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Return to Emmaus

An amended reblog of a dialogue that we will be using today in our Easter Communion service at Belfast South...
 


Both:    You’ll never believe who we met…

Cleopas:    Really…

 Persis:       You’ll never believe it… It was amazing…

Cleopas:    Astounding…

Persis:       We didn’t recognise him ourselves at first…

Cleopas:    Now I had a wee inkling from the time he started talking to us…

Persis:       Actually Cleopas was really cheeky when he asked what we were talking about…Asked him what planet he was on over the past few days that he hadn’t heard what had happened in Jerusalem…

Cleopas:    I told him all that had happened over the previous few days…

Persis: I’m really embarrassed… There’s us telling him what had happened… As if he didn’t know!!!

Cleopas:    He genuinely didn’t seem to know what had been going on…

Persis:    It was dreadful to really think what had gone on… We were really devastated… All our hopes seemed to have been nailed to that cross with him… Then to add insult to injury… some of the women said that they had just come from the tomb and they couldn’t find the body…

Cleopas:    Things had looked bleak, but when the women came back from the tomb talking about the body being gone, I knew there was something happening…

Persis:       When he heard this he said: “So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! It’s all there in the prophets…”

Cleopas:    It’s all there in the prophets, you see. We talked about that as we walked along…

Persis:    He explained it as we walked along… How the Messiah had to suffer before entering into his glory…

Cleopas:    The seven miles to Emmaus flew by…

Persis:       Before we knew it we had reached our destination…

Cleopas:    It was late so we asked him to stay for supper…

Persis:       We asked him to stay for supper… but it was only an excuse… He looked as if he was heading on and we didn’t want him to leave us…

Cleopas:    So he came in for a bite to eat… I had hoped to talk more about his fulfilment of the prophecies…

Persis:       But he didn’t stay long… Only until he had given thanks to God for the food and broken the bread… And then I remembered…

Cleopas:    I remembered what the other disciples told us he had said at the Passover supper the night before he died…

Persis:       This bread is my body, broken for you… this wine is my blood, poured out for you…

Cleopas:    As often as you do this remember me…

Persis:       I remembered…

Cleopas:    And he disappeared. Persis sat there with her eyes wide as dinner plates and her jaw dragging on the ground.

Persis:       Cleopas was just as astounded as I was… but he would never admit it…

Cleopas:    Once she came to I was keen to talk about all that had happened to us…

Persis:       Once I came to, I wanted to tell the others what had happened to us…

Cleopas:    We headed back to Jerusalem…

Persis:       We almost ran the whole way…

Cleopas:    Got there in half the time it took us in the other direction…

Persis:       Yet, it seemed so much longer without him with us…

Cleopas:    But by the time we got there others had seen him too… It was old news…

Persis:       It was amazing news… Jesus was alive…

Cleopas:    But Jesus had walked with us to Emmaus… I’ll hold onto that until my dying day…

Persis:       We had walked with Jesus to Emmaus…

Cleopas:    Maybe I’ll write a book… Seven Miles with Jesus…

Persis:       But the journey isn’t over yet…


Selah


 



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