Luke 24: 32- 33
“They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ 33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together.”
Written on January 15, 2013
As I was out walking the dog in the midst of the 1st ice storm of 2013, I was feeling hugely mopey and miserable as I looked at the trees glistening with the frozen precipitation covering their bare branches. Man everything is just so cold and gray and gloomy. Then I began to realize something… the ice that is hanging from just about everything around my house has a lesson in it.
Each icicle represents water that has been paralyzed on its way to its destination. Frozen as it is, it never reaches the place that it is trying to get. So it hangs there, suspended in mid fall, waiting expectantly, excruciatingly unable to continue on its journey.
How many people in this world are caught in the same kind of paralysis? How many people are on a journey toward a destination when the cold misery of this life sweeps in unexpectedly and freezes them into one place or set of circumstances? How many choices that we make lead us directly into frozen barrens that will trap us and threaten to end our journey? When we feel trapped by our choices, or circumstances beyond our control, or the choices of others that impact us it is easy to assume that we are like the ice that seems so unmoving; that this is where our story will end.
But one just has to remember that with time and the restoration of warmth, the water will eventually thaw and begin to move again. It will be freed to continue on its way to find the ground, merge with the other moisture in the soil, join even more water and flow through on its way to find streams, rivers, and eventually oceans with which it is meant to be a part. It will, through its connected journey, find its true purpose and destination.
In the lives of men and women, when we find those frozen places, the same principle applies. With the warmth and care of God’s love, even the most frozen of lives can be thawed and begin to move. With Christ’s light and love, even the darkest of locations can shine, giving us the ability to finally see where we are going… where we are meant to go. And in that thawing we are returned to the journey toward our true and ultimate destination.
The disciples on the road to Emmaus were certainly feeling like everything that they had believed had come to a sudden end with the crucifixion of Jesus. They were certain that he was Israel's redemption, and now he had died the most embarrassing and horrible death imaginable. How confusing and frightening this must have been for these men who had witnessed the ministry of the Christ. Surely the source of their hope had come to an end. Why is it that they had parted company with the body of believers left in Jerusalem? Could it be that they felt they had no reason to stay after Jesus' death? And yet as Jesus is suddenly present and in fellowship with them, their hope for life and their hope in the future is stirred into a new and motivating experience. It causes them reconnect with the eleven and restore the relationship with the community of believers.
For those who feel frozen in place, I pray that you will hear these words of encouragement… When you feel like there is no way to move… that you can’t move… God is at work. The warmth of God is thawing and renewing you, and restarting your journey. In the presence of God through Christ Jesus, and by the ever present power of the Spirit... life and warmth radiates into our frozenness, setting us free and empowering us to reach our destination.
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