We talked on Tuesday about the couple on the road. And the fact that they had honest uncertainty. Today continues that story.

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They had willing conversation.

Jesus joined them while they were walking.

They didn’t know it was Jesus, of course. That would ruin the story. But they did know that this was someone to trust to engage in conversation.

Of course, it was a trust that emerged, as happens in walks. We read the comments of Cleopas all at once, as if he spoke it as a complete paragraph. But he likely said it more slowly, making sure as he revealed each piece, that it was safe to say.

About Jesus. Then about the leaders. Then about their hopes. Then about the craziness of the resurrection. Then about the need to know. Each little piece made them more vulnerable. But there was safety emerging.

Even when he poked a little at their lack of insight.

And they trusted him enough to learn from him, to listen to a long compelling explanation of why the life and death of Jesus unfolded the way it did.

He wasn’t teaching them new facts. They knew these pieces of the Old Testament prophets from their whole lives. But they hadn’t had the key before this.

Because the key hadn’t existed before this.

All the teaching Jesus had done up to this point didn’t have his resurrection in the rear-view window. It was promised and predicted, but it wasn’t history.

Now, for the first recorded time ever, God was able to say, “This was promised in Genesis, and it has happened. ‘This was promised in Exodus, and it has happened. This was pointed to in Isaiah and Micah, in Psalms and Malachi. And it has happened. God came and lived and died and rose.”

It was a captivating story. When we’ve acknowledged what we don’t know, and it is explained with clarity, we are excited. Things begin to make sense. And we don’t want it to stop. So, at the end of a two-hour walk, the two people invited Jesus in to keep talking.

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More later.