Um, There's Someone Behind You...

Photo Credit to Thierry Gregorius 

Rigor mortis drapes fingertips long on our Christmas tree still sparkling beside me. Fragrant pine needles wafted long after December 25th so I didn't have the heart to throw it away then. Now the scent has passed, though, and it's time. 

Alongside strong French coffee this week, I've been following a tale of death and starting over. In familiar biblical accounts in Luke, we see Jesus dying on the cross, a dark cave tomb blasted with light and an empty slab where a body should be.

"Why do you look for the living among the dead?" angels ask with a smile to wondering women.

And along a winding country road, seven miles outside the city, Jesus appears to two men and starts a conversation.

It always begins with a conversation. The Godhead shows up humbly, unobtrusively. To the men, he appeared beside them as they walked, and asked them what they were talking about.

Beside you, too, today, as you shuffle papers in the office, or fold laundry and orchestrate a home, and while you tap keys on your computer...

He walks quietly up beside us, wonders what we are thinking, listens, and then begins to talk.

And the old, the dead, the browning stiffness is gone, replaced with a burning sense of wonder.

"Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him..."

"Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" they raved. And suddenly, any road weariness is lifted and they leave their supper behind, drop all thoughts of sleep, and retrace their seven mile hike back into town.

This God, he's always making things new, bringing life to the dead, and desiring to reveal himself to us in a way that makes our hearts burn within us. God, help me see you walking here beside me, eager to open my mind to understand your word.