JESUS AND THE DISCIPLES
ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS:
A MEMORABLE MEETING

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"Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?" Who said this and whom were they talking about?

It was the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and they were talking about Jesus! On the day of our Lord’s resurrection, they had been journeying from Jerusalem to Emmaus, a town about 7 miles away, while discussing amongst themselves about the events they’d heard about our Lord’s crucifixion and subsequent disappearance from His tomb.

When Jesus suddenly appeared to walk with them, they didn’t recognize Him. Our Lord asked them what they were talking about. Clopas, one of the two spoke sadly about Jesus, “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God” (Luke 24:19) whom they hoped would “redeem Israel” by reigning as king in Jerusalem and rescuing the Jewish people from Roman occupation.

As we read in the excellent study notes from the Ignatius Study Bible “Their expectations were out of step with God's plan to free Israel “from sin and death, not from political subjugation”.

This stranger in their midst proceeded to give these two disciples a wondrous lesson about how Jesus was indeed the redeemer mentioned throughout the scriptures and, what’s more, He cited actual scriptural references “beginning with Moses and all the prophets” attesting to this!

They invited our Lord to stay with them as it was getting towards the end of the day. However, they didn’t recognize Him until he joined them for a meal and then just disappeared after breaking and blessing bread. As we read further in Luke’s Gospel (24:30-31) “When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it, and gave it to them."

Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight.” Indeed, Jesus, in His encounter with the two disciples turned their confusion over His demise at the hands of the chief priests and the Romans into joyful astonishment that He was indeed alive and had conquered death.

In this famous incident, we see yet another example of our Lord's Resurrection not being a myth, but a historical fact; and how his experiences were related in this case by Saint Luke that we may have life in his name, as Saint John would say. That indeed he was meant to be part of the Old Testament concealed, with the NewTestament revealed. Let us not lose heart or hope in these troubled times about that being the case.

How is your walk with Jesus going? Does it vary from day to day, depending on your mood? Let the example of Jesus’ walk with the two Disciples on the Road to Emmaus inspire you, as it did them! Think of those times you might have felt saddened by not knowing if God was with you, listening to you, or even anywhere near you at all.

Know nonetheless that Jesus is as close to you as He was that day of His miraculous appearance to the disciples and wants you to be certain that you can follow Him in persevering in prayer and in living a sacramental life

I’ve often wondered in God’s mysterious providence how He chose to be incarnate in a world where there were no electronic means of communications such as we have today. Not even a telephone, much less a smart phone!

The sacred scriptures cited by Christ in His talk with the two disciples were available from handwritten scrolls only. While there were books available in the form of what we call codices these were actually quite rare at the time of our Lord's earthly ministry!

While I find myself wishing this were not so, that there was some sort or audio file or other transcript of this wondrous walk, our two disciples were unable to record Jesus’ specific references of which scripture passages in particular referred to Him. That must have been such an incredible learning experience!

In many ways Jesus wants to open up the Scriptures for each of us as well to see Him in both the Old Testament concealed as well as in the New Testament revealed, as the saying goes! Fortunately today we have more available records on the internet such as this one, among others.

There’s even a scholarly term "typology", that refers to the study of how the Old Testament prefigures Christ (CCC 128-30)!

As we read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church the Christians “read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself. Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament. As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New”

Scholarly texts such as the Ignatius Study Bible point out that the Apostle St. Matthew, for example, wrote his Gospel primarily with what one could call then not just Christians but Jewish Christians in mind.

Keep in mind he wrote his stirring Gospel most likely before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Great Second Temple in 70 AD at the hands of the victorious Romans putting down a Jewish rebellion in the First of three Roman-Jewish wars.

This has been deduced by scholars such as Jimmy Akin of Catholic Answers by the fact that while Jesus may have predicted the destruction of the Jerusalem temple (Matt 24: 2) Matthew, as the other Gospel authors, makes no specific reference as to this having actually having been done.

Matthew made over 200 references to the Old Testament scriptures (or just the scriptures as they were known as in his time) to show Jesus as indeed the long-awaited Messiah the Jews were expecting.

We can readily imagine some of the more prescient examples of Christ foretold in scripture as in:

• His birth, (Isaiah 7:14 and Micah 5:2),
• His coming among us as the long awaited Messiah (Isaiah 11:1 and Jeremiah 23:5)
• the Holy Family’s Flight into Egypt (Hosea 11:1)
• And of course His Crucifixion (Psalm 22: 1-21) as well as His Resurrection (Jonah 2:1).

And other such references are not just found in Matthew's Gospel. We find similar Old Testament references to Christ in the other three Gospels as well! For some examples from Mark's Gospel we have:

• Jesus' being rejected by Jerusalem's leaders, in His reference to Himself as the "very stone the builders rejected that has become the cornerstone". This comes up in Mark 12:10-11 referring to Psalm 118:22
• His being abandoned by His disciples before His arrest ("you will all fall away") in Mark 14:27 referring to the book from the prophet Zechariah 13:7

From Luke's Gospel:

• Jesus’ acclaimed entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday in Luke 19:38 referring to Psalm 118:26
• Jesus' last words to His Heavenly Father right before His death on the Cross in Luke 23:46 referring to Psalm 31:6

And, finally, we have these examples from John's Gospel:

• Jesus' righteous indignation when driving the moneychangers from the Temple in John 2:17 referring to Psalm 69:10 
• Jesus as the Lamb whose bones were unbroken sacrificed for our Salvation in John 19:36 referring to Exodus 12:46

We read in Luke’s Gospel Chapter 24 verse 31 that the disciples recognized Jesus in the breaking of bread. Do we do the same when the bread is broken at Mass before we take communion? Open up the Scriptures and your heart to experience His love for us as He tries to help each of us to see that road to Emmaus as part of our road to salvation.

God Bless,

Christopher Castagnoli
for www.ourcatholicprayers.com

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