The Road to Emmaus
13 Behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia from Jerusalem. 14 They talked with each other about all of these things which had happened. 15 While they talked and questioned together, Jesus himself came near, and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 He said to them, “What are you talking about as you walk, and are sad?” 18 One of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things which have happened there in these days?” 19 He said to them, “What things?” They said to him, “The things concerning Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people; 20 and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we were hoping that it was he who would redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Also, certain women of our company amazed us, having arrived early at the tomb; 23 and when they didn’t find his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of us went to the tomb and found it just like the women had said, but they didn’t see him.” 25 He said to them, “Foolish people, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Didn’t the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?” 27 Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
Two disciples walk seven miles telling a stranger why they have given up, and he tells them they have misread everything.
Behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia from Jerusalem.
The episode is this Gospel's alone, and it is the longest resurrection account in the New Testament. Seven miles, on foot, on the afternoon of the third day.
One of the two is named — Cleopas Luke 24:18 — and the other is not, which has the effect of leaving a space at his shoulder. They are not apostles. They are ordinary followers walking home after a failure.
While they talked and questioned together, Jesus himself came near, and went with them.
He joins them. He does not appear in glory in the upper room first; the first extended appearance in this book is to two people of no rank, on a road, going the wrong way.
But their eyes were kept from recognizing him Luke 24:16. Passive, and the agent is unnamed — the same construction used when the passion prediction was hidden from them Luke 18:34. Something is being withheld on purpose and for a while.
He said to them, “What are you talking about as you walk, and are sad?”
He asks. He knows, and he asks anyway, and the whole method of the passage is in that question. What follows is seven miles of letting two grieving people say the whole thing out loud.
One of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things which have happened there in these days?”
The irony is complete and they cannot see it. They are explaining the weekend to the one person who was at the center of it.
"What things?" Luke 24:19. He draws it out of them.
And their answer is a small masterpiece of accurate reporting and wrong conclusions. A prophet mighty in deed and word — true, and much too small. The chief priests delivered him up and crucified him — accurate. "But we were hoping that it was he who would redeem Israel" Luke 24:21.
That sentence is the saddest in the Gospel. We were hoping — the tense does the work. The hope is spoken of as a thing that used to exist, and the reason for its collapse is the cross, which is the very event that accomplished what they had hoped for.
"It is now the third day since these things happened." They know the timetable and are quoting it as evidence that it is over. Three days was the deadline in his own predictions, and to them it is the point at which hope expires.
They even have the report. Certain women of our company amazed us Luke 24:22 — the empty tomb, the vision of angels, the message that he was alive, and the confirmation by some of their own. And the last clause is where they stop: but they didn't see him Luke 24:24.
Everything necessary is in their possession. They have the predictions, the empty tomb, the angelic message and corroborating witnesses, and they are walking away from the city.
He said to them, “Foolish people, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
The rebuke names the failure exactly, and it is not a failure of evidence. Slow of heart — the trouble is not in the data or in the intellect. And what they are slow to believe is all that the prophets said; they had been reading selectively, keeping the glory and skipping the suffering.
Didn’t the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?”
The must again, and it is the answer to their entire account. They had treated the cross as the thing that ruined the plan. It was the plan, and the order runs suffering first, then glory — the sequence they had inverted.
Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
The first thing the risen Christ does with his time is teach the Old Testament. Not display his wounds, not prove the resurrection — a Bible study on a dirt road, lasting most of an afternoon, and no one wrote down a word of it.
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