Reading 49
The road to Emmaus
The reading
Luke 24:13-35
Behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia from Jerusalem. They talked with each other about all of these things which had happened. While they talked and questioned together, Jesus himself came near, and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. He said to them, "What are you talking about as you walk, and are sad?"
One of them, named Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who doesn't know the things which have happened there in these days?" He said to them, "What things?" They said to him, "The things concerning Jesus, the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people; and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we were hoping that it was he who would redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Also, certain women of our company amazed us, having arrived early at the tomb; and when they didn't find his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of us went to the tomb, and found it just like the women had said, but they didn't see him."
He said to them, "Foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Didn't the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?" Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
They came near to the village, where they were going, and he acted like he would go further. They urged him, saying, "Stay with us, for it is almost evening, and the day is almost over." He went in to stay with them. When he had sat down at the table with them, he took the bread and gave thanks. Breaking it, he gave it to them. Their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished out of their sight. They said to one another, "Weren't our hearts burning within us, while he spoke to us along the way, and while he opened the Scriptures to us?"
They rose up that very hour, returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and those who were with them, saying, "The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!" They related the things that happened along the way, and how he was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.
The companions
Psalm 34:1-8 (selected)
I will bless the LORD at all times. His praise will always be in my mouth. My soul shall boast in the LORD. The humble shall hear of it, and be glad. Oh magnify the LORD with me. Let us exalt his name together. I sought the LORD, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. Oh taste and see that the LORD is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
Jeremiah 15:16
Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by your name, the LORD, God of Armies.
A word for the week
Think of a time you were walking and talking with someone, so deep in the conversation that you barely noticed anyone else, and only afterward realized who had been there. That ordinary experience, of not recognizing what is right beside you until later, is the whole of this story, and it may be the most important resurrection story for people like us, who gather at a table.
Two followers are walking to a village called Emmaus on the afternoon of the first Easter. They are heartbroken. The man they had pinned all their hope on is dead, and there are strange rumors about an empty tomb that they do not know what to do with. As they walk and talk it over, a stranger falls into step with them and asks what they are discussing. And here is the line Luke slips in that changes everything: it was Jesus himself, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. He is right there. The one they are grieving is walking beside them, and they do not know it.
They pour out the whole sad story to this stranger, how they had hoped he would redeem Israel, how it ended on a cross. And the stranger, instead of first comforting them, walks them back through the scriptures, showing how all of it, even the suffering, was the shape the story was always going to take. Their hearts, they will say later, were burning as he spoke, and they still do not know who he is. Knowing about him, even having your heart stirred by him, is not yet the same as recognizing him.
They reach the village, and he acts as though he will go on further, and here is the hinge of the whole thing. They urge him to stay. Stay with us, they say, it is nearly evening. They take a stranger in for a meal. And when they sit down at the table, he takes the bread, and blesses it, and breaks it, and gives it to them, the same four actions he did on the night before he died. And in that instant, Luke says, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. They knew him in the breaking of the bread.
Stay there a moment, because it is why we do what we do. They did not recognize him in the argument, or even in the burning heart. They recognized him at the table, in the bread, broken and shared. That is the whole reason we gather the way we gather: a few people around a table, breaking bread. It is where he has promised, in effect, to be knowable. The stranger on the road becomes the known Lord in the moment the bread is broken.
And see what they do the second they know. They get up that very hour, though it is night and they have just walked all this way, and they rush back to tell the others. Recognition turns you around and sends you running to say, it is true, we have seen him. He was known to us in the breaking of the bread.
At the table
When has your heart burned at something true without your quite recognizing him in it? What would it mean to expect him, really, at this table, in the bread?
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain). The divine name is rendered "the LORD" in the companions.