THE ROAD TO EMMAEUS

 It was Easter Sunday, and I was taken back in  memory to a service many years ago when I was visiting in Denmark. Although I was dependant on an interpreter,  the message had come to me personally and clearly. God w as telling me that I could always know his presence with me, and experience a burning heart as had those two disciples.

Knowing that God was calling me to leave everything and everyone I knew and go abroad as a missionary, what a wonderful assurance I was given that I too could know that our risen  Saviour would be walking  with me every step of my long journey of life. I too could, and still do know the experience of the burning heart.

It was while I was in Australia, on my way to New Guinea that God confirmed to me his promise through a prophet.

‘You are facing vast distances, but I am pledged to come with you and you will be able to turn readily and easily to me at all times as to a friend at all times.’

What a wonderful word of assurance, and how faithful God has been, still is  and will be to each of us who dare to trust his word.

So here I am, an old old lady . Yes, I may be in need of a hearing aid, but thank God, I am not deaf to the voice of the Holy Spirit. How thankful that God has brought me to this day; not too old for God to still reveal himself in deeper and yet more meaningful ways.

For now, I am able not only to know the experience  of the burning heart in my daily walk, - yes, even with a walker,- but even more so as I come to the Table of Communion.

Those two disciples had pressed this stranger to come in and experience their hospitality but it was only in looking back that they had realised the wonder of the miracle, that it had been Jesus himself, this same Jesus and yet not the same for he had endured the terrible weight of our sins, suffered the mocking, the shame, the unbelievable cruelty and now, having conquered every strategy of Satan he was there, for them and for each of us,
and still here to make himself known to each one of us in the breaking of the bread.

Yes, he had walked and talked with them, explaining the Scriptures that had foretold all that had happened, but now, - he was revealing himself to them in  the Breaking of the Bread.

And this has been the wonderful revelation that God is bringing to my heart this Easter time.

I am 93 years old, and often  tempted to think I may have tarried too long, but now I am being reassured that God has kept me ‘for such a time as this.’

Oh Lord, open my eyes that I may always recognise your presence with us, and very especially in the Breaking of the Bread.