'Encounter on the Road'

Easter Sunday 2026

On the first Easter Sunday, two people were walking away from Jerusalem — away from where everything had fallen apart. Seven miles out on a road heading to Emmaus, they were still talking, trying to make sense of a world that had stopped making sense. One is named Cleopas. The other Luke never names. That unnamed companion on the road to Emmaus has always had our names. They had followed Jesus to Jerusalem believing He would change everything. But they had Him wrong — not wrong about the facts, wrong about the frame. They expected a Messiah who would win by the world’s definition of winning. Instead, He ended up on a cross. So they walked.

Somewhere on that road, a stranger fell into step beside them and asked a question that felt like an invitation: “What are you discussing?” He wanted them to say it out loud and begin to process it with them. Then He opened the Scriptures and showed them how everything they thought they knew had been pointing toward exactly what had happened. The cross was not a failed plan. The suffering was the plan. The cross was the hinge, not the end. Something began to shift in them as they walked.

That evening at the table, the stranger took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and handed it to them. In that moment, their eyes opened. It was Him. It was Jesus. And then He left . They looked at each other: “Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road?” They had encountered the Lord. They felt His divine presence even before they could name Him. And they got up — at night, seven miles back the way they came — because the news was too large to keep.

Wherever you are on the road today — walking away from something, carrying questions you can’t explain, or already running to tell someone — the risen Christ is still walking beside you. He still asks questions. He still opens Scripture. The invitation is the same: stay with me a little longer.

If something has been stirring in you — not fully formed, not fully certain, but something — say it out loud. Invite Him to stay. You will never walk the road alone again, and life will begin to make a lot more sense.

Blessings,

Jonathan