Hope that’s right under your nose

I’ve always been captivated by a Resurrection Sunday event recorded in Luke 24. Two followers of Jesus were heading out of town totally depressed. In talking about their friends murder by crucifixion they said, “But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.” Notice the first four words of that phrase: “But we were hoping …” My guess is there’s not a one of us that hasn’t at one time or another said a phrase similar to that.

“But I had hoped… the company downsizing wouldn’t affect me.” “…My son, my daughter, was finally growing up, and finally getting their act together, finally over that addiction.” “…To be married by now, have children by now.” “…We’d seen the last of the cancer in our family.” “…We’d be able to have a child, another child.” “…That we’d have a healthy child.”

“But I had hoped… that when we said those words ‘til death do us part’ that our marriage would be forever.” “…That when we moved to Cadillac it was going to be the best days ahead of us.” “I hoped one thing, but then in reality it was another. I wanted this, but it turned out differently.”

It was a number of years ago, but I remember seeing Bob Hamlet, a ministry brother who passed away a few months ago, share a concert of music. Bob sang a song he wrote that spoke of the wonderful mother his wife, Robin, is as she cared for their first-born child Jonathan who was born with a birth defect that, basically, placed him in a state where he was unable to care for himself.

When Jonathan was 21 they had to place him in a facility that could give him the care he required. But for all those years prior they lived every day with wheelchairs, and special beds, with a child unable to feed himself, bathe himself, dress himself or go to the bathroom himself.

Bob and his wife for 21 years had cared for this child, day in, day out. Rarely in that time had they taken a family vacation. They hardly knew what it was to get away for a few days at a spring break. This was their life. Sometimes the difficult road that you’re traveling down is not just for a few days or a few weeks; sometimes it’s years. Sometimes it’s a lifetime.

Some of you reading this will be in a wheelchair for a lifetime. For others, you’ve come to realize that Alzheimer’s always gets progressively worse. There are some parents with children that have disabilities for which there are no cures. And they live with them every day. Sometimes we wonder if the hope we talk about, yeah, it’s grace for the road behind me, for all my past sins and mistakes. But what about for the road that I’m traveling on right now, and where I’m headed? It’s the road of broken dreams. It’s a road of disillusionment.

It was a road very much like this one that these two of the followers of Jesus, on the tail end of that first Resurrection Sunday, were traveling on. These guys, man, they had the hope knocked out of them. They had left family, they had left careers, and they had left relationships, everything, to follow Jesus. They thought He was going to set up his great earthly kingdom, free them from Roman occupation and oppression. And now Jesus is dead.

These two disciples were despondent, they were down. They were headed West at the end of the day, so the sun was in their eyes. And they didn’t recognize this fellow who, all of a sudden, was traveling with them. God kept them from realizing Who it was. They didn’t know that hope was right under their noses. They didn’t know that the Person with them was the One they followed: Jesus Christ!

This was the second person of the Trinity. The Son of God. They didn’t realize that this was He who they had come to realize was their source of strength and power. Do you know when they came to see Who it really was? It was when they slowed down. Luke 24:30 says, “When He” — Jesus — “was at the table with them; He took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him …”

When they slowed down for a moment, they opened their eyes and realized: “We’re not alone. God really is with us.” You know my prayer for some of you who’ve been traveling down difficult roads in your life has been this… that maybe today, you would slow down long enough and open your eyes and recognize the God Who slows down in order for you to catch up!