Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 345 · December 11
The Burning Afterwards
“And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?”
It is about seven miles of road, late in the day. Two followers of Jesus are walking away from Jerusalem, where the man they trusted was put to death three days before. A stranger falls into step with them and asks what they have been talking about as they walk, and why they are so sad. One of them, Cleopas, can hardly believe the question: "Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?"
Today's verse about the burning heart is something they said afterwards, and that is worth noticing. They say it at the supper table, after He has broken the bread and vanished from their sight, when they turn to each other and think back over the walk. During the walk itself, "their eyes were holden that they should not know him." Holden means held, kept from seeing. They spoke of their hope as something already over: "we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel." Whatever was stirring in their hearts did not tell them who He was at the time. They were sad, they were polite to a stranger, and they nearly let Him walk on alone, for "he made as though he would have gone further."
What finally opened their eyes was simple and ordinary: "he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them." Luke tells it twice, once in the scene itself and again in the report they carry back to Jerusalem, where they told "how he was known of them in breaking of bread." All along the road He had been teaching them, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets," and the whole time they still thought He was a stranger. The teaching left a warmth in them that they could only name later.
So what do you do with a heart that burns when you cannot yet say why? Do what these two did: keep listening to the Scriptures, and ask Him to stay. "Abide with us," they said, and He went in with them. The same risen Lord still opens the Scriptures to people who are sad and confused, and He still makes Himself known to those who invite Him in, even when they only understand it afterwards.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 345 is Love Responding to Love (1 John 4:19).