The road to Emaus.

If this was not as expected? (Lc 24, 13-35)

The road to Emaus represents any time that we are dissappointed in our life, when things do not happen as we expected, when our hopes break and little by little we forgot God and we don´t let him be God in our lives.

Personally speaking, the road to Emaus has always reminded me another story, that I listened first when I was a teenager called “the footprints in the sand”. It was about a man that was reviewing his life with God and told him: “Dear father, I can observe your footprints close to mine in most of my life but in the hardest moments, I see that you leave me alone and there are only one footprints.” And God, full of warmth, replies him: “Dear Son, it is true what you say about your life. However, in these hard moments, not only I have not abandoned you, but moreover, these were my footprints and not yours, because I was taking you in my arms… because I am your father and you are what I love most…”  

I think this story may illustrate perfectly what these two disciples were discussing along the road to Emaus, even though that when the Lord joined them they were already commenting the first signs of the resurrection that had already happened in Jerusalem! (Lc 24, 22-24)

There are may good books to pray with the Road to Emaus. My suggestion is this one “With burning hearts” from Henri. J. M. Nouwen (that you can find here, Thanks Enrique for the suggestion).

The design selected to capture the essence of this story is a simple wooden milestone that could be located somewhere in the middle of this road (Jerusalem on one side, Emaus on the other) In the design, Jerusalem is represented with our logo from Yaltercerdia.com, the open sepulcre with the stone (in red) partially moved as it was the place where the Glory of God was taking place. This logo represents the resurrection of the Lord, with the red color of God beating the black color of the death.

On the other hand, Emaus is represented with the holy sepulcre fully closed with a blue stone, which represent the humanity. This closed sepulcre denies Jesus Christ divinity, leaving Jesus just as a good man, that did many things in live but that was killed by the Hebrew.

We have opted for two statements for this design, that captures the two more hopeful messages from my experience in the road to Emaus:

• «Do not go…, the day is almost gone». (Lc 24, 29) Despite the disciples only recognized Jesus when he shared the bread, they offered him to stay with them. I think it is a very relevant message for us today to invite Jesus to keep with us in our life and, as the story of the fingerprints, allow him to take us in his arms in our hardest days.

• Were not our hearts burning in us? (Lc 24, 32) The presence of God in our lifes is typically found in the subtle breeze more than in a windy storm, but leaves a brutal imprint in our heart… even in situations where we are going away from God. This sentence aims to reminds us such moments to use them as anchor and guidance in our daily life.

Which of them do you prefer? Do your choice in the online store.