TWO FRIENDS ON THE ROAD
You’re driving
Down the road
With your friends
On your way out of town
You’re talking
With your friends
About the events
Of the last few days
A great man has died
A great spiritual man
Some say
A prophet
Some say
The Messiah
Who has conquered the grave
You pick up a hitchhiker
Along the road
You continue to talk
And the man from the backseat says,
“What are you 2 discussing
As we are driving along”
Both of your faces freeze
You both look back and say,
“Are you the only visitor
To not know
The things that have happened there
In the last few days”
“What things,” he says
You and your friend
Tell him the whole story
The story of
The crucifixion
The story of
There being no body
In the tomb
The story of
Some women saying
They saw some angels
And the angels saying
That the man is alive
You and your friend
Look at him incredulously
You cannot believe
He hasn’t heard the story
The man then says to you,
“How foolish you are
And slow of heart to believe
All the prophets have spoken!
Did not the Christ
Have to suffer those things
And then enter his glory”
As you pass a town
The man in the backseat
Says he is going no further
But you urge him
To stay on
To ride a little ways further
When you stop
At a roadside diner
To get a bite to eat
He brakes bread and gives thanks
Just as the great prophet
The great man that you were just discussing
Had done
It slowly
Dawns on you and your friend
That this man, indeed, was the man
You say to each other,
“Were not our hearts
Burning within us
While he talked with us
On the road
And opened the scriptures to us”
You turn your car around
Driving back
To where you came from---just as fast as you can
You can’t wait
To tell the rest of your friends
Your encounter with the Lord
And that he is indeed ALIVE
Robert P. Wallman
4-5-11
Ps Based on
Luke 24---The Road to Emmaus
