Today’s Gospel presents one of my favorite scenes in the New Testament: Jesus eavesdropping on – and then “schooling” – two disciples as they walk from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus on Easter Sunday.
Yesterday, we saw the grief of Mary Magdalene as she remained weeping outside the empty tomb, and how she encountered the Risen Christ and was instructed to spread the good news.
We don’t know if the disciples we meet today had heard Mary Magdalene’s specific report, “I have seen the Lord” (Jn 20:18). Luke does tell us that they had heard the women’s claim that the tomb was empty and angels had told them He was risen (which “seemed like nonsense and [the eleven and all the others] did not believe them”(Lk 24:11)), and also that some of Jesus’ followers (Luke specifically names Peter) had confirmed the empty tomb.
Empty tomb or not, these two disciples seem to consider the other claims to be “nonsense.” That is about to change thanks to their own encounter with the Risen Christ:
“Now that very day [Sunday] two of them were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.” Lk 24:13-14 (footnote omitted).
To a fellow traveler on the road, they confess their disappointment in the crucifixion and death of Jesus, “because we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel[,]” in other words politically, by freeing the Jews from Roman rule. Lk 24:21.
Their fellow traveler is, of course, Jesus Whom they do not recognize. Rather than immediately reveal Himself to them, He instead chides them for their “slow[ness] of heart” (Lk 24:25), and engages in some catechesis: “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures.” Lk 24:27.
They still do not recognize Him.
Finally, as night approaches, they invite their companion to stay with them, where, “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.” Lk 24:30-31.
At last, in this echo of Jesus’ actions at the last supper before His passion – in other words, in the Eucharist – they recognize Him for Who He is.
The two disciples’ reaction to this self-revelation of Christ is interesting. It’s as though they don’t trust what they have just experienced. Once Jesus has “vanished from their sight,” they ask one another, “’Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?’” Lk 24:32.
Even before they received definitive proof of the Resurrection, their hearts “burned” with their new-found understanding of how their scriptures (our “Old Testament”) prepared the way for Christ. They marvel at – and seem to reassure one another with – this fact. Only then do they return to Jerusalem to witness to the Resurrection. Lk 24:33-35.
Jesus treated these disciples gently. He took enough time with them on the road to unveil the prophetic meaning of the Old Testament, and He spent part of the evening with them at table. He must have spent hours with them.
In Life of Christ, Archbishop Fulton Sheen writes,
Mankind is naturally disposed to believe that anything religious must be striking and powerful enough to overwhelm the imagination. Yet this incident on the road to Emmaus revealed that the most powerful truths often appear in the commonplace and trivial incidents of life, such as meeting a fellow traveler on a road.
Furthermore, whereas Mary Magdalene trusted in her experience of Jesus, the two men seemed to require the added intellectual assurance of the scriptures to fully trust that the crucified Jesus really is the Messiah, and that He is risen. And Jesus honored that need.
I appreciate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 1999 pastoral letter on Adult Faith Formation is entitled, “Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us” (http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/catechesis/adult-faith-formation/our-hearts.cfm). The bishops take this episode as the model for a new prioritization of adult catechesis:
§ 8 § To be effective ministers of adult faith formation we will first, like Jesus, join people in their daily concerns and walk side by side with them on the pathway of life. We will ask them questions and listen attentively as they speak of their joys, hopes, griefs, and anxieties.
§ 9 § We will share with them the living word of God, which can touch their hearts and minds and unfold the deep meaning of their experience in the light of all that Jesus said and did. We will trust the capacity of prayer and sacrament to open their eyes to the presence and love of Christ. We will invite them to live and share this Good News in the world.
I know that I, like the two disciples, can often be “slow of heart.” I need continued prayer, study, and the sacraments (even if, as now, only in spiritual communion) to stay in “the presence and love of Christ.” And I know He will be as patient with me as He was with them.