A few months back, my mom and I were at an estate sale (a favorite pastime of both of us). I spotted this painting and took a look, but then passed it by.
Then I went back. I knew it was a rendering of Christ with a couple of his followers, but wasn’t sure I wanted to buy it. The style wasn’t exactly my favorite.
Then I looked at the back of the painting and saw the one-word title.
Emmaus.
I knew I had to pick it up.
In my most recent post, I mentioned that years ago, I started writing a devotional book. This next bit is a segment from that book. It started out as one of the chapters, but in my most recent revision, was moved up to the Introduction.
I guess you could say it’s kind of a life theme, and why I had to get the painting.
“If there was any Bible story you could have experienced, which story would it be?”
Have you ever tried to answer that question? Maybe in a Bible study group or one of those discussions that unexpectedly take a deep turn, and suddenly you are trying to decide on which narrative you would have wanted to unfold right there, before your eyes.
And of course, if you grew up hearing the Bible stories taught in Sunday School, or even if not, you probably recall a few of the more well-known narratives. You have a vast range of options.
Seeing the ark buoyed on the surface of a water-raged world; hearing the voice of God booming from a burning bush; watching a teenage boy bring a giant to his knees with a stone; beholding the son of man standing, transfigured, on a hilltop.
I have favorite scenes from the Bible, ones I would have loved to see “IRL” …
Elijah’s brazen stand on Mount Carmel, surrounded by prophets of false gods as an altar vaporizes with one fiery bolt. It’s like a scene from a Marvel movie.
Or Jesus reaching out to a girl’s lifeless body, bidding her arise with the warmth of His words, and watching her parents’ wordless wonder in seeing their little girl’s eyes flutter open.
But more than any other place and time in the biblical narrative, more than any other event, I think I would have liked to join two people walking a dusty road away from Jerusalem as they mourned the death of their friend and leader.
They mourned the loss of life, the loss of hope.
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