Sometimes things don’t work out the way we want them to.
My wife realized this back in 2019 when her employer suddenly informed her that she was no longer needed after 28 years of faithful service to them. Perhaps this would’ve been much easier for her to accept had she not loved her job and cared so much about the people she worked with. But this news completely crushed her. She had devoted so much of her life to her company, and at great expense to her family. As a result, she was one of the most successful leaders the company had. Yet suddenly all of tomorrow’s promises had been replaced with yesterday’s uncertainties. And a huge part of my wife’s identity was gone.
Needless to say, things had certainly not worked out the way we had hoped.
On the morning of Jesus’ resurrection, this was precisely the same attitude that two dejected disciples had as they left Jerusalem and were walking back home to Emmaus. Suddenly this mysterious “stranger” appeared alongside them as they walked, and they began telling him about everything that had happened a few days before. They said to him, “We had hoped that this man was the Messiah, the one who had come to redeem Israel. But the chief priests handed him over to the Roman authorities and they crucified him.” They even told him about the reports they’d heard of the empty tomb earlier that morning, and yet they were walking back home, convinced that Jesus was dead.
God does a lot of things that man is truly incapable of understanding. This event that day is one of those things. Luke tells us that Jesus supernaturally disguised himself so that these two disciples couldn’t recognize him. If you’re like me, you’ve probably wondered why he did that. Luke offers no explanation. So we truly don’t know the exact reason why Jesus didn’t want to be recognizable to them. But perhaps there’s a clue here that Luke offers as he describes Jesus’ discussion with them.
“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.” – Luke 24:25-27
I think that maybe the reason Jesus had hidden his identity from them is because he wanted them to truly consider the things he had to say to them and encourage their faith. If Jesus had just showed up alongside them and was recognizable, they wouldn’t need to think about what the Old Testament prophets had said and why things had to work out the way they did. They wouldn’t need to think about the importance of faith.
Perhaps there’s a valuable lesson here for us as well. Think about it. How many times during some of the more difficult and heartbreaking periods in our lives have we failed to recognize that Jesus was right here alongside us, walking with us, encouraging us and reminding us of his promises in Scripture? That he isn’t dead, but that he’s very much alive, and not only alive but literally living inside us?
Consider how distraught these two disciples were as they were walking alongside this mysterious stranger on the way home, and then compare that to the joy and excitement they had a little while later when Jesus offered them the bread of life at their own kitchen table and made himself known to them! They were so overjoyed that they immediately returned to the eleven disciples in Jerusalem to tell them they had seen the Messiah!
“We had hoped” became “We have hope.”
Despite losing her job, my wife has precisely the same attitude of those two disciples today. As it turned out, losing her job enabled her rediscovery of the real identity she had all along but had been disguised through chasing the American dream: a devoted daughter, mother and wife, and a faithful follower of Christ who now volunteers part of her time to ministry.
Sometimes things don’t work out the way we want them to. Instead, they work out even better…
The way they’re supposed to.
Former Blackout Artist 