by Fr Gabriel-Allan Boyd
One of the last recorded events of Christ, shortly after His resurrection and before His Ascension is called the Supper at Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). This Gospel Reading is so important to the Church, that it’s regularly fixed, as one of the eleven Resurrectional Gospels which we cycle through every Sunday in our Orthros/Matins service.
The scene goes as follows. It’s been three days since Christ’s death & burial. Two of Jesus’ followers, Saint Luke & Saint Cleopas, are walking along the road from Jerusalem back to their little village home of Emmaus, about seven miles away. As they walk, they’re recounting all of the sad things that have just happened during the past week. Their hopes and expectations have been wrecked. They’d imagined Jesus to be a new iteration of Moses—to lead the Israelites out of slavery, defeating the Egyptians and taking them to the Promised Land. They thought He was God’s anointed…the earthly king who would redeem the Jews by now leading them to overthrow the oppressive Roman Empire. They thought He would fix all of their problems. But, instead, Jesus had been subjected to a very public and brutal execution on a cross. In just one, very exhausting weekend, all of that wonderful hope was devastatingly altered. Can you imagine how they must’ve felt? And something even more disconcerting has just happened. Earlier that morning, some of the women disciples came to report that Jesus’ tomb was empty. They said that there were some angels there, declaring that He had risen. Naturally, Saint Luke and Saint Cleopas are utterly mystified by the entire scenario. What could it all possibly mean? It seemed like Jesus had the power to do anything…but no new kingdom has been established…and it seems that, neither is there any Promised Land to come out of this. Maybe they’re wondering at this point if they’ve just wasted the last three years of their lives. And so, while they walk along, talking about and trying to figure it all out for themselves, they’re feeling some bewilderment and a bit of despair.
Soon, the risen Jesus, Himself, joins them. Of course, He mystically prevents their eyes from recognizing Him. Thus, they think He’s just some stranger, walking their same route. He listens in for a bit and then, pretending He has no idea what’s been going on, He asks them, “What’re you guys talking about?” Luke and Cleopas are both surprised. They wonder out loud, “Could it really be true that there’s a single person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the things that have happened this weekend? And with what must have been a little flicker of a grin and a spark of light in His eye, the Lord asks them, “What things?” At that, they commence to telling Him about Jesus and the terrible events of the weekend…and their disappointment at having all their hopes ruined…and their perplexity about the women’s resurrection story. He listens for a while…letting them vent out all their frustration and confusion…and then…this stranger proves to be no ordinary stranger. Beginning with the very first books of the bible and moving on through the rest, He launches into an explanation of all the Old Testament passages which prophesied the need for “God’s Anointed” to suffer and die and enter into His glory. He offers resolution after resolution to their confusion. He reveals to them the mystery of God’s Kingdom in a way they’d never imagined. The Road to Emmaus has become a biblical masterclass. They’d heard a number of Rabbis (Jewish biblical teachers) explaining the scripture, but none had ever made the bible come-together in such an illuminating way before. Throughout this entire seven-mile stretch, this stranger just kept explaining in a way that they’ve remained absolutely glued to His every word. Although the Word Himself has been walking with them this whole time, they still haven’t recognized who He was.
Eventually, they finally reached the village of Emmaus, but this stranger acted like He wanted to continue traveling. So they strongly urged Him to stop and have supper with them at an inn, because it was already getting dark. The stranger agreed, and joined them inside for a meal. And when their food was brought to the table, the stranger picked up the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them. Suddenly, their eyes were opened to recognize just whose presence they’d been in all this time. It was the risen Jesus! However, the very moment they recognized Him, He vanished from their sight.
They looked at each other with joyful surprise and exclaimed, “Wow! Weren’t our hearts set aflame when He explained the scriptures to us on the road?” Without taking a bite of the food in front of them, they jumped up from their table, and headed back up the road they’d just come down, straight back to Jerusalem—on a direct path to the eleven remaining apostles (minus Judas). However, before they could even get a word out about what they had just experienced, the eleven apostles exclaimed, “The Lord has risen, and He appeared today to Peter!” With that, Luke and Cleopas explode with a story of their own…relaying their experience of the actual presence of the risen Jesus Christ…and everything He had taught them from the scriptures while they walked along the road to Emmaus…and how they suddenly came to recognize Him when He broke the bread.
So why do we have such a large icon of this particular Pascha scene so prominently displayed in our fellowship hall, where our adult Orthodox Christian education normally takes place? The fact is, we all have more in common with this scene of Luke and Cleopas than we’d like to realize. Most of us come to God with a narrative of our own desires, our own hopes and agendas of what we expect Jesus to do for us. Our Lord is often right in front of us, but we don’t even recognize Him for the sake of protecting our own ideals. Amidst all that, it’s a safe bet that we’ll also come to the point where those distorted hopes and our small expectations of God will find their end in confusion and despair.
Furthermore, in this day and age, many people confusedly suppose that since, what they first thought was truth didn’t work—since their belief in God didn’t pan out to solve all their problems—then objective truth must not actually exist—only people’s individual truths. So, they create their own fluid world, to be changed and controlled whenever it becomes suitable to their own immediate preferences and sympathies. For many people (even some Orthodox Christians) reality, truth and meaning have been collapsing into utter bewilderment, frustration and despair. So, how will we, as participants in our Lord’s Body, the Church, respond to this despair?
Isn’t it marvelous that the Creator of the Universe shows us by His example on the Road to Emmaus the way He wants us to participate in His ministry? He takes the time to enter into the lives of these two men, Luke and Cleopas, as they’re walking along the road, and He listens. He listens to how they’ve entirely misunderstood Him and the truth of His Kingdom. He listens to how they’ve filtered His teachings through their own, small and distorted objectives and desires. He listens to their frustration, that what they thought He would do, didn’t bear forth the kind of fruit they thought it would. A bit of hopelessness has set in. He doesn’t immediately demolish their misunderstandings about who He was. Instead, He lets them come to the place where they can articulate how it all went wrong. He lets them question. Our ministry too should begin in offering our presence to others in a way that stimulates the confidence and the hope to ask questions. But Jesus doesn’t stop there. Growing up, our Lord spent time learning the scriptures and meditating on the Jewish faith (remember, we’re told “He matured in wisdom…” ~Luke 2:52). He prepared Himself to one day engage these disciples, educating them regarding their misunderstanding of the scripture. In this scene of the Road to Emmaus, He walks them through the bible, to offer substantial Good News to their grieving hearts. He’s stayed at their side during their entire trip, lighting their hearts aflame with His word and offering them a Kingdom they never could’ve imagined on their own. Now, if Jesus (whom we are trying to become like) “matured in wisdom,” shouldn’t we also be putting forth efforts to do the same? Shouldn’t each of us commit ourselves to learning the scriptures and the wisdom of the Church, so that we can also minister to those around us? What a blessing it is to have this icon in our hall, reminding us of the way Christ chooses to reveal Himself in us.