[Pearls Ep 168: Answering atheism Tuesday.]
We’ve been looking at how the account of the road to Emmaus has much to do with coming to terms with loss and suffering.
The two disciples were gripped with despair because their hopes were dashed.
Then comes Christ and His amazing response – “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things?”
Was it not necessary…
We can’t just let that pass unobserved. It is a stunning response.
This scripture passage can be particularly powerful in our own life. We’re often gripped with loss, despair, and suffering. Like the disciples, we’re thinking “I hate all these mistakes I’ve made in life,” or, “I thought my loved one would pull through,” or, “Why must the world be such an insane place …”
Rather than being stuck in our agony, if we bring it to Christ, He will give it meaning and purpose. He will make it redemptive. He will tell us, “Was it not necessary that you made all those mistakes so you could come to Me in humility, and I could show You my mercy?” Or, “Was it not necessary for your loved one to return to me, for you to appreciate them in a new way and also reflect on your own mortality?” Or, “Was it not necessary that I allow the world to be fallen, because I respect the free will that I’ve given to people, and because I’ve given you a mission to go out and be light to that fallen world?”
St. Paul tells us that “God works all things to good for those who love Him.” There is little better way we can express our love for God than by trusting Him with our greatest disappointments. And then He can work them to good and explain to us, “was it not necessary….”
Last week we pointed out that the self-help industry doesn’t understand, or at best gives lip service to suffering. It certainly does not understand “the wisdom of the cross.”
The Cross is inseparable from the Gospel. It is inseparable from Christ himself. The Cross was there at the time of creation, as the Tree of Life. Our Lord clutched His Cross. He clung to it. His blood ran down and soaked into it. Even now He bears the marks where He was attached to it. The Angels refer to Jesus as the Crucified One.
The Cross demands a response. Either we will run from it, or we will learn to embrace it and find in our cross our most intimate connection with Christ.
The Cross is not beautiful or desirable in and of itself. Far from it. Nor is there joy in the Cross. But St. Paul tells us, “For the sake of the joy that lay before Him Jesus endured the Cross, despising its shame.”
In other words, the Cross was His path to eternal joy.
What do you call something that is the pathway to joy? That’s for each of us to work out for ourselves as we wrestle with and come to peace with our cross.
And if we ask, Jesus will help us with that. Was it not necessary….
Easter blessings –
Steve and Karen Smith
Postscript: On the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35)
That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.
He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?”
And he replied to them, “What sort of things?”
They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.”
And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures.
As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.