Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, but he disappeared from their sight. They said to each other, “Weren’t our hearts burning within us while he was talking with us on the road and explaining the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:31–32
It’s the state finals, and your local high school basketball team is down by two points. The game is already in overtime, there are only seven seconds left on the clock, and the coach knows that stretching to a double overtime would call on physical reserves his players may not have. So he calls a time-out and puts together a play that will get the ball to his best three-point shooter, just outside the arc.
When he finishes with the assignments, he stretches out his hand, and instantly it’s surrounded by the hands of five exhausted players. He looks at each man, one by one, eye to eye. Then the coach says the following: “Well, men, this is it. You’ve got the play. Now, you just have to believe.”
The next seven seconds go down as the most important moment in the school’s athletic history. As time runs out, the three-point shot swishes in—nothing but net. The gymnasium explodes with the kind of euphoria only this kind of moment can create.
Now, I have a question. Which came first? The belief or the play that was executed to win the game? Or, as the old saying goes, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”
Two men were on a seven-mile walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. It was a special day—the first Easter Sunday. But because these men hadn’t spoken to anyone who had seen the risen Christ, they were still downcast with the heartbreaking news of His crucifixion and burial.
Suddenly, Jesus was walking along with them, and because He was the last person they expected to see in recognizable form, they didn’t see Him. They didn’t believe; therefore, they didn’t see.
If I went to a flip chart and drew a horizontal line, labeling one end of the line “faith” and the other end “no faith,” you and I would fall somewhere between those two extremes, wouldn’t we? We are in pretty good shape with the facts, but this belief thing can be a real challenge.
Do you have a hard time with faith? Do you tend to look at overwhelming circumstances and conclude that the odds are stacked against you? Are you sometimes too tired to hang in there? Do you really want to give up—to quit—because you are fresh out of faith?
Just a few short years after the two men finished their walk to Emmaus, the apostle Paul wrote that saving faith “is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift” (Eph 2:8). In other words, believing means trusting that God is in the eye-opening business. He is.
Let’s say that you and I had a chance to visit with our two friends just before their hike to Emmaus. What if we could have looked into the faces of these discouraged followers of Christ and said, “Men, we know about the death of your Friend. But He said He would rise again. He has. Receive the gift of faith. You just have to believe.” If these men had taken us up on the challenge, this would have been a different story.
This story about faith is true. Like God’s grace, it’s a gift. You just have to believe.