Road to Emmaus

Gang nach Emmaus, Gemalde vin Robert Zund 1877

Reading - Luke 24:13-35

They asked each other

Were not our hearts burning within us

While he talked with us on the road

And opened the Scriptures to us?

Luke 24:32

Jesus met two of his followers who were traveling along the road to Emmaus, going away from Jerusalem thoroughly disheartened over the series of macabre events that had taken place. Jesus joined them in their travel. He asked them why they were so sad and dejected. They were so overwhelmed with sorrow that they could not see that they were walking and talking with Jesus. They looked at Jesus strangely and asked him if he was new to the area. They said that a great teacher, admired by God and men had been arrested, crucified and buried. They had thought he was the Messiah, but he had been brutally killed. Do we see Jesus only as a good teacher but not the Messiah? The travelers had heard that some of the believers had found the tomb empty and had said that Jesus had risen from the dead. 

 Jesus looked at them in wonder. Here were two men who had heard the Good news that the angels proclaimed, “Jesus is alive,” but they had decided that it was unlikely. They were going away toward Emmaus dejected and sad. Did they realize they were walking away toward the sunset with Jesus by their side, in the wrong direction? To them the Son of God was dead. How many of us hear the good news yet turn our backs to the truth and walk away because we find it inconceivable? Do we encounter Christ on our life journeys but do not recognize him because of our own spiritual blindness? Jesus called them foolish people. He asked them if they found it hard to believe in the prophets? He reminded them that the prophets had said that the Messiah had to suffer before being crowned King. 

Then Jesus quoted passages from Moses' writings, and all the prophets, elucidating to them what the scriptures had to say. Could Jesus have been referring to God’s promise to Abraham that through him the entire world would be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3)? Was it not Jesus’ coming, being a blessing to the world, that God was referring to here? Could Jesus have referred to Psalm 2, used for the coronation of the kings of Israel and could also be applied to the coronation of the Messiah as King of Heaven and Earth? David clearly foresaw a relationship between a father and son, in God and the Messiah? Did Jesus refer to his encounter with the Pharisees in Mathew 22:41-46, when the Jesus asked Pharisees, “Whose son is the Messiah?” They replied He was David’s son. But when Jesus asked them why David referred to him as Lord in Psalm 110:1, they could not answer. The Pharisees probably could not conceive that the Messiah, a descendant of David could be God himself. 

Do we have a problem in seeing the only begotten son, Jesus as the son of God? Could Jesus have referred to Isaiah 53 and the role of the suffering servant, where he had to suffer and die? In Psalm 16:10 David prophesies and is filled with great joy that God will not leave his soul among the dead. He says that God would not allow His holy one to rot in the grave. This verse was often quoted when the disciples spoke about the resurrection of Christ. Did not this promise of King David come true when Christ rose from the dead? 

Following this long discussion, they stopped to rest for a while as it was late. When Jesus broke bread with them, suddenly their eyes were opened. Jesus disappeared, but their faith had been reignited. They asked each other, “As he spoke to us did you not feel your hearts burn?” They hurried back to Jerusalem to tell Jesus’ followers about their encounter. “Do we go down our own Road of Emmaus where we turn our backs to God’s message?”