The road to conversion

‘I’m still waiting for my road to Damascus moment’. My friend wants to have faith, she says, but it hasn’t happened. She’s waiting for a shining light to convert her.

This idea is fairly common, but it misunderstands the road to Damascus. Saul was a man possessed by anti-Christian hatred. He required an almighty intervention. The road to Damascus was, for him, the creation of Paul the apostle. In a very significant sense, the road to Damascus is a road that only one man has travelled. We misunderstand conversion if we think of that road.

But there is another famous road to conversion in the Bible. On Easter Sunday a dejected couple were walking back to their hometown, Emmaus. They had followed Jesus to Jerusalem and to tragedy. On the third day after the crucifixion we meet them, downcast (Luke 24:13-35). On this road, we get a far better picture of conversion. Here Jesus does three things to turn them around.

He draws alongside (v.13-24)

This is the most astonishing humility. On this day of almighty vindication, he quietly sidles up to some clueless travellers and inserts himself into their conversation: ‘What are you discussing?’ (v.17); ‘What things?’ (v1.9). When they get to Emmaus ‘Jesus continued on as if he were going farther’ (v.28). Only at the end do they fully comprehend their experience: ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road’ (v.32).

This gradual dawning of faith was beautifully portrayed by C.S. Lewis in The Horse and His Boy. At the end of the novel the boy, Shasta, is walking on a road when he becomes aware of a Great Voice accompanying him (Aslan incognito). As they walk, Aslan reveals to Shasta that all the events of his life – the bitter as well as the sweet – had been arranged by one Source: ‘I was the lion.’ And ultimately Aslan was the lion who had saved Shasta, long before Shasta ever came to know it.

This is what conversion really is. Not so much a leap into the unknown. It is a coming home to the Jesus who has accompanied us on the road all this time. But we would never know it except…

He opens the Scriptures (v.25-27)

In the context of ‘Jesus incognito’ it can feel a little jarring when He scolds His fellow travellers: ‘How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!’ (v.25). But when we see this story as a microcosm of the great story, we understand. These downcast travellers represent all of us – ignorant, short-sighted, despairing. We need the Scriptures to recast our vision. It’s the Bible that must frame our view of everything, beginning with Jesus. So Scripture, of course, plays a central role in the conversion of this pair.

It’s a powerful point. Even when the risen Jesus is physically present, the way He reveals Himself is through the Bible. Scripture is Christ’s way of meeting Christ. But notice that a Bible study alone does not open the eyes of these travellers. There’s another crucial dimension.

He eats with us (v.28-35)

It’s when Jesus breaks bread with the pair that ‘their eyes were opened’ (v.31). On this Sunday, three are gathered together, sharing the one bread. They were a kind of church enjoying a kind of Lord’s Supper. And eye-opening revelation happened in that context. As evangelicals, we might wish that this paradigmatic conversion happened on the road, in the middle of the ‘Bible study’. In fact it happened at the table in the middle of ‘church’. So what do we learn?

Our friends need to meet Jesus. But they don’t need a one-off Damascus Road experience. Instead let’s help them ‘ongoingly’ to walk the Emmaus Road: to appreciate the ways Jesus is encountering them; to patiently open the Scriptures that reveal Christ’s glory; and to regularly meet with God’s worshipping people. Our friends don’t so much need an instant stab of ‘shining light’ – something which blinded old Saul! Instead, in the context of Scripture and church, they can discover something greater: a burning heart and eyes that finally open.