Today, we have one of my favorite Gospel stories. It is the road to Emmaus.
It takes place on Easter Sunday and as you can see these two men are just completely confused. They know that Jesus died on the cross and with His death all their hopes in him were dashed.
Doesn’t this story bring us to the pain and confusion we are experiencing right now?
Remember, their whole world had been turned upside down when they witness that Jesus died. Imagine what that night must have been like when they saw Jesus, this one in whom they had total hope was laid dead in a tomb. Gone, and with it all the love they experienced in him. All that he had promised and all the hopes that they maintained. Gone.
There would be sadness, confusion and shock. Then maybe anger too.
Take those feelings when you realized that restaurants were closed, jobs were lost and everything brought to a standstill. Think of the shock you felt as I felt when I saw a line outside one of our local supermarkets. A line, just like the Soviet Union. Our world is certainly not the same as it was three weeks ago. We have seen a change in it completely.
Now take all that pain, anger, frustration and confusion and put yourself into the thinking of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They would have had similar emotions and pains.
Then they receive the good news and they do not know what to make of it, until two things happen. One the stranger explains that this was supposed to happen and then they recognize him in the breaking of the bread.
One of the questions people ask me is, are we experiencing the end times?
I have no idea, I am assuming no. But what would that mean if we are? We are referencing what the Word of God would be saying to us.
Well, what is the word of God saying to us about this time that we are experiencing.
Nothing happens without God knowing it and without permission of God. That does not mean that God wills it, but that God knows it and is with us through it.
Even in this confusion we know that God is with us, as he was with the men on the way to Emmaus.
What else do we know?
God is doing great things that we have yet to see. What it is we do not know, but we must wait until it happens, but we will see God in this if we root ourselves in Christ.
The stranger had to explain to the men on the way to Emmaus that their experience, as pain and shocking as it was opened the door to a great rebirth.
We do not know what is going to happen when this is over, but we know that already our country has changed and our people have changed.
How have we changed and how are we changing?
Where are our hopes and our dreams and in what is our hope.
There is one constant here and that is that Christ is alive and in him we put our hopes.
If you really think about it our government has changed overnight. There is not even any legal recourse to fight back against these restrictions, none.
Our greatest question is: Are we going to be able to return to the freedoms we enjoyed prior to the quarantine?
That is an interesting lesson, even something as solid as the freedoms of our own country, which we grew up with and with which people from all around the world envy. Those freedoms can be taken away in minutes as they actually have been here due to the virus.
Our economy has been shut down and our way of life is changed radically.
All these things that we considered as solid as rock we learn are not solid at all in the face of this virus. Therefore, it leads us to reflect on what do we truly hope? In what can we place our trust? The answer is in Christ and Christ alone. He alone conquered death in him alone is there a hope that nothing can eliminate.
The predominant emotion at this time is fear. We are seeing a world lost in fear. Fear of the virus, fear of the long term affects of our situation and fear even of death.
With what do we conquer this fear. It is in the hope we have in Christ promised us at his resurrection.
Now ask yourself what is Christ saying to us through this time. If he were the stranger appearing in our homes what would he be telling us and how would he be comforting us?
I am sure he would be telling us that God is still with us. He may explain to us some corrections he had to be made in public attitudes that have arisen in our country.
I thought strongly about the governor of another state who said that losing one life is too many, yet six months ago he was celebrating passing a law that allowed the abortion of a baby up to full term. They had a party. One life was not too many then.
Now we are subject to something beyond our control and at least in my life it is showing me a whole new view of government, one that leads me to embrace Christ even more. Government is fragile, freedoms are fragile, Christ is alive. Death for Christ’s disciples is conquered forever even among those who succumb to the virus.
Those who do not know Christ have hope in only what this world can offer. Those who embrace Christ have a greater hope and as the disciples on the way to Emmaus learned. No one can take that away from us ever.
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