Jesus is not a disappointment! How many times have you lived in expectation of things that never happened? You will have found that the greater the expectation, the deeper the disappointment.
In the time of Jesus Christ, Emmaus was an obscure village about 16km from Jerusalem. It rates a single mention in the Bible, and then only as a village to which two disappointed followers of Jesus travelled on an emotionally dark day after Jesus died.
We are not told why they were going to Emmaus, but we do know why they had left Jerusalem: they were disappointed. Deeply disappointed. They had followed Jesus for more than three years, believing him to be the long-promised Messiah.
During those years, Jesus had never disappointed. His amazing miracles were many. He had fed 5,000 people by multiplying five loaves of bread and two small fish, with leftovers. He had walked on water. Creative miracles of healing had been commonplace. Riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, Jesus had been hailed as the Saviour of His people. Yet this same wonderful person had then been nailed to a crude wooden cross—a death reserved for the worst criminals.
The terrible events that led to the death of Jesus—the mocking, the whipping, and the verbal abuse—had been the main topic of conversation in the city of Jerusalem. It was a topic that occupied the thoughts of the two men who travelled the road to Emmaus on that dismal day.
They were engaged in a Deep and Meaningful Conversation. A DMC almost always centres on negatives such as lost loves, lost hopes, lost dreams, lost opportunities—in short, long held but defeated expectancies.
A DMC is a verbal dissection of something that has somehow gone wrong. And since a DMC relates to past events, those who indulge in them tend to be unaware of present events that are positive and promising.
“But we trusted…” (Luke 24:21)
Preoccupied with the past, the two travellers were unaware of the presence of a man who had drawn near to them; one who that day was, for a very different reason, walking the road to Emmaus. The road to Emmaus led from disappointment to obscurity. But this man was not destined for obscurity, for he was not at all disappointed.
Disappointment is the failure or defeat of expectation.
Did you ever expect that something good was going to happen to you—and it didn’t? Were you disappointed? You may have loved someone, and expected that the one you loved would love you in return. When that didn’t happen, you were deeply disappointed.
Or perhaps after working hard for your company you felt that promotion was possible. Then word came that someone was soon to be promoted—and you just knew that it would be you!
But someone else in the company—a person who hadn’t worked half as hard as you—received that promotion. Were you then disappointed? Of course you were. The higher your expectation, the deeper the disappointment. The word disappointment means “the loss of an appointment.”
If you were to lose the position to which you had been appointed, you would be dis-appointed. If you had expected that the position would have meant recognition and appreciation, you would have experienced feelings of failure and defeat, because disappointment is the failure or defeat of expectation.
A person usually reacts to disappointment by turning away from the cause of the disappointment: the person who dashed the expectation. Or from where the disappointment took place: the scene of the defeated expectation.
For example, a woman may leave her circle of friends because she finds it difficult to handle a broken relationship. Or a man may leave his long-time employment with a company because the thought of working under the person who got the promotion that he expected is too much for him to handle.
“It wasn’t my scene,” the woman may say later.
“I felt that I could do better elsewhere,” the man may tell his friends.
What they are really saying is that they had to get away from the scene of their disappointment.
But leaving behind the scene of your disappointment or the person who disappointed you doesn’t necessarily mean that you leave behind the disappointment itself. In fact, the failure or defeat of your expectation will go with you—wherever you go, because disappointment is portable.
Those who turn from disappointment usually head for the obscurity of a new relationship, a different job, or a distant location well away from their failed or defeated expectations.
A marriage on the rebound may be seen as a safer—if ultimately less satisfying—relationship. A less challenging job, with fewer prospects, may hold fewer possibilities of being passed over for promotion.
Since the greater the expectation, the deeper the disappointment, the person’s hope now is that “the smaller the expectation, the less hurtful the disappointment.” Fewer opportunities offer fewer possibilities for hurt.
Disappointment is a feeling that is as old as time itself, and the road from disappointment to obscurity is worn and well-travelled. Failure and defeat walk that road, and past disappointments are the main topics of conversation among those who travel it.
However, the road from disappointment to obscurity is a two-way road, so you can turn back! Jesus was no stranger to sadness. He was “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah 53:3) So he knows what you are feeling.
Recalling hurtful experiences may hurt others, as well as yourself. “Hurt people hurt people.” The answer is found not in reliving those experiences but in reinterpreting them. Life has meaning when we gain understanding, so ask God to help you to understand those hurtful past events. Were those failures really failures? Were they stumbling stones, or were they steps leading to something better?
Unreal expectations may have been the problem. These stem from ignorance, misunderstanding, or preconceived ideas. The disciples, for example, never thought that the Kingdom would come through the Cross. Peter rejected that! (Matthew 16:22)
Maybe you set your goals too high, or you put your faith in the wrong person. Does that mean you should give up? Of course not. Set more realistic goals. Place your trust in someone more reliable. Think again. Believe again. Begin again.
Jesus is not a disappointment! He never let anyone down. Don’t blame the Lord for what people have done to you. Instead, ask Him to help you to forgive them.
And don’t settle for a glimpse of the Lord—go back to the scene of your disappointment, if that is possible. That’s where you will see Jesus clearly, and where He will reappoint you. Jesus commissioned His disciples from Jerusalem, not Emmaus. Turn around, go back, and with God’s help, begin again!
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick…” (Proverbs 13:12) Has disappointment made you so heartsick that you want to go somewhere—anywhere—to get away from the scene of your disappointment? But the second half of same verse reads: “But when the desire comes it is a tree of life.”
The first half is how the two disappointed disciples felt. Little did they know when they started out that the road between Jerusalem and Emmaus would be a biblical refresher course! Jesus opened their understanding and revealed to them that the cause of their disappointment—the death of Messiah on the Cross—was in fact a cause for great rejoicing!
Their hearts burned within them, as the not-yet-revealed to them Jesus opened their eyes to God’s Master Plan of Salvation! Their disappointment had in fact been God’s appointment! A new understanding of an old issue can bring meaning! It can also heal heartsickness!
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, BUT when the desire comes it is a tree of life.” Thank God for the second half of this verse. It tells us that we can live off our fulfilled desires! How luscious is the fruit of fulfilled hopes! How sweet to the taste is a long-desired promise of forgiveness and everlasting life that is found in Christ’s death for sin and resurrection to everlasting life!
“O taste and see that the LORD is good!” Jesus is NOT a disappointment. Read again the Bible promise the Lord gave you in the past, and claim it as a desire fulfilled in the risen Lord Jesus!