On the road

 

As they came near the village to which they were going, [Jesus] walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. (Luke 24:28-31)

Stop here. I don’t want to walk on. I need time to stand still and look around, time to feel and name this longing for Love’s living nearness. The day has come and gone, yet I wait for Easter unborn to dawn once more, pouring eternity’s light into this heart so that I truly know who I am, from whence I come … and to whom I go, lest I get lost on the road.

Longing for what I cannot give myself, hoping for healing as my 71^st year around the sun passes before my eyes, I seem little more than life’s spectator as one body part or another resists my will, at least for now.

Walking this road, I see them on theirs, three of them, standing in the middle of a dusty, footworn path, the sun sinking west on a warmer than normal spring day. Who really knows if it was warm or cold, cloudy or clear? For now, I see them as I see them, two men with Jesus, their hopes dashed, heartbroken, but feeling something else, something they couldn’t name and couldn’t let go.

So, they prayed the only words that came to heart, “Stay with us. Don’t go.” They didn’t know much. They didn’t know what or who they were asking. But they were certain of this: Being with him out there on the road was better than being anywhere else without him.

And that is still true. So, stay with me, Lord Jesus. Stay when it is night, when darkness clouds my heart and I long for the dawn. Stay with me when I lose my bearings and forget all the ways you have loved me on this journey. Stay when I need to stop and look around to catch up with my feelings or let them catch up with me. Stay when I am angry or sad and forget that you are always here.

Stay with us. Break open the bread of your abundant heart. Open our eyes and fill them with tears of knowing that your love lives, out here on the road.

David L. Miller