Pay attention when Jesus is near

Three days after Jesus was crucified and shortly after some of the women were visited by angels declaring that He was alive, two men took off to the town of Emmaus some seven miles away.

Deep in discussion over the past three days events, Jesus came along side them as though journeying in the same direction.  The men were too fraught with their own emotions to not pay much attention to the newcomer until he started asking them questions.

“What are you talking about, and why are you so sad?” Jesus asked.  The man named Cleopas said, “Are you the only one around these parts that doesn’t know what’s gone on the last few days?” Jesus answered, “What’s happened?”

They then explained that there was a man, Jesus of Nazareth, who was a great prophet, mighty in word and work before God and all the people.  And that the chief priests and princes condemned him to death and had him crucified.

They lamented out loud their disappointment that he was not the one to deliver their nation from the Romans. They added, “Oh, and the women of our group claimed the sepulcher where Jesus was buried is now empty and angels told them he had risen.” “We didn’t believe them until a couple of the men went to the tomb and verified as true what the women had said.”

These men really had their hearts set on Jesus being the leader who would finally set things straight with their oppressors. So much so, even the news that he was no longer in the grave did not seem to shake that disappointment. Seeing what happened to Jesus so devastated them that they could not even grasp the new development. It must have been a too-mind-boggling piece of information to deal with. So they put it aside and remained disappointed that their dreams of freedom were squashed, and that life would continue as before.

It was not until later that evening the men fully realized who had been with them.  “Didn’t our hearts tell us it was him while he explained the scripture to us?” they said to each other after Jesus disappeared from their midst.

I am like these men too often.  When my dreams or wants are not fulfilled or are squashed, I become despondent and blind too.  Even though I know Jesus is alive, I can still get so absorbed in my own thoughts that I don’t pay much attention to him who is walking beside me. 

When my heart tells me, and it does often, that Jesus is near I need to pay attention and stop focusing on my own stuff, and put my eyes back on him. 

Plain and simple but yet so hard to do.