The Emmaus Road

Luke alone among the Gospel writers records the story of Cleopas and his friend walking the road to the village of Emmaus and talking with one another about “All this about Jesus of Nazareth” that had occurred over the past week or so in Jerusalem.  “As they talked and discussed it with one another, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but something kept them from seeing who it was.”  He asked what they were discussing and they again recited all of the happenings in Jerusalem that past week—the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, the Temple area episode on Monday, the Betrayal in the Garden, the Last Supper on Thursday and how Jesus had washed his disciples’ feet,   the walk along the Via Dolorosa on Friday and the crucifixion.  They told of how Jesus had been laid in a tomb and how the women had gone early in the morning, “but failed to find his body, and returned with a story…” They told how they just didn’t know what to make of it! 

Jesus walked with them, he talked with them all “along life’s narrow way,” and when they reached the village he was about to go on, but they invited him to stay.  When he sat down with them at table, “he took bread, gave thanks,…and he broke the bread…and offered it to them.  Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.  They said to one another, ‘Did we not feel our hearts on fire as he talked with us on the road.”

“Christ is alive!  No longer bound to distant years in Palestine, he comes to claim the here and now and dwell in every place and time.  Not throned afar, remotely high, untouched, unmoved by human pains, but daily, in the midst of life, our Savior in the God-head reigns.  In every insult, rift, and war, where color, scorn or wealth divide, he suffers still, yet loves the more, and lives, though ever crucified.”  (From the hymn, “Christ Is Alive” by Brian Wren, 1968)

As Cleopas and his friend walked along their road and just didn’t know what to make of it, so I, too, as I have walked my road, just don’t know what to make of it!  But I can tell you this, I have felt my heart on fire whenever he has joined with me and talked with me on my road.

Albert Schweitzer