Perhaps Jesus will meet all our expectations in the beginning when He woos us to Himself; but that season will eventually end. And just when you think you’ve laid hold of Him, He will slip out of your grasp. He will appear to us as a stranger. But upon second glance, we shall discover that He’s no stranger at all. Emmaus will be repeated in our lives.
We all wish to cling to the Lord that we know now. We all wish to hold on to the Christ that has been revealed to us today. But mark my words: He will come to us in a way that we do not expect . . . through people who we’re prone to ignore and inclined to write off.
Perhaps they don’t talk our religious language. Perhaps they don’t use our vocabulary. Perhaps they don’t share our jargon nor grasp our religious idioms.
And so we cling fast to the Lord that we recognize . . . only receiving those who talk our language, use our jargon, and employ our catch phrases . . . and all along we end up turning the Lord away.
I have watched this happen repeatedly. Both among Christians who gather in traditional churches as well as those who gather outside of it.
What, then, does our Lord do when we fail to receive Him when He comes to us in an unexpected way? He moves on. And the revelation that you have of Him ceases to grow.
I’ve seen churches and movements stop dead-in-the-water, living off of a revelation of Christ that was delivered to them twenty or thirty years ago. And they never got beyond it.
This, in fact, is the very root of denominationalism and Christian movements. It works like this. A group of Christians see an important aspect of Christ. That revelation usually comes from a servant of the Lord whom God has raised up to restore a certain spiritual truth to the church. The group is confounded by it. Even changed by it. And they stand on the earth to promote and express it.
But then, subtlety, they build a circle around it. And then a castle . . . and then a wall . . . and then they enshrine it. And when someone else comes in contact with them with another aspect of Christ to share, they blow it off with monumental disinterest. Why? Because it’s different from the original sighting of the Lord that they have received.
In effect, the group refuses to have fellowship with other Christians who are not like them. Please don’t misunderstand. Fellowship is not having a meal with somebody. Fellowship is mutual participation and exchange. It’s a two-way street. If you and I have fellowship, that means that I receive what the Lord has given you and you receive what the Lord has given me. And we are both enriched. That’s fellowship.
If I only fellowshipped with those whose beliefs were the same as mine and their understanding of the Lord was the same as mine, then I couldn’t have fellowship with myself ten years ago. Fifteen years ago I would have had to excommunicate myself from the Kingdom of God.
Jesus Christ is richer, larger, and more glorious than any of us could ever imagine. And He comes to us in ways that make it tempting to reject Him.
When Peter, James, and John saw the transfigured Lord on the holy mountain, Peter wanted to build a tabernacle for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah and forget about the rest of the apostles. But God would not allow it. EN – Matthew 17:1-4.
There is something in our fallen nature that, like Peter, wishes to build a monument around a spiritual encounter with God and leave our other brothers and sisters behind. But the Lord will not have it. He will always break free from our frail attempts to pin Him down, box Him up, and hold Him in place. And He does so by coming to us in new and unexpected ways.