『Stay With Us』のカバーアート

Stay With Us

Stay With Us

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Luke 24:28–32 (NIV)As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"We know this story. We read it at Easter, and we focus — rightly — on the extraordinary moment at the table when the two disciples finally recognize the risen Christ. But I want to stop before we get to the table, and look carefully at what happens at the edge of the village, because something remarkable occurs there too.Think about what these two people were carrying as they came within sight of home. They had spent the previous days in shock and grief, watching everything they had believed about Jesus of Nazareth come crashing down with his death on the cross. That morning there had been confusing reports from the women about an empty tomb, reports they clearly were not sure what to make of. They had been walking all day. They were exhausted, uncertain, perhaps a little skeptical about everything they were hearing. The stranger who had joined them on the road was remarkably well-spoken and knew the scriptures deeply, but he did not appear to be in any distress. He was not begging. He was not obviously in need. As they reached the village, he showed every sign of continuing on his way.The easy thing — the understandable thing — would have been to wish him well at the crossroads and go inside and close the door. But they did not do that. The Greek word Luke uses for what they did next is parebiasanto — to constrain, to press, to urge so strongly that the other person can hardly refuse. They didn't offer a polite, open-ended invitation. They insisted. Stay with us. It is nearly evening. The day is almost over. Come in.That same Greek word appears only one other time in the New Testament. In Acts 16, after Paul and his companions have shared the gospel with a gathering of women by the river at Philippi, a woman named Lydia — a merchant, a person of some means — responds with immediate faith and is baptized along with her household. And then, Luke tells us, she urged Paul and his companions to come and stay at her house. She would not take no for an answer. Two episodes, separated by years and miles, bound together by the same pressing, insistent, open-handed hospitality.Cleopas and his companion had no idea who they were inviting in. They thought they were extending a kindness to a fellow traveler who had somehow missed the news about Jesus of Nazareth. And that is precisely the point. Their hospitality was not offered because they recognized Christ. It was offered because something — those burning hearts they had not yet learned to identify — moved them past politeness and past the exhaustion of a long and difficult day, and made them open the door to a stranger.Their kindness was rewarded far beyond anything they could have imagined. The stranger they welcomed in broke bread with them, and in that breaking their eyes were opened. The risen Christ had been walking with them all afternoon, and they had not known it. They knew it now. We are all, on any given day, closer to that kind of encounter than we realize. The question is whether, when we come within sight of home, tired and uncertain and ready to close the door, we will hear that still, small prompting and say to the stranger beside us — stay with us. Come in.PrayerOur Father, give us the grace to practice the hospitality that Cleopas and his companion showed on the road to Emmaus — not the hospitality of convenience, but the kind that insists, that opens the door even when the day is almost over. May we welcome the stranger as they did, and may our eyes be opened as theirs were. Amen.This devotion was written by Jim Stovall. Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.
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