That very day, the first day of the week,
two of Jesus’ disciples were going
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus
They were heading in the wrong direction. The degree of their culpability for this is unclear. Jesus had told everyone what would happen. But no one really seemed to understand it beforehand. These two disciples had hoped that Jesus "would be the one to redeem Israel", implying that they no longer held that hope. After what they had witnessed in the horrific death of Jesus it is hard to blame them. But their readiness to give up on Jesus demonstrated that their initial hope in him was thin. Those with the strongest hope remained at the tomb, unable to accept that the light of the world could be dead. Besides them there were the other disciples who at least remained in the city and continued to gather in fellowship. They were well positioned to receive the revelation of the resurrection. Even the most famous doubter among them was unable to avoid that revelation for long. This shows us that it is among gatherings of other disciples that we find the privileged place for encounter with Jesus. Yet the story of Emmaus gives us hope for those who are heading the wrong way, that Jesus does not abandon them, but follows after them, finds them, and engages them. However, he does not force himself on them. Before he allows himself to be fully recognized they must signal that they desire him to do so. By opening the Scriptures to them he gives them a taste of the possibility that their hope indeed lives on. But before he fully opens their eyes to his presence he waits for them to say "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over." They have to want it. And they do.
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.
They had known Jesus in a human way. This was good, valid, and useful. It allowed him to teach them, to lead them, and to instruct them by his example. But it was still too limited. The reason he allowed them to experience some darkness as to knowing him in a merely human way was so that they could experience his presence on a deeper level, one that was more spiritual, and obtained in some degree to his divinity. Knowing him as a man allowed him to be their Teacher. But knowing him as God allowed him to be their wisdom and their Eucharistic food. What was previously external to them was internalized, and they were transformed in the process.
Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?
When the Scriptures change from historical narratives about past events into a place of encounter with Jesus himself our hearts too will burn within us. And it is above all in the Eucharist that we not only meet Jesus as we might meet any man, but that, to a degree, we actually become one with him, one body through the one loaf of Eucharistic bread. But the fact that this is preceded both in the story and in the mass by a Scriptural exposition is no accident. Rather, it is the presence of the living one in his Word, in both the Old and New Testaments, that gives us the context of how and why he would choose to be present in the humble elements of bread and wine. We see that he is our lamb of sacrifice and our priest-king Melchizedek. And when we receive him in the Eucharist with hearts that are on fire for him there are no limits to what his grace is able to do in us.
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