What I Didn't Get to Say on Sunday (04/19/2026): Alive to See (PT. 3)

Want to go deeper? This blog expands on the message preached on April 19 at GracePointe. Watch the full message at https://gpnaz.church/media.

I want to ask you a question I didn't have time to ask Sunday.

Who in your life is currently walking away from Jerusalem?

Because that is what the road to Emmaus actually is. It's not a scenic route. It's a retreat. Two people who had given everything to a hope that collapsed, quietly putting distance between themselves and the place where it all fell apart. They weren't looking for a fight. They were just done.

And Jesus didn't send them a letter. He didn't leave a note at the tomb. He walked with them.
Father Fred Cabras, a Franciscan priest and mental health counselor — writes something I haven't been able to stop thinking about since I read it. He points out that the text doesn't say Jesus led the disciples to Emmaus. It doesn't say they followed Jesus. It says He walked with them. Side by side. Same pace. Same road.

That is a different posture than most of us take with people who are struggling.
Most of us want to fix. We want to explain why it happened. We want to get them back to Jerusalem as fast as possible because watching someone we love walk in the wrong direction is deeply uncomfortable. So we talk at them. We quote Scripture at them. We remind them of what they already know.

But that's not what Jesus did.

He asked questions. He listened. He let them tell the whole story, including the part where they admitted they had stopped hoping. He didn't rush them past their grief to get to the good news. He walked the road with them until they were ready to see.

There are people in your life right now who are on a seven-mile walk away from God. Some of them are in your family. Some of them are sitting in this church. Some of them used to sit in this church and don't anymore. They are not looking for a sermon. They have heard the sermon. They are looking for someone willing to walk beside them in the part that comes before the revelation, the long, dusty, confusing miles in between.

Father Cabras calls this becoming an Emmaus walker. Not a guide. Not a teacher. A companion. Someone who loves people enough to listen. Someone who makes space for the full story, the grief, the confusion, the "we had hoped", without flinching or rushing.
This is what the Resurrection looks like in your ordinary week.

It looks like a conversation at lunch where you don't try to fix your coworker but you also don't pretend not to notice they are not okay. It looks like calling the friend who has pulled away from the church instead of assuming they'll come back on their own. It looks like sitting with your teenager through the part of their story that makes you uncomfortable, instead of jumping straight to the lesson.

Jesus is still walking roads. He is walking them through you.

The disciples said later, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us on the road?" That burning wasn't just theological insight. It was what happens when someone finally feels truly accompanied, truly heard, for the first time in a long time.

Somebody in your life needs their heart to burn again.

You might be the one who walks with them until it does.