I could have limited this to one message, but the Lord seemed to indicate to me that there are so many aspects to this passage, which starts with Jesus’ resurrection, and culminates with His appearing in the Upper Room with all the disciples.
This is a spiritual journey, a journey we must all take. It starts with a shattering of all dreams, of all expectations, of all aspirations, when Jesus was nailed to the cross. There are the most important and significant encounters with God in these moments. I must say that this year 2024 for me personally has been one of those times. In the times when I felt the floor disappear from under me was this last January, not expecting my mother to pass away so suddenly. So in terms of momentary devastation I know exactly what this means. These two disciples made a journey of about 7 miles, and were in a real dilemma, as they had spent 3 years of following Jesus. Yet it is apparent that they were still figuratively on Golgotha, as time had stood still.
I sense that God is bringing the Church back to the “Cross” because we sometimes lose the sight that it all starts with Christ and ends with Him. We sometimes build Churches and ministries around our own expectations, our dreams, building a platform. God just has the habit of knocking these beneath us, and taking us away from the things we humanly place our trust in. This also is a symbol of the end times, when all that we have known will have been undermined by other forces, when money is no longer accessible without the possession of a mark.
Hebrews 11 verse 1 talks about what faith is, which differentiates between what we humanly put our trust in, faith is the substance of our hope, that word “substance” is the Greek word “hupostasis” which gives the sense of what we put our whole weight on. Like our weight on a chair. Yet this “substance” is also a divine and celestial substance, because as we walk in faith God brings outstanding confirmations of what we are trusting for is from Him and He brings evidence of it to us. And it is this that when Jesus approaches these two disciples was for the purpose of transitioning them from human expectation to divine substance. Their vision of Jesus was too low and too limiting. So when we lose sight of the Person of Jesus, the Son of God, son of man, Son of David, He comes to us to lift our sights again. He has to remind us and makes us see that He has conquered even death and hell for us to lift our eyes heavenward.
So the Road to Emmaus is a necessary journey for all of us, and it is not our journey only, it is centered on Jesus, and its about Jesus. Its about the Source of all that we are, and all we do for Him. So this Road to Emmaus is lifechanging, hence it is necessary, so we Behold Him as He is!
Maranatha!