Lost and Found

When I was three years old my family took a vacation to London, England. For a couple weeks we traveled through the streets of this historic city, we went to museums, we saw Big Ben, we watched soccer games, and we celebrated Christmas. I loved it… for a while. But at the end I got homesick. Even though I was there with my family, I missed my bed, I missed my home, and mostly I missed what was familiar.

For those weeks in London I had a hard time recognizing anything. People there spoke with a funny accent (said in a funny English accent), they ate food that was not all that tasty to me, and they drove on the other side of the road. By the end of a couple of weeks I felt lost and confused. Finally though it was time to go home.

Since my parents were staying to teach a college course in London, my grandparents accompanied my sister and me home. We flew from London to Atlanta. Then we drove from Atlanta to my grandparents’ house in Birmingham. The journey felt like it took forever, even though I slept a lot of the way.

When I finally got to my grandparents’ house I finally recognized something. As we pulled into their driveway I saw something that did not seem odd or confusing or foreign. My eyes were opened when we got to my grandparents’ house. So what did I do? I started laughing. I could not help myself but keep chuckling. I giggled and snorted and snickered for the better part of an hour. I even went around touching things to make sure I was not dreaming because I finally did not feel lost anymore.

Sometimes though we feel lost. In my case it was because I was in a foreign land. The disciples in today’s gospel story are lost without their teacher, their leader, and their Savior. They are walking along a road that they probably knew on the way out of the troublesome Jerusalem where Jesus had died. We don’t know why they are going this way, but we know that they had all but given up hope in the Resurrection and were walking in the other direction. It is in this foggy state that they meet but do not recognize Jesus as he approaches them on the road.

Jesus though, walks with them, talks with them, and teaches them about the Scripture. Still these disciples do not recognize anything. Finally, they get to where they are going and Jesus acts like he is going to keep on walking. Something in the disciples urges them to invite Jesus to stay with them for evening is near. Jesus stays and they sit down to eat together. It is when Jesus breaks bread with the disciples that they finally recognize him.

We do not know what happened to Jesus, but he disappears. The disciples though identified him and they remembered that their hearts had been burning the entire time they were with Jesus. I wonder if those two disciples had a moment when they laughed and laughed and laughed until they cried. For they had been walking away from Jerusalem, the empty tomb, and the Risen Lord, they had been lost and confused, but now experienced the Resurrected Jesus.

Sometimes in life we can walk around and feel as though we have lost hope. Maybe it’s because we are feeling lost in a far away place, or maybe it’s because we feel lost right here at home. It is almost impossible in those moments to know that Jesus is walking with us, but he is. Jesus will come to us at all times and he will walk with us. Even if we cannot recognize him he will walk with us. Like the disciples we must listen to what Jesus tells us. Like the disciples we can feel our hearts burning within us. Like the disciples we are to invite Jesus to stay a little while longer. Jesus longs to break bread with us, to be with us in fellowship and in life.

This is the joy of our Risen Lord that he will make our hearts to burn and he will break bread with us. Thanks be to God for this!