What Are You Discussing Together?

This devotional considers Luke 24:13-35.

Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him…

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

The Lord is so close. When you gather together and talk about him, about all the things happening in your city, country. When you talk about your hopes for your life, your family, your nation, the world. When you’re talking with a friend about how you were almost sure about this wonderful thing happening and then it didn’t—like you were on the cusp of a great—something, you fill in the blank—and it slipped away. Whatever it might be, I am convinced that the Lord comes alongside us in these moments to engage our faith in him. I recall now conversations with a friend and pastor outside of my late husband’s hospital room. We wrestled with so much over those days, and I know the Lord was with us then. I felt his presence at the beginning of what would be a new journey to understand my whole life in the context of who he is—the Messiah.

My encouragement today is not only to recognize and acknowledge that the Lord is in the midst of your conversations and even private reflections, but that you strongly urge him to stay with you, talk with you, open your eyes to see in a new way what you thought you knew. 

How we need him and how we need a fresh revelation of what he has done for us from the Beginning. Ask. Urge. The Lord wants to break bread with us and give us what our hearts yearn for—understanding that it’s not over, it’s not all lost even in the face of death, because he is risen. He is risen indeed. This is not just for Easter, but for every day of your life and for all that’s happening in the world.

Amen.