road to emmaus

So its really about time I explained the whole emmausmike that I use so much.

In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24, there is a story about two of Jesus' disciples. Jesus has been crucified and resurrected and some of his followers have seen him. Luke picks up with these two walking along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus which is a town about eight miles away. They are really confused about all that has been happening the last few days. A stranger comes along and asks them about their conversation. After listening a bit he begins to explain why things happened the way they did using scripture. When they get to Emmaus the two invite the stranger to eat with them and at the table they suddenly recognize that the stranger is Jesus.

When I was in college a ministry I served with did a thing called the road to Emmaus every year at the leaders retreat. We would pair up with someone we didn't know very well and go for a walk. On the walk we would share our own story of faith and life and how we got to where we were then.

While it was a great way to get to know someone ultimately it was more about understanding how God works in each others lives and seeing new ways that God has done something that we might not have understood before.

Its this constant growing awareness of the spiritual activity in my life that led me to use the emmausmike name. As we are walking through life all sorts of things take place, some good, some bad and honestly we don't always know what to make of them. It seems like so many of us look at the world around us and things that have happened to us specifically and ask "WHY!?" Why did this happen? What possible purpose could there be in that taking place? And it is at that moment that the Emmaus road becomes such a beautiful image. God comes along side us in some way shape or form, be it through reading the Bible, or a friend, what have you, and helps us to see the bigger picture. It may not make everything ok. Those two disciples still had to fear for their lives. But it is comforting to know that Jesus will help us see why things have happened the way they did and what that means for the future.