The shopping, trimming the tree, the Christmas parties, the one last project at work, the excitement, the stress, your favorite holiday movie with Santa, elves or Griswold’s…then, it’s over and most of us miss it.
We miss The Gift. “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
Two of the disciples missed it. We learn in detail about this in Luke 24:13-35. They missed embracing the Greatest Man in the history of the world on that lonely, dusty road of grief and disappointment called Emmaus. These two disciples were so downcast that they couldn’t recognize that their resurrected Friend, Jesus, was walking right beside them on the road to Emmaus. These disciples were walking the wrong way…away from the fellowship of believers in Jerusalem.
It occurs to me that these two men had met Jesus, but they really didn’t know Him. They had been taught by Him, but they saw Him as their Leader and Savior from their earthly enemies. They didn’t know Him as the resurrected Christ, the Messiah, the One who saves us from our sin and prepares us for a place much better than Jerusalem, Emmaus, Rome, New York or any earthly city. They didn’t understand that Jesus’ death just a few days before offed the greatest hope possible.
In order not to “miss it,” we must clear our minds and hearts from the busyness and stress of the season. He is in our midst. We will find Jesus in quiet and peace, if we truly seek Him with the intensity of the Wise Men from the east.
By the way, it was when the disciples asked this man from the road to stay with them and dine with them that they were able to recognize Him. “When He was at the table with them, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Their eyes were opened and they recognized Him, and He disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?’” (Luke 24:30-32)
My prayer this Christmas Season and throughout 2014 is that my eyes will be opened, that my heart will burn within me as I read scripture and that I won’t miss Him.
