On Our Way to Emmaus

Walking along a dusty road, two friends mourning the loss of a loved one exchange furtive glances as the stranger queries the source of their noticeable sadness.   

“Are you a stranger then to this region?” they rejoin, wondering how it possible that this man could be so seemingly oblivious of the grounds for their emotionally charged dialogue.  “Know you not the things which have transpired as of late here?” 

 

“What things?” he politely counters. 

“Why the matter “[c]oncerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done . . . and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.” (Luke 24:19-24)

Regardless of the outsider’s supposed unawareness concerning the matter, he demonstrates a thorough familiarity of the prophet in question when, “beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expound[s] unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning him. . .” (Luke 24:27) 

Drawing near their intended destination, they constrain the foreigner who seems intent to continue his sojourn in spite of the daylight’s termination to remain with them.  Yielding to their appeal, he joins them for an evening meal. And “as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.” (Luke 24:30-31)

Stunned, the companions glance frantically for their absent associate, stupefied at what has transpired before their very eyes.  “And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? “ (Luke 24:32)

 As we stumble down the dusty roads of this existence, lost in our loneliness and tripped up by our trials may we look to and recognize Him who has traversed all the lanes of our life.  Let us open our hearts to His ways and His words:

“I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:20)

We who by our very nature forget so easily may find it difficult to comprehend a God that has us always before His face, yet we are for He has “graven [us] upon the palms of [His] hands; [our] walls are continually before [Him].”  (Isaiah 49:16)

For us He was battered and beaten, scarred and sacrificed.  Why do we let doubt and fear have sway in our hearts when we know firsthand the indelible mark that pain etches on the soul?  He whose “suffering caused [him]self, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that [He] might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—“  (D&C 19:18-19) cannot and will not forget us.  We are His.

“Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.“ (1 Corinthians 7:23)  

Let us not be guilty of investing our spiritual capital in things of in-consequence with the same veracity and reckless abandon that our government has the dollars of its citizenry.  Let us follow more faithfully in the footsteps of our Savior as we traverse our individual trail to Emmaus.