Open my eyes

"Supper at Emmaus" - Rubens

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Luke 24:13-32

TO CHEW ON: "But their eyes were restrained …. Then their eyes were opened…" Luke 24:16,31


This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible, perhaps because it's been my experience.

It's the third day after the crucifixion. Two disciples are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, deep in discussion about what has lately happened with their rabbi, Jesus. At one point they're joined by a stranger. He asks them the subject of their sad conversation. They explain it all—what Jesus was like, their hopes for and in Him, His very recent death by crucifixion, followed by the mysterious disappearance of his body, and the hearsay sightings of Him, alive.

He listens and then He speaks. I love how Henri Nouwen tells this next part in his little book With Burning Hearts—A Meditation on the Eucharistic Life.

"He speaks of things they already knew: their long past with all that happened during the centuries before they were born…. It was an all-too-familiar story. Still it sounded as if they were hearing it for the first time.

The difference lay in the storyteller! … The loss, the grief, the guilt, the fear, the glimpses of hope, and the many unanswered questions that battled for attention in their restless minds, all of these were lifted up by this stranger and placed in the context of a story much larger than their own. What had seemed so confusing began to offer new horizons; what had seemed so oppressive began to feel liberating; what had seemed so extremely sad began to take on the quality of joy! As he talked to them, they gradually came to know that their little lives weren't as little as they had thought, but part of a great mystery that not only embraced many generations, but stretched itself out from eternity to eternity" - p. 45,46 (emphasis added).

And isn't that what we discover too when we meet Jesus? After we've dumped on Him our whole sad situation, He opens our eyes to our place in a story much bigger than our own. And we begin to understand that there is a reason for the hardest parts of our lives, while other aspects, those that we've nurtured perhaps to make us feel good about ourselves or look good in the eyes of the world, don't really fit and should be heaved overboard.


PRAYER: Dear Jesus, please open my eyes. Help me to see Your story and my place in it as it relates to my circumstances and the everyday situations that I face. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Restrained eyes

Disciples at Emmaus - Alexandre Bida

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Luke 24:13-35

TO CHEW ON: "But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him." - Luke 24:16

Has this happened to you? There is something you must remember. You remind yourself over and over about the thing. Yet when the time comes to take action, that thing completely slips your mind. When the opportunity for action has passed, you remember it again and mentally (maybe out loud too) beat yourself up for being so forgetful.

Or you lose something. You look high and low for it but it's nowhere to be found. Later you find it in some obvious place.

I think of the two Emmaus disciples when things like the above happen to me. Like them, I have begun to suspect that sometimes my eyes are supernaturally "restrained."

We're often hard on these disciples, saying if they would have listened to Jesus more closely during His ministry and really heard His teaching, then His crucifixion and resurrection would  have been no surprise to them. (Of course that doesn't take into account how the post-resurrection physical appearance of Jesus may have changed.)

But I think God blinded their eyes to Jesus' identity intentionally.

Think of the teaching they would have missed if they had recognized Him right away and returned excitedly to Jerusalem at the beginning of their journey.

"And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself" - Luke 24:27.

Think of the companionship and sweet fellowship experience of that afternoon walk with their risen Saviour and how this personal interaction with Jesus will give heart and warmth to their testimony.

Think of the last sight they have of Him: "Now it came to pass as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to them"  (Luke 24:30).  Think how that sight brings back memories, solidifies their connection with Him, and gives them hints about their mission:

"He took the five loves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude" (of 5,000) - Luke 9:16.

"And He took the seven loaves and the fish and gave thanks and broke them and gave them to His disciples; and the disciples gave it to the multitude (of 4,000) - Matthew 15:36.

"And He took bread and gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying, 'This is My body, given for you, do this in remembrance of Me'" - Luke 22:19 (emphasis added)

I try now, when I sense my eyes have been restrained, to ask for insight into what I am to learn. For I believe God is in our times of restrained sight as much as in our times of illumination.

PRAYER: Dear Jesus thank You for this tender story that I can relate to so well. Help me to understand that even my apparent mess-ups—forgetting things, losing things—can turn out to be blessings from You. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Blind to the obvious

TODAY’S SPECIAL: Luke 24:13-35

TO CHEW ON: “But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him….then their eyes were opened and they knew Him…” Luke 24:16, 31

My nine-year-old daughter’s thick brown hair was combed into silky pig tails that Sunday morning. She’d finally recovered from chicken pox and I’d given her hair a good scrub before church, hoping that that would take away the extreme itchiness she’d had for the last few weeks. As she sat beside me in the pew, I gave her a motherly once-over and noticed flecks of dandruff in her bangs. I tried to brush one away but it was stuck tight to a shaft of hair. I worked at removing another, with the same result. As I glanced over the rest of her hair, I saw more and more dandruff. What on earth?!

In that instant my eyes were opened. This was no flaky scalp condition. The chicken pox I’d blamed for her itchy head was only a partial culprit. I was looking at a case of full-blown head lice. Somehow, preoccupied with the concerns of everyday living and getting her through a bout of illness, I’d never noticed as the hungry critters took up residence.

I spent the rest of that day shampooing heads, scrubbing furniture, washing clothes and bedding, and vacuuming everything in sight. All the while I berated myself for not seeing. How could I have missed something so obvious?

I wonder if that isn’t how the disciples on the road to Emmaus felt after they realized it had been Jesus who had joined them on their walk.. Focused on their circumstances, wearing the dark glasses of human explanation and expectation, they’d spent hours walking and talking with the risen Christ but never realized who He was.

The disciples and the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus - artist unknown

Like them, we too are often blind to spiritual reality. We listen to local, national and international news with a sense of panic, and miss seeing how world events are fulfilling Bible predictions. We get trapped under clouds of discouragement, distraction and defeat, and only after they’ve lifted do we see the fingerprints of Satan all over our situations. We talk to unsaved friends, family members or neighbors but it isn’t till hours later that we realize we didn’t take all kinds of opportunities to talk about Jesus. There is a realm of reality that we can see only through eyes opened by God.

PRAYER: Dear God, please open my eyes to the awareness of Your presence in every part of my life.

MORE:

“Open My Eyes” by Hillsong

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