After these things I was aware of two men traveling by foot on an ancient road. I knew who they were somehow, as I also knew their destination. Although I was far from them, as before with the Magdalene, I overheard as they conversed and reasoned along the way.
They spoke of the One in whom they had hoped and whom they had followed, who had seemed to be the fulfillment of the longing of their hearts for themselves and for their captive nation. Underneath their rational discourse was a deep despair. Where was God? was their unspoken cry.
Then they saw Him but did not know Him. How often in human experience has that happened, I wondered. How many times have we seen the One who is Hope, and through stubborn hopelessness, been unable to recognize Him?
I smiled wryly when I heard Him ask the men a follow up to His initial query regarding the subject of their conversation.
He who is the central theme of all history, who is the Knower of all things, who was the very core of what the men discussed with such sadness, condescended to encourage two of His lowly creatures to speak their thoughts by voicing a simple inquiry.
"What things?" he asked gently.
After they had expressed their incredulousness at His apparent ignorance, and their bitter disappointment at the unexpected turn of recent events in Jerusalem, I found myself astonished at the softness and grace of His rebuke.
“O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?”
And then as they walked along the road to Emmaus together, rather than blasting them from existence in disgust at their willful unbelief, He bestowed upon them a teaching from the Source of Wisdom Himself. And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
I wanted to spend all the rest of eternity listening to His Words, marveling at the unending richness and depth of their meaning and purpose. Words that had the power to create all reality, or to destroy it. Words that gave life. Words that were life.
"You will," said the voice next to me on the Balcony. "That is the destiny of all His children by faith."
I sighed in real sadness then, as the visions faded, and I was once more merely me, in my own mind. And I was so very, very tired. I would have thought that exhaustion was not possible in Heaven, and then I recalled that I was just on the Periphery, not very close at all to the Throne.
"Come, walk with me," he said.
I was reminded of what I used to say to my young children when they complained of being tired.
"Dad, I can't walk anymore! I'm too exhausted! It's too far to home!"
"Run!" I would say, "You'll get there that much sooner!"
And off they would go, trusting me enough to overcome their natural skepticism that increased effort would invigorate, rather than deplete, their store of energy.
It didn't work for me at that moment, though, even as I found myself along the same Forest path that he had brought me to earlier.
"I can barely put one foot in front of another," I whined. "I am so very tired!"
"I know," said a gentle Voice.
