfect, through suffering, the one who leads the way to salvation. For the one who makes others holy, and the ones who are made holy, all belong to a single family.
This is why he isn't ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters, when he says,
I will announce your name to my brothers and sisters;
I will sing your praise in the middle of the assembly,
and again,
I will place my trust in him,
and again,
Look, here I am, with the children God has given me.- Hebrews 2v10-13
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