Sunday Meditation: On the Road to Emmaus

For the Third Sunday of Easter in Year A we have the notable “Road to Emmaus” passage.  It is the Sunday of the Resurrection, and two disciples, dejected and unbelieving that Christ has risen, are walking from Jerusalem to a town seven miles away called Emmaus.  Suddenly a man joins them on the route, and in dialogue the man explains to them how the scriptures had foreshadowed a messiah who would undergo suffering and death and resurrection.  Who are these two disciples?  The passage names one as Cleopas but leaves the other unnamed. Among the theories of the identity of the unnamed disciple, I favor the other being Mary the wife of Cleopas.  Mary the wife of Cleopas is mentioned being at the crucifixion in three Gospels: Jn 19:25, Mt 27:56, and Mk 15:40.  It would make perfect sense that Cleopas would be traveling home with his wife.  Fr. Geoffrey Plant will developed this further in his homily below.

One important aspect of this passage is that it depicts both the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist together.  I don’t think there is anywhere else in the New Testament where the two are so brought together.

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

That very day, the first day of the week,

two of Jesus' disciples were going

to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,

and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.

And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,

Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,

but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.

He asked them,

"What are you discussing as you walk along?"

They stopped, looking downcast.

One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply,

"Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem

who does not know of the things

that have taken place there in these days?"

And he replied to them, "What sort of things?"

They said to him,

"The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene,

who was a prophet mighty in deed and word

before God and all the people,

how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over

to a sentence of death and crucified him.

But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel;

and besides all this,

it is now the third day since this took place.

Some women from our group, however, have astounded us:

they were at the tomb early in the morning

and did not find his body;

they came back and reported

that they had indeed seen a vision of angels

who announced that he was alive.

Then some of those with us went to the tomb

and found things just as the women had described,

but him they did not see."

And he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are!

How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!

Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things

and enter into his glory?"

Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,

he interpreted to them what referred to him

in all the Scriptures.

As they approached the village to which they were going,

he gave the impression that he was going on farther.

But they urged him, "Stay with us,

for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over."

So he went in to stay with them.

And it happened that, while he was with them at table,

he took bread, said the blessing,

broke it, and gave it to them.

With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,

but he vanished from their sight.

Then they said to each other,

"Were not our hearts burning within us

while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?"

So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem

where they found gathered together

the eleven and those with them who were saying,

"The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!"

Then the two recounted

what had taken place on the way

and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.

~Lk:24:13-35

 

 

Fr. Geoffrey Plant provides a thorough exegesis of this passage, including proposing that the unnamed disciple is Mary of Clopas.

 

Fr. Geoffrey:

Let us briefly consider two important themes that have emerged here. Firstly, the risen Lord is neither a spirit nor a ghost; he has a physical body that can be touched. And secondly, the risen Lord emphasizes that his death and resurrection are the fulfilment of Scripture. The Gospels of Luke and John stress the physical reality of the risen Jesus in strikingly similar ways, especially through the themes of touch and eating, as we have heard in today’s Gospel. Jesus invites the disciples to touch him, and he then asks for something to eat. And yet the risen body of Jesus is not simply restored to ordinary earthly life. Jesus is not merely resuscitated, like Lazarus was. The body of Jesus is transformed, belonging to the new creation. He is no longer subject to the ordinary limitations of space and time.

 

This second theme — the fulfilment of Scripture — runs through Luke’s whole work. The overall design of Luke’s two-volume narrative — the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles — is to show that the story of Jesus constitutes the fulfilment of the story of Israel. God has bound himself to Israel and can therefore be trusted to rescue his people and bring his saving purposes to completion. In Luke’s Gospel, the idea that Scripture is being “fulfilled” means that what God promised long ago is now actually happening — and to express this idea Luke often uses the Greek verb πληρόω (plēroō), which means “to fulfil, to fill up, or to bring to completion.”… God’s plan has been unfolding across centuries, and in Jesus the promises of Scripture reach their goal. But Luke is not only telling us what  God has done; he is also shaping his Gospel so that we learn how to see what God is doing.

 

And so, when you see the parallels of between the eating of the bread in this passage with that of eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden (“their eyes were opened”), does it not make sense that the unnamed disciple was a woman, the wife of the man?

For the pastoral homily, let’s once again turn to Fr. Greg Friedman OFM who provides a homily for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

 

Fr. Greg:

The 24th chapter of Luke's gospel might have been written by a busy pastor and his pastoral team. There the biblical author presents the very first Easter day as one of non-stop action. It begins with the women then Peter coming to the tomb.  Next, today's gospel story of the road to Emmas. The two disciples walk 7 miles from Jerusalem, share a meal with the risen Jesus, then head back to Jerusalem. There all the disciples are visited by the Lord. But the day doesn't end. Jesus leads them out to Bethany where he blesses them and is carried up to heaven. If you read it straight through, the action seems to take place all on one day. Now, that's what I call a busy Easter. While we're focused today on that well-known story on the road to Emmas, allow me to reflect a bit on Luke's long Easter day. Why would the evangelist choose to group all the stories about the risen Jesus together into what appears to be 24 hours?  Well, I suspect Luke isn't concerned about real time here. Rather, his non-stop Easter Day takes place in salvation time, sometimes called by the Greek word Kairos.  Thanks to the resurrection of Jesus, his disciples are experiencing through faith and teaching what life as church is all about…Luke does have a point by inviting us to live our lives in a timeless Easter day.

 

What a wonderful insight.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: "Were not our hearts burning within us

while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?"

 

This was played at my parish today.  “Two Were Bound for Emmaus.”

 

Two were bound for Emmaus, disheartened and lost

All their hope for the future had been nailed to a cross

Love unknown then walked beside them, come back from the dead

And they knew he was risen in the breaking of bread

 

On the Sea of Tiberius, when the night was nearly gone

And their toil seemed so useless, not one fish had they caught

From the shore, the stranger called to them

"Cast your net, friends, once more"

And they filled it to bursting, but the net was not torn

 

Then they knew it was Jesus and they hastened in to shore

Bread and fish for their breakfast from the hands of their Lord

"O Peter, if you love me you must care for my sheep

If you follow your Shepherd, then a shepherd you'll be"

 

When the road makes us weary, when our labor seems but loss

When the fire of faith weakens and too high seems the cost

Let the Church turn to its risen Lord who for us bore the cross

And we'll find our hearts burning at the sound of his voice

 

Two were bound for Emmaus, disheartened and lost

All their hope for the future had been nailed to a cross

Love unknown then walked beside them, come back from the dead

And they knew he was risen in the breaking of bread