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The heart condition of these people is actually twofold: slow and burning. That is a strange affliction, and, I think, common. One definition of Christ's followers might be that: people of the slow, burning heart. Sorrow and hope, awe and self-pity, wonder and worry, believing and doubting, yes and no mix loosely in us, tugging us one way, jostling us another. Jesus walks the road with us. But we can look straight at him and not recognize him. Jesus opens the Scriptures to us and often something happens within—a warming sometimes, a scorching at others. And just at those moments when finally the scales fall from our eyes and we see that, behold, it is he, it is Jesus!—at that wondrous moment, he often up and vanishes.

Our encounters with the risen Christ are mostly like that: enigmatic, fleeting, mere glimpses, little ambushes. And we're left with the question, "Didn't our hearts burn within us? Didn't they?"

For the last two years, I have been invited to speak, briefly, to a group of men and women enrolled in a 12-step program our church offers. As the pastor, I am to assure these people that if they get stuck anywhere in the journey, I can help: diagnose accurately, treat effectively, and heal.

Both times I've done this, I have felt sorely inadequate. Some of these people—you can see it in their faces—have homemade maps of hell tattooed into their flesh. I've felt like a kid who studied a book on the Vietnam War talking to veterans who lost eyes, limbs, buddies, and part of their souls in that place. What have I to say to them?

I tell them the story of the road to Emmaus. I tell them that there is a way that grief both blinds us to Christ and yet also makes us see him like we never have before. This journey—whether 12 steps or 12 million steps—is haunted by "what ifs" and "whys," by the pain of loss. It is a journey of nostalgia and lament. One refrain of the journey is "but we had hoped . …" (v. 21). I tell them that Jesus walks with us but seldom do we recognize him. When we do, the moment of epiphany, the moment of seeing the risen Christ before us, is often sparked and sealed, not by grand gestures, but by simple, homely things, like nail marks in the hand, like the breaking of bread in thankfulness. I tell them that just as suddenly as we can see Jesus appear, suddenly he can disappear again. I tell them we are the slow-hearted and the burning-hearted, the two things criss-crossing each other.

One of our persistent cultural myths is the myth of fulfillment—the promise that, on this earth, the fullness of all I truly need and all I really desire awaits. And it's not just a Hollywood myth. It's a Christian one, too. Maybe it's especially Christian.

Me, I'm one book away from fulfillment, one conference shy, one significant experience or insight short. If I'm slain in the Spirit, or attend a marriage retreat, or go on a missions trip, or get involved in a real community of fellow believers, or pray more, I will be fulfilled. That's the myth. It pushes and lures me personally. It is the constant thing I am asked to dispense as a pastor, apothecarylike, to all the spiritually, emotionally, physically unfulfilled people who come to me.

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July 12 1999, Vol. 43, No. 8