Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Today’s text

Luke 24:13-17

Now that very same day, two of them were on their way to a village called Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking together about all that had happened. And it happened that as they were talking together and discussing it, Jesus himself came up and walked by their side; but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He said to them, 'What are all these things that you are discussing as you walk along?' They stopped, their faces downcast.

Prayer

Why, my Lord? Why should they be kept from seeing you, the balm for our aching eyes? It is as if you prevented them from seeing. Or is this simply a way of saying they were still unable to see?

It seems clear, though, that they were kept from recognizing you. But if so, you kept them from seeing a presence that could not endure to reveal a presence that will endure to the end of earthly days.

So you kept them in the dark until they should see light. And there they struggled to understand what they had witnessed, your destruction and the collapse of their hopes.

It seems cruel. And my desire is to hurry to the happy end of the story where their eyes are open. But that would be false.

Truth is the waiting, the struggling, the confusion, the wanting. Yes, always the wanting for light to pierce the darkness of our hearts and minds that we may see and know you.

I don’t like the waiting struggle, my Risen Friend. But that is where I live much of my time. It can become a downcast state. Still, I smile, and often, knowing it is you for whom I wait. That is the one knowledge your Emmaus friends did not yet have.

But I do. So I lift my eyes from earth’s sad dust. Soon enough, the time again will be right to see and recognize you. For your risen presence endures to the end of the age and the closing of my tired eyes.

Pr. David L. Miller