the tindog coffeehouse

At the very end of the New Testament gospel of Luke in the 24th chapter is a story of two men, a story that on the surface seems out of place with the rest of the book and one that I’ve read numerous times without really thinking about it. It’s the story of a man named Cleopas and his companion (whose name Luke doesn’t mention) on the way back home to the town of Emmaus just outside of Jerusalem. They are (or were) followers of Jesus of Nazareth, disciples, though they’ve never been mentioned before and aren’t mentioned after their story. Although Jesus’s tomb has just been found empty by several of the women in the group, Cleopas and his friend simply cannot believe that he could be alive after having been crucified and buried three days earlier. And now on this road home, everything they thought they believed seems to be crumbling before them.

In his book The Searchers: A Quest for Faith in the Valley of Doubt, history professor Joseph Loconte recounts this brief story and shows how these two friends’ journey is our journey, how their struggles are our struggles, how their doubts are our doubts. Like Cleopas and his companion, each of us is a seeker, hungry to know the truth about things that are both seen and unseen. And like them, we’ll all at some point be shaken to our core, abandoned and left without hope, grieving for all that we’ve lost. We’ll wrestle with our set of beliefs, question them, challenge them, and be made to defend them. But if we allow ourselves, we just might find a truth that is greater than any we’ve known before.

Just as Jesus guided these two men through the history of the ages to reveal how the promised Messiah, Israel’s Rescuer, had to die and how he would rise again, Loconte guides readers through their journey by weaving in elements of history, science, philosophy, and popular culture in a way that is both relevant and surprisingly accessible. In one particular chapter, for example, Loconte references Plato, Sigmund Freud, poet Robert Browning, The Bourne Identity, Cold War Communism, World War I, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Old Testament prophecy, Johnny Cash, and British prime minister Clement Attlee and yet somehow manages to successfully tie all of those in with Luke’s story of two men on the road to Emmaus. (Even the book’s title comes from the 1956 movie of the same name starring John Wayne.)

By the end of the two men’s journey, their eyes have been opened. They realize the stranger that has walked all the way with them is in fact the same man they had watched die on a Roman cross three days earlier, the man they had followed for three years, listened to, eat with, prayed with, and believed in. Their doubts fully erased, they return to Jerusalem to tell the others and share their new-found faith with a world that is just beginning its own journey down the same road of doubt, disbelief, and despair.

Without question, at some each of us at some point will struggle as these men did, losing everything we have and hoping to find hope. And for that dark journey, The Searchers proves to be a valuable road map.

[Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."]

Previously:
‘A Shot of Faith {To the Head}’: Or how to wage war on cranky atheists
The Gospel Project: For God so loved the world
There He goes, a hero, a Savior to the world
It was all because of love