How do you become able to see Jesus Christ in your life?
In other words, how do you recognize Jesus and Who He is in your everyday living?
The story in Luke 24 about two disciples walking to Emmaus can help us with that.
In this narrative, there are only 3 characters. Two people on a journey back to a place known as Emmaus. The third character is a stranger who joins them.
The Bible does not say much of the gender of these two people. But, they happen to be two of the people who had followed Jesus Christ. Read verse 13, “That very day two of them were going to village named Emmaus …”
Clearly, they belonged to the group of people called disciples of Jesus Christ.
First, never walk your journey alone
Being human already makes you a social being. Whether you like it or not, you always thirst or hunger for relationships.
You may say: “well, I don’t need friends.” That’s not true because in a lot of ways we all seek connections with, attention and approval from others.
The Bible has talked many times about families, tribes and nations in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, it talks again about the same things, but more with focus on the Church: the Body of Christ.
If you look at the very beginning of the Bible, it states that humans on their own, and by nature, struggles with loneliness. In Genesis 2: 18, “Then the Lord God said, God ays: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.””
Research suggests that loneliness and social isolation are as much a threat to your health as obesity!
Loneliness can affect how you respond to people and anything in your life. In a lot of cases, loneliness may alter your behavior. That is as a result of a change in your brain function, which affects your health too.
Loneliness can sometimes be a choice we make as individuals, but at other times, it can happen beyond our control.
Examples of when this happens beyond our control could include: going off to College, losing a spouse, losing a job or some connection, losing a best friend, etc.
In the case of the two disciples, in Luke 24, it was their choice to leave Jerusalem and isolate from the rest of the group. They are together, but isolated from the rest of the community. They are moving away from the rest of Christ’s followers. That was not helpful.
Their loneliness changes when they choose to invite a stranger to walk with them. This is a sign of hospitality.
Invite someone onto your walk. I’m not saying this is easy. Sometimes, our journey may be messy and that’s why it is a little bit hard to have someone walk with us.
Also, our today’s society is not community-based as it used to be, twenty or fifty years ago. We have become more individualistic than ever.
We choose whom we should invite into our lives, how and when they should walk with us. We also choose how long we would like them to be with us.
Invite someone to join you on your walk
You never know that by inviting someone into your walk what God is capable of doing for you. God wants you to be as healthy as you should and in all aspects of who you are.
In truth, Jesus does not show up. He is here. He’s on the same road you’re taking. He can’t join until when you invite Him to do so.
But, how do we really see Jesus in our lives?
There are 2 things that can help us with that, and which we are going to talk about next.
Second, choose Faith, not only Facts
You can’t change reality
Facts are what we see or hear about. These are information about ourselves or other people.
In the case of the two disciples, they were talking with each other about the death of Jesus Christ. They were also reflecting on what some women had claimed to have seen Jesus risen from the dead. Other disciples also went to the tomb. It was empty, but they did not see Him. Read verse 14.
These two disciples stopped there. But, when you read verse 12,
but Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stopping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
This makes a difference between Peter and these two disciples now walking to Emmaus. While Peter was in awe because he believed the words of Jesus Christ that He would die and then come back to life on the third day, these disciples did not. They were instead very disappointed and did not even apparently believe what the women were saying.
In God’s mercy, Jesus reaches out to them, just as He reaches to us every day.
He joins them (verse 15), they did not know that it was the Christ they had followed for some time as His disciples. the Bible says that “their eyes were kept from recognizing Him” (verse 16).
The stranger (in the case Jesus) asks them what they have been discussing (verse 17).
The two disciples were shocked to hear someone coming from Jerusalem ask them about what had just happened.
They replied: “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days? (Verse 18).
Today, they would have said: Aren’t you on Facebook or any other social media? Or, don’t you watch TV? Don’t you get the newspaper?
Then, Jesus, as the stranger in the story, asks them: “What things?” (Verse 19)
Jesus is probably helping them change the narrative of the story of His death and resurrection.
In other words, He would like to help them connect facts with faith.
He is going to literally do it based on verse 27.
Faith helps you see reality differently
Faith is the only thing that can help us see Christ. Faith does not suppress reality or facts. Instead, it helps us connect what’s going on in us or around us with God’s Word.
In the text (Luke 24), Jesus is attempting to help the two disciples see reality differently, which can only be done through faith in God’s Word.
He interprets to them all the things Scripture says about Himself from Moses to the prophets (read verse 27).
What Jesus is doing is to point out that faith is obedience to God and God’s Word, no matter what the facts look like.
In the text, Jesus is not trying to convince these disciples to change their route or go back to Jerusalem. He’s however helping them open up to the Scriptures.
It doesn’t truly matter if you’re on the wrong path and headed in the wrong destination. Jesus is always near you.
In the case of the two disciples, they’re headed the wrong way. They are moving away from the place where Jesus wanted them to be: Galilee. The women who went to the tomb hoping to take care of Jesus’ body are the ones who told all the disciples to meet with Jesus in Galileo. According to one of the gospels, an angel appeared to them right at the tomb and told them to do so (Mark 16: 5-7).
The two disciples, who were moving away from the place where they ought to be, were going to Emmaus. This was a city located at a little over 7 miles NW of Jerusalem.
But, the command the angel gave the women to tell the other disciples was to meet with Jesus in Galilee, which was a little over 70 miles north of Jerusalem.
Lastly, it’s all about your heart
Faith comes from hearing and hearing God’s Word, “faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of God” (Romans 10: 17, NRSV).
Faith has to do with your heart more than anything else in you.
In the story of the two disciples, they started feeling something different out of what this stranger (One they did not know that it is Jesus) is telling them about Jesus based on Scripture.
They describe it later after they have found out that the stranger was Jesus Himself.
Here is what they would say afterwards:
were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us? (Verse 32).
But how do we get to the point where our hearts burn within us?
Let’s review what has happened to these two disciples to understand how we can get to the point where our hearts will also burn.
Have someone else walk with you
This is hospitality, as I talked about in the opening of this message. Inviting someone into your life can help you at every level of who you are.
You may be surprised at what God can do through the person you invite into your walk.
Choose to listen to God’s Word
The disciples chose to listen to the stranger who’s talking to them about Jesus Christ. In other words, *they chose to listen to the Word. Having someone in your life is good. But, what’s better is to choose to listen to them.
You need someone who can listen to you, pray for you and share insights that can help you be the best of who you should be according to God.
Invite Jesus into your home
The disciples, after listening to the stranger, insisted that he would stay with them (verse 29), which he would do.
They just did not stop there by providing him a place to stay for the night.
Invite Jesus at your table
They invited him at the table to eat with them. Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them. This is when the eyes of these two disciples are opened. They can see Jesus.
This is communion, which takes place in your heart. You invite Jesus at the core of who you are: your heart.
Bringing it together
You can see Jesus in life through faith. Faith changes how you see reality in and around you. Faith also allows you to invite Jesus into your heart. As a result, you are able to choose the right road in life to go and the destination God has in mind for you.
This is a reflection from the message I delivered last Sunday (April 30, 2017) at the United Methodist Church in Harris and Lake Park. Click to listen the audio message.
