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For years the story of the walk to Emmaus fascinated me. In fact, it
was one of the first topics I wrote about when I started doing articles.
What is really cool though is when in one weekend, Jesus can take a
story that you've heard a half a million times and shine the light on it
differently so that it looks totally new.  Like a diamond reflecting
light from a different cut-angle it will take your breath away with how
beautiful it is and more so with the intriguing depth that can hide in
one little nugget of truth.

That was what happened to me this weekend with the story of Emmaus.
The awesome thing to me is how many different perspectives God gave me so
that I could see more hidden insights held in that story than I ever
had in the past. It started the night before I even went to church. My
friend who is teaching Sunday school called and asked if I had any
insights to give her on what she might use to teach the road to Emmaus story
the next morning.

Of course, I led with the thoughts recounted in my previous article
about what it meant that the friends of Jesus didn't recognize him as
they walked.  I said that's often how we are in that we don't
recognize Jesus in those who are walking this journey of life with us. We
think of them as only our friend or our spouse or our child.  Too
often, we fail to recognize Jesus in them.

As we talked, I offered a few more thoughts, and then we hung up. The
next morning my family traveled to the town where my sister lives for
her oldest boy's First Communion.  The priest giving the homily took a
different look at it. He said that to understand the story, you had to
know that Emmaus was a seat of Roman power at the time.  The Biblical
significance of that is that these two disciples were walking away from
Jerusalem and Jesus toward the Roman power. It wasn't until Jesus
went and got them, showed them who he was and that he was still alive,
that they turned back and went back to Jerusalem.

Interesting. I'd never heard the story from that perspective.

Later that day, talking with my dad about the sermon they had heard at
their church on the same reading, he gave me a slightly different take
on it. He said that their priest had said the disciples were not
walking away to Emmaus, as in having a casual stroll for no good reason. No.
They were escaping. They were running (or walking really fast) from all
that had happened in Jerusalem.

Then, as I put them all together, I saw what God so often does when we
really take the time to look. I saw the layers of parallel meaning form
so that what was happening in the physical realm, paralleled the mental
and emotional, which paralleled the spiritual.

Here were these two disciples. They were walking away. They had turned
their backs”literally” on Jerusalem and thus on Jesus and the whole
idea of Christianity. They had seen what happened to Christ, and they
physically wanted no part of that, so they were getting the heck out of
Dodge so to speak.  In the spirit realm, they had decided that
Christianity wasn't worth it, so they were going to head toward what in
worldly terms looked safe, the Roman command post. They were not only
walking away from Christianity. They were walking toward the empty promises
of the world.

And then, Jesus showed up.  But they didn't see Him being
Jesus just as we often don't see Him when He shows up after we have strayed.
He's come to invite us to come back, but we are so caught up in
ourselves that we fail to recognize Him. Sure, we hear the song that touches
our heart and calls us back. Yet we don't recognize that song as
being Jesus walking with us even in our hurt and fear. Instead we keep
walking, thinking that something in the world is going to fix what's
wrong in our lives.  Still, He walks with us, stride for stride, until
maybe we've gone the whole seven miles into the heart of the world.

At that point it seems that He plans to continue on with His journey
because He is not going to stay where He isn't wanted.  But then for
whatever reason we say, "No. Stop here. Stay the evening with us." 
And so He does willingly, gladly. In fact, that's what He was
hoping we would say all along.  We sit down with Him at supper, and it
isn't until He takes the bread and breaks Himself again for us that we
recognize Who it is that has been with us all along.

At that moment we jump for joy, our hearts leap inside us because we
realize that where we are in the hurt and the fear of the world is
not where we have to stay. No, we have the option to go back to
Jerusalem, to be with Jesus each and every moment.  Of course that was always
an option. It's just that sometimes that option looks so tough that
walking into the world begins to look like an easier choice.

Rest assured, not a mile down that road, Jesus will show up. He will
walk with you and talk with you, and then, He will gently invite you
back. Wow. How cool is that?

Just makes me wonder what Jesus has in store for me on the third look
at the Emmaus story sometime in the future. I know I will forever be
grateful for this second look. It taught me so much about the extent of
His love for each of us. It's so awesome that He is willing to walk
that road to Emmaus every time circumstances make us think that going in
the direction of the world looks like a good idea. I, for one, will now
remember that going to Emmaus solves nothing. It's Jerusalem where I
want to be. How about you?

Copyright Staci Stallings 2005