Road Worthy by Valerie Ronald

Travel has a way of drawing out internal thoughts. As the body is engaged in getting to a destination, the mind has time to ponder and explore away from daily routine. On a seven mile journey by foot from Jerusalem to Emmaus, a few days after Jesus’ crucifixion, two of His disciples discussed the internal thoughts closest to their hearts. Shoulders slumped, feet scuffing the dusty road, faces sad and perplexed, their demeanor spoke their discouragement. They had put their hope in Jesus of Nazareth as the one who was going to redeem Israel, but He had been arrested, crucified and buried, and His body probably stolen for His tomb was now empty. With the road stretching before them, their conversation was tinged with sorrow and confusion. (Luke 24:13-35 NIV)

In the aftermath of a life-shattering event, we want to study it from all angles, dissect the details, try to figure out the why and how and now what. Somehow it gives us a sense of control to analyze the facts and search for answers, preferably with someone who can commiserate with us. Processing a traumatic event turns our focus inward.

The two walking to Emmaus were so absorbed in their discussion, they probably did not notice a fellow traveler until He came alongside them. Wrapped in a robe, dusty and windblown, like themselves, they did not recognize Jesus. Even though it was Jesus they were discussing, seeing Him in person was the farthest prospect from their minds. Although He had spoken of it often, His resurrection was an impossibility to them.

When we are caught up in our own problems, trying to cope with an imperfect reality, we can miss Jesus walking beside us. Life narrows our vision to focus on looming bills, a serious medical diagnosis, a fractured relationship, a worldwide crisis. Even when we fail to recognize Him, He is beside us through all the difficulties because He has promised He will never leave us or forsake us. (Heb. 13:5)

Still disguised, Jesus gently chided the two on the road for being foolish and slow of heart. In modern terms, He advised them to look at the big picture. Then painting the big picture in words, “He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself.” (Luke 24:27) And they were still not aware it was Him.

When all I can see are the problems right in front of me, the best thing I can do is adjust my spiritual lens, go wide angle and take in all of who Jesus is, what He has accomplished and what He has promised for the future. His story is woven throughout the Bible from the first word to the last. Reading it reminds me of the providence of God so clearly demonstrated in the life of His son Jesus, which means I can trust Him for my life too.

The two travelers warmed to their wise companion as they walked. They entreated Him to stay with them and have a meal. “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.” (Luke 24:30-31)

This part of the story touches my heart, because it was in the act of thanksgiving and sharing bread that Jesus revealed Himself. And He will continue to reveal Himself as we practice thanksgiving, focusing on the One who has given us all things. We are called to give thanks in all circumstances. (1 Thess. 5:17) Thanksgiving points us to Jesus, our true north, who guides us into all truth.

Finally they put the two together. Jesus, the man who walked to Emmaus with them, once dead and now alive, was the Messiah, fulfilling all the prophecies in Scripture. Their hearts burned within them with this revolutionary knowledge.

The story of the two on the road to Emmaus is our story too. Often blind to the presence of Jesus right beside us, we listen to His story in Scripture, but until we thank Him for His body broken and His blood poured out for us, we cannot see who He really is. When we finally recognize our constant companion, our hearts will burn within us --- with love, with gratitude and with worship.

Valerie Ronald lives in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. She is a graduate of Vancouver’s Langara College journalism program, and has worked as a newspaper reporter, freelance writer, public speaker and bookstore employee.Valerie finds being a member of the Manitoba Christian Writers Association has honed her writing skills and confidence. She writes devotionals for her home church bulletins and her online blog. Her current book project chronicles how God’s faithfulness saw her through the dark valleys of divorce and cancer. Along with her husband, Valerie enjoys spending time with their blended family and six grandchildren.She is a nature photographer, water colorist, cat lover and Scrabble addict.
   

More of her devotionals can be read on her blog   https://scriptordeus.wordpress.com

Along the Via Dolorosa by Valerie Ronald

The streets of Old Jerusalem are silent witnesses to centuries of history. Their narrow, winding passageways still echo with the tramp of soldier’s boots and the soft scuff of barefooted pilgrims. One route in particular bears an ancient Latin name descriptive of an event that changed the world. The Via Dolorosa, meaning “way of suffering”, is believed to be the path that Jesus walked on the way to His crucifixion. The winding route covers a distance of about 600 metres, marked by nine Stations of the Cross based on biblical accounts of events leading up to the death of Jesus.

I am not a traditional Lenten observer. For medical reasons, I cannot fast from food, and I do not feel a driving necessity to abstain from much in my simple lifestyle in order to remember what Christ went through. What I have done in my decades as a believer is spend the season of Lent walking with Him through His Passion; a mental pilgrimage down the Via Dolorosa, if you will. Considering the eternal impact of the events leading up to the cross, there are not a lot of descriptive details in the gospel accounts. As I repeatedly, thoughtfully read each account, I imagine myself in the various scenes or as the different characters. It is how it all becomes real to me, hearing the sounds, seeing the faces, smelling the odors of dust and blood and seething crowds. I walk the Via Dolorosa alongside my beloved Lord and Savior. His way of suffering brings paths of tears down my cheeks with each step I take.

Following is what I imagine Simon of Cyrene may have experienced in his singular encounter with Jesus.

Simon of Cyrene   

Drawn by the roar of an excited mob, I stepped out from a narrow Jerusalem street into a scene of mayhem. I, Simon, had traveled far from my home in Cyrene to celebrate Passover on the Temple Mount, never expecting to come upon such chaos on a Feast Day. Fists punching the air, voices yelling invectives, the crowd surged closer to the entrance of the Praetorium. I found myself absorbed in the seething throng, jostled and pushed until I was thrown up against the open gate.

The object of the crowd’s ridicule hardly seemed worth their fury. Surrounded by a company of Roman soldiers, a man beaten and bloodied beyond recognition struggled under the burden of a heavy beam. I winced at the gruesome sight of the prisoner’s back laid open by brutal flogging and his limbs purple and swollen from countless blows. I had seen condemned prisoners before but none tortured so viciously. The man’s face was a mass of open flesh where his beard had been plucked out; his brow gouged by the long, cruel thorns pressed on his head. Blood filled the hollows of his eyes, running down his chin to pool on the paving stones at his feet. I thought of my sons, Alexander and Rufus, relieved they were not here to witness this atrocity.
 
“Crucify him! Crucify him!”, screamed the mob while soldiers goaded the prisoner forward through the gate. His clothing hung in bloodied shreds, still I recognized remnants of the tasseled stole of a rabbi. Could this be the rabbi I had heard stories about ever since arriving in Jerusalem? The one rumored to have healed the sick and raised the dead? Some even linked the title Messiah to his name. Surely he did not deserve this inhuman treatment.

I wanted to shut out the awful procession; close my eyes to the pain and blood, my ears to the labored gasps for air, my nose to the reek of sweat, but I could not. The prisoner sagged beneath the weight of the rough timber, stumbled then collapsed to his knees at my feet. Sentenced to die, he was forced to carry the beam of his own cross to the place of crucifixion but he could go no further. 

Suddenly rough soldier hands grabbed me, shoving me toward the man on the ground, shouting at me to pick up the beam and carry it for him. I felt the sharp prod of a Roman spear in my side and knew I must obey or die. As I stooped to lift the blood-slick beam, the condemned man raised his head to look at me. Roaring mob, forceful soldiers, the smell of blood faded before that capturing gaze. The pain and suffering creasing the man’s brow and squinting his eyes could not diminish the absolute love blazing out. I felt my heart suspend its beat for the length of that look, only to take it up again as a renewed heart, an alive heart touched by this almost-dead rabbi. 

Hefting the rough wood across my shoulders, I felt sticky blood staining my hands but was not repulsed. Instead, strength coursed through my limbs, enough to grip the beam with one hand, reaching down my other to help the bleeding man to his feet. The crowd parted as we moved towards Golgotha.

(based on Mark 15:21)

Valerie Ronald lives in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. She is a graduate of Vancouver’s Langara College journalism program, and has worked as a newspaper reporter, freelance writer, public speaker and bookstore employee.Valerie finds being a member of the Manitoba Christian Writers Association has honed her writing skills and confidence. She writes devotionals for her home church bulletins and her online blog. Her current book project chronicles how God’s faithfulness saw her through the dark valleys of divorce and cancer. Along with her husband, Valerie enjoys spending time with their blended family and six grandchildren.She is a nature photographer, water colorist, cat lover and Scrabble addict.
    

More of her devotionals can be read on her blog   https://scriptordeus.wordpress.com

Hell: How I Got Here by Bruce Atchison

If Judas Iscariot could send a message from hell, I suspect it might read like this:

If only I had listened to the Christ! If only I had understood the opportunity I had. But I didn't and here I am in this horrid place. What a FOOL I was!

When Jesus of Nazareth came to Jerusalem, I knew I must join him. This Galilean was more than a mere rabble rouser. There was something different about him and his "Kingdom of Heaven" speeches. I felt he would really be our Messiah, the one to kick out the oppressive Romans and make Israel great again.

And unlike Theudas and other rebels, this Jesus did mighty miracles. I saw with my own eyes how the blind were given sight instantly. There was none of that fakery like the phony healers and the quacks practice. People actually were healed of incurable illnesses like leprosy. He even raised people who were stone-cold dead.

Then this rabbi sent us out, two by two, to proclaim his Kingdom. I didn't really know what it was all about but I repeated the words of the master like I was told to do.

I also was able to cast out demons like my partner and the other disciples. When we returned and told Jesus that even the demons obeyed us, he said our names were written in heaven. I thought he'd congratulate us but he just gave us a platitude. Was that all we could expect from he who could have liberated Israel?

Then Jesus slipped into a funk. He kept saying he was going to Jerusalem to suffer and die? How could that be? He was our only hope to kick those foreigners out of our land and free us from their pagan ways forever. I started asking myself why I was hanging around this contradictory leader.

Then, as some of you folks say, the last straw happened. Jesus let an immoral woman pour expensive perfume all over his feet. That alabaster box of spikenard could have been sold for a a year's wages. I said it should have been given to the poor but I wanted my share of all that money. After all, I had the cash bag and none of those empty-headed followers suspected that I took what I wanted from it. I had to live too, you know.

That's when the Devil himself entered me. I really didn't feel like myself as I went to the Pharisees and cut a deal. It was like being in a bad dream. I supposed I could have gotten more money for showing them where the Christ would be alone. But a deal is a deal and I wanted nothing more from my former master.

Well, you know the rest. Jesus was arrested and tried. The whole time, he made no protest. I began to have second thoughts as the crowds insisted that Pilate crucify him.

Satan left me after I betrayed the Lord and my conscience tortured me. I took the money back to the Pharisees but they wouldn't take it. So I threw it into the temple and left.

My conscience screamed at me as I walked the streets. The only way I knew to rid myself of that guilt was to hang myself. I found a tree with a limb growing over a cliff and made a noose of my tunic.

Suddenly, my guts fell out and I was in extreme agony. It felt much worse than my nagging conscience.

But that pain was nothing compared to the agony I now am in. No words can express the utter despair I feel and the relentless shrieking of my conscience. I knew the gospel and had been with the Son of God and yet I threw it all away for thirty pieces of silver. What an idiot I was!

The Breathings of God's Heart - Bruce Atchison

Isn't The Holy Bible the breathings of God's heart? Second Timothy chapter two and verse sixteen declairs that all scripture is God-breathed. Therefore when we read it or hear it read aloud, we're experiencing the breathings of the Lord's heart.

We can discover much from studying our heavenly Father's communication with humanity. We learn of his continual sorrow when we reject his sovereign and magnanimous love.  Reading the Old Testiment prophets alone shows how troubled the Lord was over Israel's never-ending harlotries. Jesus also wept over Jerusalem because he knew how close they came to meeting their messiah and yet they rejected him. Christ also wept as he foresaw what would happen in A.D. 70.

Our heavenly Father's joy is also manifest in both testiments. Whether it was his blessings on Israel when they worshipped him or his joy over Christ's faithfulness, even a casual reading shows how the Lord felt about those he chose. At the end of the worldly system, Jesus will pronounce his joyous blessing on all of us who have been faithful.

God's anger is also evident in scripture. Sadly, some non Christian readers mistake it for petty jealousy and many other insulting things that I'd rather not list. This is because they don't know him as we do, as our heavenly Father. Like any good parent, he punishes bad behaviour for its sake alone. Our Lord is immune to the human faults of peevishness or waking up in a bad mood. His justice is just, completely free of malice.

The Bible also shows us that God laughs at the puny efforts of humanity to rebel against him. As (Psalms 59:8 KJV)says,  "But thou, O LORD, shalt laugh at them; thou shalt have all the heathen in derision." We human beings figure we're made of gold and can't be sold, yet we lack the experience of our eternal and all-powerful Lord to see how foolish we look.

One of the most wonderful facts we can learn in regard to our relationship with God is that, through Jesus, he knows what it's like to be human. Hebrews chapter two and verse sixteen to eighteen demonstrates how he experienced life as we do, not as if he were some distant super being without emotion or empathy.

The passage above deeply touched me as I recovered from the teachings of an aberrant house church minister. Please listen to my testimony here and rejoice with me that our heavenly Father rescues lost lambs from the clutches of wicked shepherds.

@ve6xtc