Church Newsletter Article for April 2010

The Road to Emmaus

After the resurrection Jesus appeared to the disciples. But they didn’t recognize who he was until he sat down and broke the bread with them, just as he had done at The Last Supper and many times before.

Luke 24:28-35

As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. 29But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them.

30When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"

33They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34and saying, "It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon." 35Then the two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

When I read this story I thought about how often we don’t recognize when God is at work in our lives until much later, maybe years later. We suddenly realize that what we went through, be it good times or bad, that God’s hand was moving in our lives.

In college I signed up for a course on Israel, at the end of the course we went to Israel for a 10 day tour. At that time I had no plans of going into ministry. I wasn’t going so much for the religious reasons, in fact there were other trips I could choose from, but I wanted to see the place that was talked about in the news all the time. I wanted to try and understand some of the political situation and going with a professor we were given a lot of information that regular tourists might not get.

Little did I know that years later as I studied scripture, I would be able to picture the landscape, the climate, even some of the places that scripture talks about. I believe it was one of the ways God was preparing me for ministry even before I knew it myself. It would be five more years before I thought about going to seminary.

God is preparing you for something now, he is walking beside you just like the disciples on the road to Emmaus. We don’t know what he has planned, but he will reveal it to us just as he revealed himself to his disciples at the right time. Our job is to be observant in our everyday experiences-they may be part of what God has in store for us in the future.

May your Easter celebration be filled with the joy and hope of the Risen Christ!
Pastor Denise