The Gospel Comes with a House Key
Walking the Emmaus Road (2|2)
The Future of Hospitality
Pages 204-208
TOGETHER read the book and discuss the content below.
INDIVIDUALLY take notes in your journal on what stands out (try to keep it brief).
Luke 24:13-35 On the Road to Emmaus (NIV)
Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” “What things?” he asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.” He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he 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, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
We put the hand of the hurting into the hand of the Savior when we walk the Emmaus road with them.
TOGETHER pray for one another.
INDIVIDUALLY answer the questions in your journal - process your notes and pray.
The God who names and numbers the stars holds in his scarred hands the shards of your broken heart.
What is your response to this statement?
The Bible offers good and realistic and powerful answers, but answers fall short without the pierced hands and feet of Jesus. Ordinary hospitality is the hands and feet of Jesus. Hospitality reaches across worldview to be the bridge of gospel grace.
What is your response to this statement?
How have you experienced the grace because of the hands and feet of Jesus?
How have you been able to offer grace to someone with a different worldview than yours?
Pause and pray - feel free to use your own words and you process and respond to this chapter or use the prayer below:
Dear Lord, thank you for the example of Jesus that empowers us to walk with others in their suffering. Thank you for taking on suffering by becoming a man and living and dying and rising for us. Make my words rich with relevance that resonates with people’s hearts because I have spent time with them and know them. Thank you for caring for me so I am free to care for others. Help me to recognize those whose lives cause me to fear, and help me to instead show lavish love and care for them.
EXTRA READING:
“Christianity entered history as a new social order or rather a new social dimension. From the very beginning Christianity was not primarily a ‘doctrine,’ but exactly a ‘community.’ There was not only a ‘Message’ to be proclaimed and delivered, and ‘Good News’ to be declared. There was precisely a New Community, distinct and peculiar in the process of growth and formation, to which members were called and recruited. Indeed, ‘fellowship’ (koinonia) was the basic category of Christian existence.”
- Georges Florovsky (1893 - 1979)