Now
behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus…
“Abide
with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And He went in to
stay with them.
Now
it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed
and broke it, and gave it to them.
Luke
24:13, 29-30
Abide
with me! fast falls the eventide;
The
darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide!
When
other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help
of the helpless, oh, abide with me.
Henry
Francis Lyte ~1847
Of
all the appearances of the risen Christ, none has a stronger hold upon
Christendom that this one. It has brought light to many darkened hearts, and
comfort to innumerable souls. Christ revealed Himself to Mary in the garden,
and that will always be precious to the Church. He revealed Himself to the
eleven, and to Thomas, and to Peter and John beside the Sea of Galilee. But
this meeting on the Emmaus road, with its revelation of the living Savior, is
engraven on the universal heart.
Who are these two were
we cannot tell. We know nothing about them except the name of one of them,
Cleopas. They were clearly on intimate terms with the Apostles, for they knew
where they lodged when they went straight to them. It is characteristic of the
Lord that in the glory of His resurrection-life He gave Himself with such
fullness of disclosure to those unknown and undistinguished men. Here is the
Master of all those obscure lives that are yet precious in the sight of Heaven.
These two are our brothers.
These two travelers
had lost their hopes. There was a time, not so long ago, when their hopes had
been burning brightly like a star. They trusted this was He who should redeem
Israel—that was the glowing conviction of their heart. And as they followed
Jesus in His public ministry, and saw His miracles, and heard His words,
brighter and ever brighter grew the hope that this was the Christ, the Son of
the living God. But now the third day’s sun was near to setting, and darkness
was soon to fall upon the world, and a great darkness, heavier than sunset, was
beginning to cast its shadow on their hearts. They would never see Him again,
nor hear His words, nor follow Him through any village street. And so that
evening, journeying to Emmaus, they were men convinced that they had lost their
Lord and having lost Him they had lost their hopes.
So long as Jesus
Christ had been alive, there had been a great gladness in their hearts. Always
in His society there was delight. There was a feeling of peace and of security.
When He was with them all their care and worry took to itself wings and fled
away. But now their Lord has passed beyond their ken, and it was like the
passing of the sunshine for them, and as they walked together they were sad.
They never understood how much they loved Him till the shadow of parting had
fallen on their love. But now they knew it, and so, that dreary day, their talk
as they journeyed was all of Jesus Christ, and the deepest desire of their
hearts was this: O that I knew where I might find Him!
We want to follow
the successive stages by which He gave them back their joy and peace. First, He showed them the supreme necessity of His
death. “Ought not Christ,” He said, “to have suffered these things that so
He might enter into glory?” That He whom they loved should die a felon’s death
was something too awful to believe. And when it happened it seemed a hideous
and irreparable calamity. And then Christ met them, and spoke about His death,
and they learned that Crucifixion was no accident. It was no longer the greatest
of calamities; it became the greatest of necessities. Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things? –and they saw its moral and spiritual grandeur, and it dawned
upon them that the Cross they loathed was something more wonderful than any
crown. It was then that their hearts began to burn within them, and the light
to break upon their darkened souls.
The next step our
Saviour took was to lead them back to the
Word of God. ‘Beginning at Moses and at all the prophets, He expounded unto
them the things concerning Himself.’ Once again they heard of the Paschal Lamb,
and of the Smitten Shepherd in Zechariah, and of the Suffering Servant in
Isaiah. But hearing it all interpreted by Christ, the Bible became a living
book to them, and in the hour when it became a living book, they found that
Christ Himself was by their side.
One of the surest
signs that Christ is nigh is when He makes the Bible live again.
And then He revealed Himself in the breaking of the
bread. It was a frugal supper in a village home of two tired travelers, and
another. Yet it was then—in the breaking of the bread, and not in any vision of
resurrection splendor—that they knew that their companion was the Lord. How
that discovery flashed upon their hearts, the Bible, so wonderful in its silences,
does not tell. It may have been the quiet air of majesty with which He took at
once the place of Host, when they had invited Him in to be their guest. It may
have been the familiar word of blessing that awakened sweet memories of
Galilean days. Or it may have been that as He put forth His hand after the
blessing to take the bread and break it, they saw that it was a hand which had
been pierced. However it was, whether by word or hand, they felt irresistibly
that this was He.
So when a man has
spiritually lost his Savior, and is being restored to the joy of his first
love, it is often thus that the Lord reveals Himself. Our commonest mercies
come to gleam on us as the most wonderful of all created things. Our
sicknesses, our trials, our disappointments, are all transfigured with a
Father’s love. Until at last, though we have seen no vision, and have only had
common meals and common mercies, we too are thrilled and say, ‘It is the Lord.’
JAMES HASTINGS
The
Gospel According to Luke ~1910
