Finding Our Way Back Home

Walking down the dusty road, Cleopas and his friend had little to say to each other. Their collective heartache and disappointment weighed down their normally busy tongues. For the past seven miles fewer than seven words had passed between them.

The mountain city of Jerusalem’s beauty faded in the distance behind them. They’re halfway to their home in Emmaus. (Why does it always seem like the closer we get to home, the farther away it gets?)

Five days ago, they had traveled to Jerusalem with hearts full of hope, anticipation, and excitement. Now they traveled with hearts full of disbelief, disillusionment, and discouragement.

Focusing on the rocks in their path, they paid no attention to the people they met and passed.

“How could we have been so wrong?” Cleopas finally asked. “Everything pointed to him being the Messiah. He was supposed to be our new King. I thought this was our time, the time for Israel to be a power to be reckoned with, like in the days of our forefather King David.”

“I know, I know,” his friend replied. “I kept expecting him to call us to arms so we could deliver him from those Roman dogs. Did you see how they treated him? It was humiliating!”

Wagging his head, Cleopas rejoins, “Watching him drag that despised cross through the streets like a slave was an embarrassment to the whole Jewish nation!”

“And then,” his friend said, “when they nailed him to the cross…”

“We were foolish to believe any of it!” Cleopas added.

Out of the corner of his eye Cleopas noticed a man walking beside them. Expecting him to move forward past them, Cleopas offered an almost imperceptive nod of acknowledgment in the stranger’s direction.

The stranger was Jesus, but they didn’t recognize him.

“What are you two discussing so intently?” Jesus asked.

Cleopas responds, “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard what’s happened during the last few days?”

“What has happened?” Jesus quizzed them.

Cleopas and his friend swapped looks of incredulity.

Cleopas decided to illuminate the stranger.

“We’re talking about all the things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene. We were convinced he was a man of God, a prophet, dynamic in work and word, blessed by both God and all the people. But our high priests and leaders betrayed him, got him sentenced to death, and crucified him. It was our hope that he was the One, the One about to deliver Israel.

“It’s now been three days since it happened and some of our women have completely confused us. Early this morning they were at the tomb and couldn’t find his body. They came back with the story that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. Some of our friends went off to the tomb to check and found it empty just as the women said, but they didn’t see Jesus.”

Continuing their walk toward Emmaus, Jesus took a direct and challenging tone with them.

“So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets said? Don’t you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?”

Jesus then started at the beginning, quoting from the books of Moses and from the prophets, pointing out everything in the scriptures that referred to him.

Though they listened intently to his words, they were still blind.

As they begin coming to the edge of Emmaus, Jesus bade them adieu to continue his journey. But they urged him to stay and have supper with them.

“It’s nearly evening. Little daylight is left. Why don’t you stay with us this evening?”

Jesus agreed and entered their home.

At the evening meal Jesus took the bread, broke it, and gave it to them.

There was familiarity in the gesture and the manner in which Jesus did it, and the two men stared at him.

Suddenly their eyes were opened, their discouragement dissolved, their disbelief evaporated, disillusionment gave way to reality — He lives!

Back on the road they went, but this time they headed toward Jerusalem to share with everyone the good news! Jesus is who he said he was. He is the Messiah!

Have you ever been in Cleopas’s shoes?

Have you ever been so disappointed in others, or yourself, or God that you lost your way from Him?

Have so many bad things happened in your life that you doubted if He was real?

Have heartbreak and sadness come between you and God?

It happens. We are a wandering people.

If today finds you on the road to Emmaus, leaving God behind, don’t lose heart. You can find your way home again. Simply follow the example of Cleopas and his friend.

• Spend time walking with Jesus.

• Be open and honest with him about your hurt, disappointment, and doubt.

• Pour your heart out to him.

• Allow your heart to be open to hearing him again.

• Sit quietly with him.

• Give God’s Spirit room to apply salve to your wounds.

And most importantly, don’t give up too soon.

Cleopas and his friend came within a hair’s breadth of missing out. If they hadn’t asked Jesus to stay and eat with them, if they’d let him continue on his way, they would never have learned the most important truth they would ever learn.

As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous: Don’t give up before the miracle!

* Taken from The Wit and Wisdom of David Johnson, Volume 1: I Didn’t Know Donkeys Could Laugh.