“Sometimes a man meets his destiny on the road he took to get away from it.” — Eric Warren Singer.
How many times have you lived in expectation of things that never eventuated? You will have found that the greater the expectation the deeper the disappointment. In the time of Jesus, Emmaus was a small village about 16km from Jerusalem. It rates a single mention in the Bible, and then only as the place to which two disappointed followers of Jesus were travelling, three days after their Lord had died.
We are not told why they were going to Emmaus, but we do know why they were going from Jerusalem: they were disappointed. Followers of Jesus for more than three years, they had believed that He was the long-promised Messiah.
During those years nothing had disappointed them. They had seen amazing miracles. Jesus had fed 5000 people by multiplying five loaves of bread and two small fish. He had walked on water and done many miracles of healing before riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and being hailed the Saviour of His people.
Yet this same wonderful person had then been nailed to a crude wooden cross—a death reserved for common 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 two men walking to Emmaus on that dismal day.
They were engaged in a Deep and Meaningful Conversation. A DMC almost always centres on negatives: lost loves, lost hopes, lost dreams, lost opportunities—in short, defeated expectancies.
A DMC is a verbal dissection of something that has somehow gone wrong. And since DMCs relate to past events, those who indulge in them tend to be unaware of present events that are promising.
“But we trusted…” (Luke 24:21) Preoccupied with the past, the two travellers were hardly aware of the presence of a man who had drawn near to them; a man who for a very different reason was also walking to Emmaus that day.
The road to Emmaus is the road from disappointment to obscurity. But this man was not destined for obscurity and he was not at all disappointed. Disappointment is the failure or defeat of expectation.
Did you ever expect that something really good was about to happen and it didn’t? Were you disappointed? You may have loved someone, and expected the one you loved to 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 disappointed? Of course you were.
The higher your expectation, the deeper your disappointment. The word disappointment literally means “the loss of an appointment.”
If you were to lose a 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 experience 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. For another example, 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. “I felt 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 does not always mean that you leave behind the disappointment itself. The failure or defeat of the expectation may go with you—wherever you go. Disappointment is portable. Those who turn from disappointment usually head for the obscurity of a new relationship, a different job, or a distant location—something 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 likely 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.
But the road from disappointment to obscurity is a two-way road—you can go back! Jesus was no stranger to sadness. He was “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah 53:3) He knows how you feel. Recalling hurtful experiences may hurt others, as well as yourself. “Hurt people hurt people.”
The answer is found in reinterpreting those experiences, not in living them over and over. Life has meaning when we get understanding, so ask God to help you to understand past events. Were those failures really failures? Were they stumbling-stones, or were they stepping stones 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. Try again. Believe again. Jesus is not a disappointment! He never let anyone down. Don’t blame the Lord for what people have done to you but instead, ask Him to help you to forgive them.
And don’t settle for a momentary glimpse of the Lord but go back to the scene of your disappointment–if that’s possible. That’s where you will see Jesus clearly and where you’ll be reappointed. It was in Jerusalem that Jesus commissioned His disciples, not Emmaus. Turn around, go back, and with God’s help, begin again!
Has disappointment made you so heartsick that you want to go somewhere—anywhere—to get away from the scene of your disappointment? That’s how the two disciples felt. Little did they know when they started out that the road between Jerusalem and Emmaus would be a refresher course in the Scriptures!
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 their not-yet-revealed Lord opened their eyes to God’s Master Plan of Salvation! Understanding imparts meaning to life!
“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 fulfilled desires! How lucious is the fruit of hope so long desired! How sweet the taste of long-desired forgiveness, and the hope of everlasting life that will be ours in the Resurrection! Jesus is never a disappointment!