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.
Sometimes Jesus is near us, guiding us, and transforming us, before we realize that is is him. His action in meeting with Cleopas and his companion was subtle at first. He guided their conversation, making rehearse again the very difficult things that had taken place in recent days. But he didn't bring up the things that had occurred in order to re-traumatize these disciples. We can sense a playfulness in the tone with which he spoke, hinting that he himself was the only one who truly understand everything that had happened. Sometimes Jesus brings awareness to our past not in order to set in the stone as the foundation of our future but to re-contextualize it. Others might try to tell us what happened, as with the women who astounded them with talk of angels and the resurrection. But it is altogether possible that such talk is sometimes too distant from our own experience for us to be able to connect with it. Hence we sometimes need Jesus guiding us through our own experiences until we reach a point when we are open to revelation. It may not be obvious that it is him acting. But eventually we will reach the end of what we are able to say about things. We will say what we ourselves witnessed, what the women said, and what the disciples found. We will express that these results are not enough for us to maintain the hope we once had. But when we reach the limits of our perspective and come to the end of ourselves we sometimes able to open ourselves to a higher perspective. We may come to see that there is no way our point of view could be the whole story.
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?"
In most normal circumstances when a stranger says such apparently unkind things to us we are likely to push back and argue. We might launch into an explanation for why what we saw looks nothing like any sort of prophetic fulfillment we can imagine. We might even try to tell the stranger how the darkness of Good Friday could not possibly be part of any plan. But when Jesus is the one with whom we are walking, and the one who chastises us for our foolishness, we can realize that yes, he is right, we have been foolish, and that the seeds of hope were there all along. We remember that Jesus didn't start by making this point, but first guided them to a place in their own hearts where they could receive it. It was something that he all but had to do incognito. Too much of his presence too soon might have only confused things and prevented their continued openness to his guidance. Giving them an objective explanation up front would not likely have been something they could connect with their own experience.
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
he interpreted to them what referred to him
in all the Scriptures.
The second part of the plan of Jesus for these disciples was what must have been the greatest Scripture study of all times. We might have thought that his revelation of himself would come first and that he would then use Scripture to explain the details of the story. But Scripture was foundational for how he desired to reveal himself. It wasn't that they hadn't known Jesus in some sense before. But they hadn't yet truly known him as Lord. To know him in this way was only possible with some understanding of his context, from which they could know that he was the fulfillment of God's plan for humanity, and begin to make sense of the necessity of the Paschal mystery, both of his dying and his rising.
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."
We might have thought that the Scriptural exegesis of Jesus would have been sufficient to accomplish his revealing himself to Cleopas and the other disciple. Certainly it contained all of the salient context. It demonstrated how the all of the word of God pointed directly to the Word of God who was himself opening the Scriptures to them. And yet, even with that, they weren't all the way there. They did not yet recognize him. But they knew that they wanted more, and so they asked him to stay.
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.
Jesus leads us to the mass and opens the Scriptures to us. But it is in the Eucharist that we have the fullest revelation of who he is. He is genuinely present in the Scriptures through his Spirit, which is why we say that they are living and active. But in the Eucharist we taste and see the reality of the presence of Jesus himself. Everything else is meant to prepare us to be open to this revelation, to this gift of himself, that he becomes for us, in order that we may receive him. After that, it is no longer just knowledge. We ourselves have tasted the very Body and Blood of the risen Lord. Suddenly and unexpectedly the clouds hanging over us clear and we discover a new and profound sense of purpose. Where we were before heading in the wrong direction we now about face toward Jerusalem. Our one desire becomes conveying the transformative reality of the resurrection which we ourselves now know firsthand.
Shane and Shane - Psalm 34 (Taste And See)
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