Burning Hearts

by Toms, A. F. | Category: General | Apr 1987

"Their eyes were holden that they should not know Him". So it says of the two walking to Emmaus when the Stranger drew alongside and companied with them. And when they did eventually recognize Him as He blessed and brake the bread in their home, He vanished out of their sight. So throughout the experience they were unaware of who their Visitor was. At no point did they look upon Him in recognition.

Why was that? Why did God withhold from them the joy of recognizing their Master, when their hearts were breaking because of Him? I suggest it was because He wanted to teach them they could no longer depend upon His physical presence with them. Though they had known Christ after the flesh yet now they would know Him so no more.

But His physical presence which they had valued so much was to give place to an enjoyment of Him in the Scriptures. And as they reminisced together after His departure, that was the outstanding memory which lingered with them. "Was not our heart burning within us" they said, "while He spake to us in the way, while He opened to us the Scriptures?" "Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself". What a tremendous experience!

The journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus was about 7 1/2 miles and on rough roads it could well have taken three to four hours. As the Lord Jesus

began in Genesis and worked His way through the Pentateuch and the books of history, and then through the poetical books and all the prophets, it would require possibly that length of time as He interpreted to them the things concerning Himself.

They learned that night a lesson they never forgot, that Christ is in all the Scriptures; and as the Holy Spirit operated in their hearts He would make Him as real to them, and as precious, as ever He was when they companied with Him on earth. "He shall take of Mine" He said, speaking of the Comforter who was to come, and declare it unto you". And so He will, not only in their hearts, but in ours also.

This is surely the lesson of the Emmaus road. And it was repeated, only hours later, as He stood in the midst of His apostles and said, "all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets and the psalms, concerning Me. Then opened He their mind that they might understand the scriptures". May we also have opened minds to see the living Christ in His living Word. But we shall need to muse upon Him, and commune with each other concerning Him, as they did, and then the fire will kindle. And our hearts will burn as the living Christ becomes increasingly real and precious to us in His Word.

Toms, A. F. | Apr 1987
General