A Conversation For The Ages

By Stephen Leonard

Advent is a season of waiting! Which is no easy task for any of us! No one wants to wait for anything. Immediacy is the name of the game. We have fast food, fast entertainment, fast you name it! Waiting is tedious! Yet from the first prophets who told of Messiah’s birth to the actual Advent of Jesus in Bethlehem was a very long time encompassing millenniums.

Now, waiting for Jesus’ return today has already been two millenniums. Yet we are told to “eagerly wait” and anticipate by “being ready and alert” for the “near and soon” return of our King.

Jesus, on His actual resurrection day, joined two of His disciples while they were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. The main topic of their conversation was a compendium of fascinating truth from the mind and mouth of the Savior about the focus of the Old Testament Scriptures. He is always its focus.

What we find there is true information on both of His Advents; one, in a Bethlehem stable, and two, in the sky where “every eye will see Him,” truly dependent on a supernatural miracle considering the perspective of living on a globe.

Advent is a serious subject of both the Old and New Testaments. In fact, the two “comings” of Jesus Christ set the calendar for the history of mankind and the earth! It’s division and end! And Jesus talked about these two “comings” with these two disciples; the richest of conversations, I hope, is replayed for me and for us in heaven.

This conversation from the Master Teacher is the supreme theological education anyone can ever receive. Jesus shows where He is found on practically every page of the Old Testament, which is fleshed out in its fulfillment in the New. What is truly mind-boggling is Jesus accomplished this magnificent teaching in the space of an afternoon. What a wonder to be accorded the honor of being privy to all Jesus said!

He told them of His birth in little Bethlehem, only 9 miles from Emmaus. And of His second coming to Jerusalem and the world. He told them of the Final Judgment and the beginning of eternity of the entire church. His conversation was laced with Advent, the first and last. The Emmaus Conversation is not just an Easter story, but a Christmas one.

It is all concluded with “breaking bread” with the Bread of Life. No greater feast can be envisioned; not of physical food, mind you, but spiritual. Here is a true foretaste of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.