I was in the throes of a deep depression when I met a woman who was put into my life to help me through the darkness. She was a therapist. Her sharing with me helped me to see things differently and make the changes that I had to make in my life. I was challenged to let go and move on and see things differently. Often she would ask the question “where is your God in this?” I was moved to a deeper level of faith and personal awareness because of her.

Most of us will have had encounters with people that have changed our perceptions, enabled us to move on to a new stage in life and encouraged us always to trust in the presence of God. For me they are encounters with the risen Jesus, the one who became and becomes flesh, who lived and lives among us. Encounters with the Lord will always involve change and conversion.

Letting go

The Scriptures are full of such meetings with the risen Jesus. Remember John’s account of breakfast on the shore and the way in which Peter had to change, or Thomas’ meeting with the risen Lord. Change, conversion, letting go, all happened as a result of those meetings.

One of my favourites encounters is the journey that Luke tells us about in the story of the road to Emmaus. Two disciples were on the way from Jerusalem to Emmaus. In the Scriptures to walk away from Jerusalem is to go the wrong way. The disciples are heading down the wrong path. They’ve reached the bottom of the pit, a place of real brokenness. They thought Jesus was the Messiah. They’d been there when he’d entered Jerusalem and seen the crowds cheering and screaming his name. They’d been there when they’d nailed him to the tree and I think it felt for them as though they’d been nailed there as well. All their hopes and dreams had been crushed. They were at the end of their tether.

Brokenness and pain source of new life

Their problem lay in their understanding of Jesus. Things had worked out differently than they thought and so they had lost faith and hope. They hadn’t understood what he meant when he talked of suffering and dying. They weren’t able to recognise that it’s necessary to be broken on the journey if you’re going to find life. They thought it was all about power and control and political overthrow. In fact it was about brokenness and pain and about the life that came from that. They certainly weren’t growing in their understanding. In fact if anything they were simply confirming each other in their cynicism and getting further and further into the mire of desolation.Only Jesus himself could open their eyes to the truth of his presence and help them understand his journey and their journey. Only Jesus himself could enable them to move from their place of darkness and emptiness to find life. That’s what happens as the stranger walks alongside them and helps them to see. It’s interesting that they recognised him in the breaking of the bread, a symbol of their brokenness and his. That’s where they knew him. Don’t be afraid of brokenness. There you’ll meet God.

When they recognise the risen Jesus the two are completely changed. Suddenly their pain and their brokenness is no longer empty and worthless. They rise from the death of their old understanding of Jesus, and they rise up physically and go to tell the Good News to the others. They’ve moved to a different place.

New life through death of the old

New life only comes through the death of the old. Resurrection only comes from death experience. If you want to experience the resurrection within you what has to die within you? What do you have to let go of? All of us are on a journey through life and we’re all faced with the changes that come from just getting older as well as the changes that happen through the living of life. Will we let the risen Jesus move us along? Will we allow his word to guide us? Will we be open to an encounter with him that will lead us into the mystery of transformation? The choice is always ours but not to allow the Lord to lead us into the mystery of transformation means we remain as we are and what Disciple wants to do that?