TWO FRIENDS ON THE ROAD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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