On the Road

(Based on Luke 24:13-35)

If there’s one story in the Bible upon which I most often depend, it’s this story of the two disciples making their way on the road to Emmaus. It reminds me of many truths, chief among them is what it tells us about our search for God.


You see, rarely in the Bible do we read of any one finding God. The cry of Elijah, "Oh if I knew where I might find Him" is a universal lament. We all long for union with God, one way or another. Augustine said it in his Confessions when he prays to God, "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you."

We look in many ways. The weak struggle to be strong, the poor rich, the bored entertained. The alcoholic is not thirsty for drink, he is thirsty for the Spirit of God, a spirit he tries to copycat with the "spirits" of alcohol. The sex addict pursues sexual encounters, the gambler the thrill of "living on the edge". They all have one thing in common: they all reveal an empty space within themselves they are trying to fill, a space only the true God can occupy, and all these other things become their pseudo-gods.

Those who turn to the Bible for wisdom will discover that we do not "find" God. The truth is, it is God who finds them. It is God who is searching. It is God who initiates the divine encounter. And the human reaction for them all is virtually the same: surprise, disbelief, fear. Isaiah cowering in the temple; Jeremiah amazed; Moses trembling barefoot before a burning bush; Elijah more ready to die than to hear the voice of God; Paul struck blind.

This fact is not a comfortable one for a people used to making their own happiness, figuring out their own problems, lording over creation with their own superior power. We are the children who were raised to help ourselves, be independent, go after our own goals, claim success as our well-earned right. It’s almost un-American to propose the notion that we must give up our searching and wait patiently for God to find us. The poet Henley captures our national creed in his poem "Invictus" when he declares "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

Today’s story presents a different truth. Two men, disciples of Jesus, walking down a dusty road, discouraged, heart-broken, are met on the road by a stranger. Their grief is so deep they do not recognize him. Why would they? Jesus had been crucified, his body put in a tomb and then taken away. There’s no reason why they should expect to be walking beside him on this road. Now see what happens.

FIRST Jesus listens to them and in listening is able to help them sort out their thoughts. If we see God, we must first sort out our thoughts, clear away our preconceptions, become teachable. How often do we take time to look at why we are as busy as we are? Why are we so driven to achieve our unexamined goals? Where is that empty space inside ourselves we are so intent on filling? C.S. Lewis put it in an interesting parable. He says we cannot encounter God "Until We Have Faces". We must first become genuine and real ourselves. Then God has something to meet.

SECOND we must journey together. Rare is the individual who can map out his or her road entirely alone. Even the reclusive scholar is not really alone. He walks with his books, his mentors, his invisible guides. We walk with the teachers of our past. As many have confessed, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We are the recipients of wisdom, insight, understanding passed on to us by benefactors of yesterday. The myth of the self-made man is just that: a myth.

I understand that we do much, we are not merely passive objects, empty vessels to be filled by someone else. But we need the training, we need a model, we need the touch of another to set afire the creativity within us. The very conduit of learning - language - must be learned from others. Without it there is no making sense of our complex world.

THIRD we must be truly hungry. The disciples have stopped at an inn to share a meal with the stranger who has joined them. For most of us, we can be so obsessed with our own plans, our own search and satisfying what we think is our hunger with the substitute that most pleases us, that we are unaware of our real hunger. It’s only when we encounter the stone wall of tragedy, when we are broken and unable to get up, when our carefully manicured facade cracks that we become ready to be fed.

How often have we pushed food on people who are in the beginning stages of grief. "You’ve got to eat something!" we say. In part that is our need to believe we’re being helpful, but it is also in recognition that grief robs people of the will to go on. Get them to eat and they will have taken their first step toward recovery.

FOURTH we must realize that the Christ who meets us, listens to us, feeds us, disappears. Once glimpse God and he is gone. We don’t like this. Peter instinctively voiced our concern when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus. Let’s build a temple up here so we can stay here forever. We want permanence. We want dependability. The Prudential Insurance Company showed astute business sense when it chose the rock of Gibralter as their logo. As strong and dependable as a rock. That’s what we want.

In the face of that demand, Jesus disappears. No leaning post he, he goes on before us. The place to expect an encounter with God is on the road. We will stop and rest. We will say our prayers. We will take up our cross, as Jesus put it, our mission in the world. But we will do so with the memory of what we once saw and heard. "Did our hearts not burn when he spoke to us?" the disciples remark. And we will go "on the road" ourselves.

FIFTH we must be careful that we not get too busy again. Once know what our true hunger is, be careful that the old ways of satisfying our hunger don’t return. Remember to stop, to eat, to share with others. Remain open to when he might join us again. For he does. We do not have only one encounter. There will be many. And like as not, they will come disguised and ill-timed.

I was a child riding a carousel at the zoo in San Francisco. I was delirious with the game of it all. There was a contraption that offered rings for you to try and grasp as you went whirling by. Most were mere iron, but some were brass, and if you caught the gold-colored ring, you could have an extra free ride. There was also a canvas with a clown’s face painted on it. It had a gaping hole for the clown’s mouth. You threw the useless iron rings in the clown’s mouth. I was delirious with delight throwing my rings into that mouth. Then, as I threw the next ring I heard voices shouting, "You’ve got the gold ring! You’ve got the gold ring!" And I saw that, indeed, I had just thrown the gold ring into the grinning mouth of that clown.

We must all seek God on the road. But we must be open and ready for his coming. God will come and dine with you, but in His time and in His way. Amen.