Encounters with Christ: On The Road to Emmaus

By Guest Writer

I didn’t know who he was. I stood in line at a fundraiser next to a man who introduced himself as Scott. I then asked him what he did for a living, and he told me he was the Attorney General for the State of Oklahoma.

Aha. Okay. So much for being aware of my own important state officials!

In Luke 24:13-35, followers of Jesus were walking back from Jerusalem. They’d just witnessed the Messiah’s death by crucifixion. Their hopes and dreams had been dashed. Nothing was what they had expected it to be. It was a profoundly disappointing journey.

Perhaps you can relate. Your dreams didn’t turn out either. Your career isn’t going as you had hoped. Your marriage isn’t what you wanted, or else you want to be married and aren’t. You have a deep rage or shame or unease in your life. You’re trapped or stuck or mad. You can’t seem to get out of the hole. You’re never good enough, or handsome enough, or wise or strong or capable enough.

We can feel like we’re walking these roads alone.

But we’re not. It very well may be that when we wake up or come to our senses, we’ll realize we’re talking to a Very Important Person. It’s not the Attorney General, but the resurrected Christ! Jesus was there with these disciples on this lonely, sad road. They weren’t alone. He was with them. He explained to them all about what He was doing and how He was working all throughout time and even then. Even now He is working.

We read, “Their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him. And He vanished from their sight. They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures’” (Luke 24:31-32)?

That made all the difference. Jesus opened their eyes so they could see Him, to know He had been with them and to understand what He had been doing, teaching, showing, and saying to them.

Their response? “They rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:33-35).

They rejoiced to know the Lord, and they couldn’t help but tell others about what they’d just witnessed. They had seen the risen Lord! Jesus was alive! Death was not the final answer. They perhaps hadn’t understood it all, but Jesus had met them in their sadness and He had turned it to gladness. He had been patient with them in walking with them in their confusion, but He had shown them the way.

That’s better than a surprise meeting with Attorney General (but I’ll recognize him next time!).

Written By Doug Serven