They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" —LUKE 24:32, NRS
I think it’s safe to say... it's hard to figure out in middle-class, 21st-century America what it means to follow Jesus. It's hard to discern what dying to self looks like in any given instance. Do I pursue a job promotion, or is this "selfish ambition and vain conceit"? Do I take a holiday in the Bahamas, or is this a damnable failure to be "rich toward God," a failure to give to someone in need when I have material possessions? Can I buy a season's pass at a ski resort, tickets to my favorite sport’s team or is this gross self-indulgence?
Now that Easter has passed for another year and thoughts of renewal and recommitment are swirling in our heads, let’s contemplate a condition that confounds us and often slows or outright derails our walk with Christ.
So many Christians start their journey with Christ, but somewhere, somehow, end up stranded... marooned in confusion about the makeup of life as a Christian in a world in opposition to all things Christian. They feel like they're living precariously in-between worlds. In the beginning they were passionately enthused about being a follower of Christ, but end up slowly drifting into indifference about God, His Church and His mission. They stop talking about God and the things of God. They can talk about everything else with ease and eloquence, but their tongues thicken, twist, grow mute about naming and proclaiming God. There’s great danger in this subtle transformation in the wrong direction. These kinds of Christians have a shallow faith. In fact, the most their faith amounts to is just mere talk. It’s as if they’ve transformed into a talking cult.
Maybe some of these questions are ringing in your head right now: Where is this huge, exultant freedom for which Christ set me free? Why do I still fret over downturns in the financial markets, get irked by reckless drivers, harbor grudges over petty things, care more about my rhododendron bush than about the soul of the boy who broke its branches playing street hockey? Why can I sustain a capacity to explore, in my mind, vast tracts of an imaginary world, but can barely focus my prayers on God for more than 60 seconds... if at all?
The most wondrous, breath taking truth anyone will ever contemplate is the story of the triune God and his ways with humanity. But the slightest of distractions can redirect anyone’s focus away from that wondrous story. With all that life has to offer... setting aside time to dwell on the importance of God’s story and its vast array of meaning for life seems a sacrifice, and sometimes, just a plain nuisance.
Maybe you know someone who wants a deeper, richer experience with Christ, but they find themselves aimlessly whiling away their days. Their days pass in a blurring swiftness and yet drag on in a dreary sameness—in jobs they dislike, in relationships that baffle and hurt them, with financial worries and health problems. They have not opened themselves to seeing God’s way of understanding these things and they resist accepting God’s timeless truths and promises as the foundation for living.
They don't feel fulfilled. And they carry a secret dread: Is there more to this life... am I the only one missing it? Or worse: Is this it, and everyone's pretending it's enough? Now, you wouldn’t expect “Christians” to have these sorts of feelings... but they surely do and more so all the time.
Maybe you don’t have the cross of Christ firmly planted in your eye! Jesus, newly risen from the dead, joined with two of his disciples—one named Cleopas, and the other not named... as they walk to the village of Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35).
Jesus asks these fellows what they’re discussing. Gloomily, they tell him about "Jesus of Nazareth," a "prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people." They speak about how the religious rulers handed him over to be crucified. "But we had hoped," they say, "that he was the one to redeem Israel." They tell about the rumors told by womenfolk—more troubling than consoling—of his resurrection. One thing is for sure: the tomb is empty, bodiless. They’re confused, scared and feeling a deep sense of hopelessness.
Jesus listens, and then speaks. "Oh, how foolish you are," he says, "and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?"
When they arrive at the village, these two persuade Jesus—whom they still do not recognize—to eat with them. He does, and as Jesus breaks the bread, gives thanks, and gives it to them, "their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, 'Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?' "
The heart condition of these two guys is a paradox... slow and burning. Maybe that’s a more common affliction than any of us comprehend about ourselves. One definition of Christ's followers might be that... “people of the slow, burning heart.” Sorrow and hope, awe and self-pity, wonder and worry, believing and doubting, yes and no mix loosely and easily in us, tugging us one way, jostling us another.
Jesus walks with us in our Christian life. But we can look straight at him and not recognize him. Jesus opens the Scriptures to us and something happens within us... a warming sometimes, a scorching at other times. And just at those moments, when finally the scales fall from our eyes and we see that Jesus is working in us, transforming us... at that wondrous moment, he up and vanishes.
Our encounters with the risen Christ are mostly like that. Enigmatic, fleeting, mere glimpses, little ambushes. And we're left with the question, "Didn't our hearts burn within us? Didn't they?" Why is it this way for Christians?
The story of these two men on the road to Emmaus has deep meaning and application for our lives in walking with Christ. Our journey with Christ will most certainly be haunted by "what ifs" and "whys," by the pain of loss. It is a journey of nostalgia and lament. One refrain of the journey is "but we had hoped . …" (v. 21). Jesus is always near us, with us in our walk, but seldom do we recognize His influence or the ways He cares for us. When we do, the moment of epiphany, the moment of seeing the risen Christ working in our lives, is often sparked and sealed, not by grand gestures, but by simple things, like the breaking of bread in thankfulness or a kind gesture to someone less fortunate. We are the slow-hearted and the burning-hearted... like a paradox criss-crossing but never merging and resolving.
One of our persistent cultural myths is the myth of fulfillment. It’s the promise that, on this earth, the fullness of all you truly need and all you desire will be gained... hence personal satisfaction and life fulfillment. And it's not just a secular myth. It's a Christian one, too. Maybe it's especially Christian. The expectation of being fulfilled and satisfied in this life causes Christians to remove God from life’s equation when certain expectations are not realized.
It’s hard to see things from a spiritual dimension, especially when we’re going through hard times or we’re feeling unfulfilled. Still, though, I think we do the same thing Cleopas did. When the going got tough, Cleopas removed God from his life equation. When the going gets tough for us, we often do the same thing. Your mind takes you on a roller coaster ride from... “God has really blessed me” to “God has abandoned me! Why is God allowing these things in my life? I have to figure out what to do now.”
Cleopas and his friend on their way to Emmaus were walking and talking with a sense of doom and gloom because they had their own agenda of how things were supposed to go, and that determined their expectations of Jesus. Many of the followers of Jesus had the wrong thinking about what the Messiah was supposed to be and do. They were looking for someone who would recapture the glory days of King David and bring back to Israel the power and prosperity she once enjoyed, making her the world power of the day. But compared to the reality that lay before them – Roman oppression and a dead Jesus – their hopes for glory seemed to have been utterly destroyed.
We Christians do the same thing. How? Some people approached their faith with the idea that once a Christian they shouldn’t have any more problems in life. Be honest with yourself... such thinking goes something like this... “God, if You will do XYZ for me – if You will give me what I want – then I will follow You. I will do what You want me to do, I’ll live the way You tell me I should in Your Word, I’ll be so happy and everything will be right with the world if You’ll just respond the way I want.” And then when our own agenda, our own expectations of Jesus fail to be met, we are left wondering what’s going on. We begin to question everything... even the reliability of Jesus.
Cleopas and his friend had an even bigger problem than just the confusion of the events of Jesus execution and death.They failed to acknowledge the resurrection. If these two followers had acknowledge the resurrection they had already been told about, two things would have been true for them. First, they would have been walking toward Jerusalem to see the risen Lord, not away from the city. Second, they would have seen the trials, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus as the fulfillment of all He promised, not as the end of their hopes. Because they didn’t acknowledge the resurrection, because it hadn’t made an impact on their lives, they were suffering a sense of hopelessness.
The portrait of the faithful is not a portrait of the fulfilled. What defines all Christians... is trust in what God has promised... it defines our hope and builds a deep sustaining faith. A slow and burning heart. What defines us is a yearning, knowing in our bones, in spite of loss or sorrow or aloneness or disappointment, that there is something more, something better that awaits us. What defines us today in this life is an unshakable conviction that we may only see Christ through a glass darkly, in little fleeting puzzling glimpses, but that one day we will see Him face-to-face. Trust that promise. Build your hope around it and your faith will grow deep and sustain you through life’s inevitable disappointments.
When Cleopas and his friend understood their encounter with the risen Jesus... they certainly experienced a great sense of fulfillment... their hearts were smoldering with passion for their risen Lord. Were they fulfilled after this? We’re all of their life challenges and problems resolved for them? That is very doubtful. If the stories of the other disciples give us any clues, the best response to such a question... Were they fulfilled? is to answer, That's the wrong question. Was Paul fulfilled? Was Peter? Was John? Was Luke? Was Timothy? It's the wrong question.
Fulfillment is heaven's business. Our ultimate joy and satisfaction awaits us in the hands of God. What Paul, Peter, John, Cleopas, his friend and all Christians know, then and now, is that we must hold firmly in our hearts like a slow smoldering burning fire the hope that Jesus is the risen Lord. That He sits a the right-hand of God and all His promises have and will continue to be true as time unfolds.
The same God who spoke the words that created all there is, speaks His Word again and again to us every day. How many of us have lived apart from God’s Word, and then wondered why we’re on the meandering walk we find ourselves on? Feeling dazed, confused. lost and abandoned? How many times have we cried out to God wondering where He is, while His Word in our Bibles sits on the book shelf collecting dust?
We need to know this Word of God. Ignorance of the Bible comes from ignoring the Bible, and ignoring the Bible puts us right in the same place as Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus. We become like ones who don’t see as we should, ones who see with a distorted perception, believing in unrealistic expectations and unwilling to accept the simple knowable truths of God.
Finally, and what may be the hardest thing for most of us... learning to trust and accept God’s timing. No one likes God’s timing because it just never seems to mess with ours.
However, God in His perfect discernment, did not allow Cleopas and his friend to recognize Jesus until the time was right. He didn’t allow them to suffer in grief a moment longer than was absolutely necessary, yet He didn’t end their discomfort before an important lesson could be learned.
Spiritual maturity never happens instantaneously. Spiritual growth and our sustaining faith requires a journey, and journeys take time. Trust God’s will and trust His timing. He is faithful to the faithful.
