Sunday Readings: Acts 2.14, 22-33; 1 Peter 1.17-21; Luke 24.13-35
On the first day of the week, two disciples were going their way to a village named Emmaus seven miles distant from Jerusalem. They were talking to one another about all that had happened. As they were talking and discussing, Jesus came near and began to travel with them. But they did not recognize him.
. . . Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, the stranger interpreted for them every passage of scripture that referred to him. As they neared the village to which they were going, the stranger acted as if he were going farther. But they pressed him. “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening. The day is ending.”
So the stranger went to stay with them. While he sat with them, he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them. Their eyes were opened and they recognized him but he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning inside us as he talked to us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?”
They got up immediately and returned to Jerusalem, where they found the eleven and the rest of the company assembled. “The Lord has been raised! It is true! He has appeared to Simon.” Then the two recounted what had happened on the road and how they knew him in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24.13-16, 27-35).
In the Emmaus story the risen Jesus becomes present to the two disciples first through interpreting the scriptures together and then through breaking bread, the same ways Jesus becomes present in every Eucharist. In extending hospitality to the stranger, the disciples welcome a guest for supper who turns out to be their host at the last supper and whom the reader recognizes as the host of every Eucharist. Their hospitality toward a stranger gives the two disciples insight, but as soon as they recognize Jesus, he vanishes.
Their recognition is the seeing of faith. They begin to piece together a new vision. They remember how their hearts burned within them as the stranger explained the scriptures and revived their hopes. And they met Jesus in the breaking of the bread because they wanted to hear more and invited him to dinner, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening.”
- What role is most transforming in your experience—guest or host?
- Who do you urge to stay in your life?
- What makes your heart burn with hope in all the human race can become?