life on the road

 Life on the Road

written by Michael McBane

It was a night where our table overflowed with guests. It was a season when we just never knew who or how many might show for dinner. It was an open door at our home. Sometimes just our family chilled but that seemed rare. This particular night the seats were squeezed in. There was always enough food. The food was never the main coarse it was just a luring attraction. 

So as we sat I began to share Jesus stories from our journeys on the road. This night as I recall a lot of them were about the incredible ways God would ask us to go out not knowing where with little to nothing in our hands in the way of provision. And I shared the details of how He showed up over and over. There was an eagerness that night the air was electric. The table held some folks who had never been over so they drew on all the conversations like a bee on a flower. I was being asked questions and the exchange was building faith and hope. Suddenly a man, a tall cowboy who had never been over, raises his hands above his head. And shouts in tongues which we later found had never been a part of his life. And he then drops head first into his plate. Dropping his fork and knife in surrender. KO’d by God. The table was silent. The Holy Spirit had stilled everyone. What could be said, what should be said? We all just sat in a certain reverence as surely God had His way, way beyond the norm and expected. He came as we broke bread and told His stories.

For so many years this was the normal life. We had an anticipation that we did not direct or control. God is so good to deposit life like this. We stumble when HE shifts directions. We do not anticipate deserts when life seems filled. But it is as it was when He died and was resurrected. Christ’s followers were baffled at His absence.They walked along the road, somewhat bewildered on their way to Emmaus. God asked the questions along this road to awaken their hearts again. There hearts did not burn when He broke bread but as He spoke and turned over their unbelief. He dismantled their conclusions. He was weaving with His questions a setting from which He would turn and serve them as the risen Christ. Then the recognized Him. They knew Him and His words surrounded them in His faith. When they recognized Him He vanished but He had left them with life and direction. They then set out towards Jerusalem to wait.

I read that the first problem the disciples had with the resurrection was one of recognition. Jesus stood among them and they failed to know Him or see Him. Interesting indeed. This is a sign that should make us wonder. It certainly is!  Jesus though was not insecure as they trashed him along the road telling Him how he had left them with questions? This is so hilarious. Jesus in fact asked them to speak clearly about what they were speaking. He was drawing them out of the fog of unclarity. They had forgotten how Jesus had prepared their hearts for what would come but they had dismissed these pieces in the confrontations that would bring every disciple of Jesus to a place of denial, they all forsake Him. On this road were two of His disciples He would go to all and reveal His love. Jesus walked these two men through the scriptures, step by step. Joining each reminder with their experience awakening their understanding and troubling their tendency to return to tradition or what was. 

Does not God show Himself to us to take us out and into the next season. He gives us signs, dreams, visions and understanding but do we hold them when the timing is uncomfortable? We look elsewhere to much.

 

Jesus stirred a hunger a burning in their hearts so much so that they asked HIm not to go. The table was being set. The tumblers were falling into place and the treasure within that that was burning would soon be unlocked.

The flashes were erupting in their souls. Wait, this is Jesus, we questioned Him before He feed the five thousand, how? We did not see. And then we not only saw but we were feed along with those who had gathered to see and hear. Was it not after this that Jesus asked Peter who do you say I am? And Peter then confessed Jesus as the Christ.

So here again Jesus was tending a fire, and cooking a meal. He turned and broke bread for them and lifted it up before HIs Father and suddenly they saw. What was within them solidified into life. They recognized Jesus as truth.

They were being feed and it was a feast of reconciliation and sealed redemption. Jesus was revealing to them how He was and who He is. I am known in life and the breaking of bread among you.

Jesus sent them on to Jerusalem. With little but a knowing that He again would come. He would meet them. The road drew them onward into the deeper places of God. A place were the wind would congeal the water and the blood and bring the fire of God. Did they go knowing everything? No they still had no control. Jesus was telling them to hold the faith that had just been given and allow it to build. Hope to hope and glory to glory.

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