Month: December 2010

For Cleopas and his unnamed friend, Passover in Jerusalem would never be the same. No Passover would be the same for them because their eyes had recorded new, horrific memories of their innocent friend treated inhumanly, brutally, unjustly, without decency or mercy. No more sacrifices could be made without remembering the way He had been sheared and cut up and stretched out on a pagan cross. What they had seen with their eyes had affected their hearts.

Unanswered Questions. Disappointed Hopes. Unfulfilled Dreams. This was emotional luggage the 2 men trudging home to Emmaus didn’t need. Behind them lay the Holy City and events that made no sense to them, but what happened there will never leave them.

Eyes on the path, each step created puffs of dust which arose and caked their sandaled feet. Their intermittent conversation of the trial, the betrayal, the scourging, the nails, the blood, the cross seemed to mix in with the muffled confusion they heard in the muted voices of other travelers.

Neither man noticed when another Stranger fell in to their company. With their eyes restrained, they were unaware that the Resurrected Christ now accompanied them on their journey. What kept those 2 men from seeing the Living Lord of Glory? Disappointment can define our field of vision and what we focus upon. These two followers of Jesus had seen Him die. What’s left to do? We might as well go home to Emmaus.

You seem to be in a deep discussion, the Stranger spoke. What has created such sadness in you?

The 2 men stopped short, grief written across their faces. Cleopas, replied, You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days.

What things? this Stranger asked, and somehow, the question, something about the way He listened breached the dam of their grief and out poured their pain-drenched story.

One responded first, What things? The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth. He was a prophet who did wonderful miracles. He was a mighty teacher, regarded by both God and all the people. But our leading priests and other religious leaders conspired to arrest him and handed him over to be condemned to death, and they CRUCIFIED HIM! But He was the Messiah! And, his voice trailing off, We thought he was the Messiah.

Cleopas continued, That all happened three days ago. Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, Jesus’ body was gone, just as the women had said.

After a long while, the Stranger began to talk and His grasp of the Scriptures was remarkable. He explained things to them in a way like no rabbi they had ever heard. But before He talked, He had listened. He created the space and gave them the floor to share what their eyes had seen and what their hearts felt.

Jesus did not rise from death to merely establish a theological fact for us to acknowledge. He rises from the dead to you, to me. He rose from the dead to sidle beside us on the journey; to hear our hearts, to listen to our doubts, to attend to certain aching realities. Raised from the dead, Jesus walks the Emmaus road not just to explain what we cannot understand, but to hear every wounded word that flows from a troubled heart.

Their journey to Emmaus began with such eagerness to leave the pain of Jerusalem behind as quickly as possible, but now it was ending way too soon. With their hearts burning, they encouraged this still unknown Stranger to remain with them and to take food. The lateness of the evening reveals that Jesus was willing to linger with them for as long as it took.

As they sat down to eat, their Guest took a small loaf of bread, asked God’s blessing on it, broke it, then gave it to them. And something happened. A veil was pulled away from their spiritual eyes and revelation seemed to flood into their souls like torrents and waves.

Their eyes were opened.

You know the way He took the bread in His hands, the way broke it and handed it to us. That seems strangely familiar. Haven’t we seen these hands multiply bread and fish to feed thousands? Haven’t we seen those hands laid upon sick children, paralyzed men, demonized women? Wait, didn’t we see those hands nailed to a cross?

While He listens well, He also speaks. He does have answers. He spoke to those disappointed travelers. You’re being rather foolish, aren’t you! Do you find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. Wasn’t it clearly predicted by the prophets that Messiah must suffer what you have witnessed before entering His glory?

As He spoke, something began to happen inside of them. Revelation overcame disappointment. Truth shattered walls of disbelief.

Their hearts burned.

Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us? Did not His words create a fire in inside of us?

That is the power of word of Christ; read, spoken, declared, or taught. It creates a fire within. It illuminates. It enlivens us. It moves us. Linger long enough, hearing it, embracing it – It will consume you. He will consume you.

Shame. No other word so adequately captures the despair of a 1^st century Galilean leper. He wakes every morning to see a deathly pallor tint his scaly and crusted skin. His body grows numb as the disease attacks the deep nerve tissues of his body, disintegrating weaves of nerve cells. The condition exposes him to unfelt trauma and injury and can leave him permanently disfigured through infection and injury.

He is unloved. He is despised. He will never again hold his own child or take his wife into his arms. He knows only isolation. All relationships have been affected. The world shuns him. His immediate family disowns him. His residence is now, by law, a leper’s colony.

His circle of friends is rather absent the values of real friendship. They live in caves. Their coping skills have been reduced to mistrust and survival. Relationships offer no hope, no joy; he is a patient without a cure.

Should he need to venture outside of the caves into public view, the private torture becomes an open shame. Law requires him to wear tattered garments with his face partially veiled. An encounter with a citizen on the street, requires him to announce to everyone present: Unclean! Unclean!

That makes his encounter with the Nazarene so much more remarkable.

And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Mark 1.40 (NASB)

Nothing more than the mere presence of Christ can be so attractive to one so desperate. And at the feet of Christ, hope rises within his spirit and breaks the surface of his speech with an impassioned plea: If You are willing, You can make me clean.

Jesus, the Healer of multitudes, discovers a unique audience of one awaiting a response and it is significant.

Priests were the only Jewish citizens, who were not prohibited by Jewish law to touch leprous skin. They alone could pronounce a leper clean. And the Highest Priest moved by compassion rather than ritual and liturgy, utters words: “I am willing; be cleansed,” and offers a touch that said even more: I am willing to touch a hand of open sores. I am willing to touch ashen skin. I love you. I care. I’m sorry. I understand. I want to help.

And His touch accomplished more than non-verbal communication. It summoned a visual transformation and, in an instant, love conquered shame.

Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

An encounter with Immanuel invites such hope, such surrender, such trust. The child of the manger was born for encounters with the hopeless and the broken. The mere presence of the Christ creates space for us to discover what His love can do to shame.