Did Not Our Heart Burn Within Us?by Jeff Robb

Reflection

It's the first day of the week, the very day the tomb was found empty. Two disciples are walking home from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus, about threescore furlongs away. That's roughly seven miles. One of them is named Cleopas. The other, we aren't told.

They're sad, and they're talking it over, the way people do after a funeral. Then a stranger falls into step with them. It's Jesus. But their eyes were holden, Luke says, that they should not know him. He asks what they've been discussing, and they pour out the whole story. They had trusted that He was the one who would redeem Israel. Now He was dead, and some of the women were saying His tomb was empty.

Then the stranger begins to teach. Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Imagine that walk. Seven miles of the Old Testament, opened by the Lord Himself.

When they reach the village, it's toward evening, and they urge Him to stay. At the table, He takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him. Then He's gone.

Notice what they say next. Not, did you see His face? But, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? Looking back, they realized the scriptures had been working in them the whole way. They just hadn't understood it until the bread was broken.

There is real comfort in that. Sometimes we hear the word of God and feel nothing much at the time. We read a chapter, or listen to one, and go on with the day. But the word is still at work. Later, something happens, and we look back and say, so that's what He was showing me.

Maybe that has happened to you. A verse you had read many times suddenly came alive. Or a passage you heard long ago came back to you just when you needed it. That is the same Lord, still opening the scriptures.

And notice the last thing these two did. The same hour, Luke tells us, they got up and went all the way back to Jerusalem. Seven miles, with the day far spent, just to tell the others. A burning heart doesn't stay home.

It's Sunday. Many of us will hear the scriptures read today, in church or at home. Let's listen the way those two learned to listen. Expecting that the Lord Himself may be opening the word to us, even if we don't recognize it right away. And when He does, let's go and tell somebody.

Cross-references

Luke 24:27; Jeremiah 20:9; Psalm 119:130