Hi everyone. Welcome back to the logical.
Bible study podcast, we're continuing to look at the
post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.
As we have been in the last few days.
And as always we want to take a look at the text from today and
then we'll dive into looking at an exegesis of the literal sense
of that text. Today's passage is from Luke
chapter 24 verses 13 to 35. It's a bit of a longer one.
This is the road to Emmaus story.
Two of the Disciples of Jesus were on their way to a village
called Emmaus. Seven miles from Jerusalem, and
they were talking together about all that it happened.
Now, as they talked this over, Jesus himself came up and walked
by their side, but something prevented them from recognizing
him. He said to them, what matters
are you discussing as you walk along, they stopped short their
faces downcast. Then one of them called cleopas
answered him. You must be the only person
staying in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have
been happening there. These last few days.
What things he asked all about, Jesus of Nazareth they answered
who proved he was a great prophet by the things he said
and did in the sight of God and of the whole people and how our
chief priests and our leaders handed him over to be sentenced
to death, and had him crucified. Our own hope had been that he
would be the one to set Israel. Free.
And this is not all two whole days have gone by, since it all
happened and some women from our group have astounded, Us.
They went to the Tomb in the early morning and when they did
not find the body, they came back to tell us that they had
seen a vision of angels who declared that he was alive.
Some of our friends went to the tomb and found everything
exactly as the women had reported, but of him, they saw
nothing. Then he said to them.
You foolish, man. So slow to believe the full
message of the prophets. Was it not ordained that the
Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory.
Then starting with Moses and going through all the prophets,
he explained to them the passages through the scriptures
that were about himself. When they drew near to the
Village to which they were going he made as if to go on, but they
pressed him to stay with them. It is nearly evening they said
and the day is almost over so he went in to stay with them.
Now while he was with them at table, he took the bread and
said the blessing. Then he broke it and handed it
to them. And their eyes were opened and
they recognized him, but he had vanished from their sight, then
they said to each other, did not our hearts burn within us as he
talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us.
They set out that instant and returned to Jerusalem.
There they found the eleven assembled together with their
companions who said to them. Yes, it is true.
The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.
Then they told their story of what had happened on the road,
and how they had recognized him at the breaking of the bread.
So many of you will be familiar with the road to Emmaus story.
It's often used as part of our catechesis and religious
education as a model of what we're trying to do.
When we teach people, the scriptures is, we want to unlike
help them open their eyes to see things that hadn't seen before.
So what's the context here? It's Easter Sunday.
It's the day of Jesus. Resurrection already in the
morning on this day. The women have seen the vision
of Angels at the tomb and they've run back to tell the
apostles and the The disciples who were in Jerusalem, we know
from early wrong that most of the disciples do not believe
them though. Peter and the Beloved disciple
was they do? They go and check it out for
themselves but most of the disciples don't believe that
Jesus is resurrected. So now it's probably early
afternoon on Easter Sunday at this point and we see two of the
Disciples of Jesus. Now, these are not part of the
eleven Apostles, but the disciple.
So the broader group of his followers He's so these two
people two disciples they were in the room when the women came
in and claim that the tomb was empty and but they did not
believe the women either. So they're on the way to a
village called Emmaus. And our translation says that is
seven miles from Jerusalem. Now there's some debate about
how far away it is because some translations have this as what
this basically 18 miles some manuscripts have it is 18 miles,
some have it as seven miles. We know from one Maccabees
according to one Maccabees, there is a village called Emmaus
which is 18 miles from Jerusalem.
So probably the right translation is 18 miles and that
means today the village we've identified it with today is It's
called nicopolis so you can go in a couple us today and see
what we think are the ruins of Emmaus.
So it's 18 miles to the northwest of West of Jerusalem.
This is probably their Hometown. The disciples are probably
walking, they're going home from Jerusalem, if it's 18 miles.
Then this is certainly a few hours worth of walking to get
there. So they're on the road they're
talking together about all that happened.
And we later get a summary of what all those things are as
they talk this over. So they're on the The road from
Jerusalem to Emmaus, Jesus himself came up and walked by
their side. So he sort of appears out of
nowhere but it's like he kind of he doesn't just miraculously
appear. I guess he sort of walks up
behind them here, but something prevented them from recognizing
him or more literally. The text says Their Eyes Were
kept from recognizing him. So either he's appearing in a
different form. Jesus looks different and that's
why they don't recognize him or maybe there's some sort.
Supernatural, blondness and the text seems to hint that that
might be the case that God has supernaturally, blinded the two
disciples so that they don't recognize Jesus and God has done
that. So that later on in the story
there's a certain moment when God can lift can lift the blind,
a set of specific moment. He wants to reveal himself,
Jesus does in the breaking of the bread.
A bit later on verse 17, Jesus asks the disciples, what matters
are you discussing? As he walked along.
Now Jesus already knows the answer to this but as he often
does, he wants to start the conversation and he wants it to
lead to a teaching opportunity. They stopped short of their
faces downcast. So the disciples are genuinely
sad and confused about what's going on in their lives.
At the moment Verse 18, one of them named cleopas.
Now, not sure exactly who this clearpass is.
Some have suggested there's a woman according to John Chapter
19 Verse 25. One of the women at the foot of
the cross is called Mary, the wife of clopas.
So, if this clopas is the same as this clearpass, then that
Mary, and this clearpass are married, but it's not entirely
clear. Whether clopas in clearpass,
here are the same person. The other disciple isn't named.
So we just have the name of one of them.
So Cleopatra says to Jesus, you must be the only person staying
in Jerusalem, who does not know the things that have been
happening there. These last few days.
So lots of people were staying in Jerusalem for the Passover
and apparently by now, everyone has heard what's been going on
with Jesus verse 19. Jesus says what things and some
here, detect that, maybe Jesus has a bit of a sense of humor
because, of course, he knows what's going on.
But he says to them, what things so clear paths now goes on to
summarize, all of Jesus life and everything that's been happening
in the last few days and here's what he says all about.
Jesus of Earth who proved he was a great prophet by the things he
said and did in the sight of God and of the whole people and how
our chief priests and our leaders handed him over to be
sentenced to death, and had him crucified.
Our own hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel.
Free. And this is not all two whole
days have gone by, since it all happened, and some women from
our group of astounded us, they went to the Tomb in the early
morning, and when they did not find the body, they came back to
tell us, they had seen a vision of angels who declared and he
was alive. Some of our friends went to the
tomb and found everything exactly as the women have
reported, but of him, they saw nothing.
So that's the summary. They give Jesus.
One particular thing to notice in this summary is when they say
our own hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel
free. So that the disciples are
suspecting that Jesus is the Messiah, but in their view, as
did many Jews of the time, they believed the Messiah would be a
political leader, who would overthrow the Romans.
So when they say we thought he would be the one who had set
Israel free there. Thinking that Messiah would be a
political ruler. Who would free the Land of
Israel? Now the fact that they recognize
that Jesus is the Messiah is the key to understanding what Jesus
says next. And by the way that's the reason
why they're sad is because they had thought that Jesus was going
to gloriously save Israel from the Romans and because he didn't
do that, he got killed instead which they didn't expect, that's
why they're so downcast. Verse 25, Jesus says to them,
you foolish Min now that might seem to be quite harsh words but
they're mostly words of disappointment as well.
See he's disappointed that they didn't understand how the
Messiah was going in suffer so he says to them, you are so slow
to believe the full message of the prophets, was it not
ordained that the Christ should suffer and so enter into his
glory. Notice Jesus says, you don't
believe the full message of the Prophet so they know some of the
prophets but they You can understand the for message.
So Jesus says to them and this is important.
He says that if they really knew their Old Testament particularly
the prophets, they would know that the Christ or the Messiah
was required to suffer in order to become glorified.
This still applies to Jews today.
I Think Jesus would say the same to Jewish people today who don't
believe Jesus is the Messiah. He would say, if you knew your
Old Testament, you would know that the Messiah is going to
suffer verse 27. In Luke says, then starting with
Moses and going through all the prophets, he explained to them
the passages throughout the scriptures that were about
himself. So Jesus on this long road to
Emmaus, this probably takes a couple of hours.
He goes through the entire Old Testament, explaining all of the
passages which discuss the Christ.
The goal, he Jesus is telling them this because he wants these
two men. The two disciples to see that.
Actually it makes sense that the Messiah has to suffer That's
what he wants them to see. Is that really the Old
Testament? Says the Messiah is going to
suffer now that's one. Bible study.
That I would love to be a part of, it's a Bible study that
Jesus gives them. Jesus not only identifies the
key Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah but apparently
he also explains them to the two people here.
So unfortunately we don't have this sermon of Jesus recorded.
We don't know what passages he talks about here but probably a
lot of the same passages that the apostles use later in the
book of Acts to prove that Jesus is the Messiah.
There's some from Genesis, some from Psalm, some from Isaiah.
So this is a long Bible study, probably would have taken a
couple of hours until they reach Emmaus.
Now keep in mind the two disciples this whole time.
They don't recognize that it's Jesus.
There's just this guy giving them, this amazing Bible study,
verse 28. When they drew near to the
Village to which they were going he made as if to go on.
So Jesus indicates that he's going to keep walking verse 29
but they pressed him to stay with them.
So the disciples. The two men have probably
probably become quite enlightened by this man from his
knowledge of the scriptures and they want to stay with him.
In fact, the Greek here suggests that they strongly insisted that
he stay. They say it is nearly evening
and the day is almost over. So Only it's about 5 p.m. or 6
p.m. now. So he went in to stay with them.
So Jesus agrees to stay with the two men probably at their home
in Emmaus. Verse 30 now while he was with
them at table. So they're having dinner, he
took the bread and said the blessing.
Then he broke it and handed it to them.
Now, this process was fairly normal.
Bread was a normal part of the meal for Jews and it's customary
for someone, although usually it was the host.
Jesus makes himself the host here.
Usually, that person would bless and break the bread.
There's nothing particularly unusual about that except verse
31. Their eyes were opened And now,
that's a reversal of what happened earlier.
Remember, their eyes were prevented from recognizing Jesus
earlier, but now their eyes are opened.
So they do recognize Jesus. Apparently there's something
special about the way, he breaks the bread or that he hands out
the bread because as soon as he does it, they immediately
recognized him. Probably what's going on here.
It's not 100% clear but probably Jesus does this in such a way
that it's recalling the Eucharist.
It makes them think about the Eucharist that he instituted
three nights earlier and holy Thursday and there's also
strong. Echo is here from the language
of the feeding of the 5000. If you go to Luke 9, Yeah, the
feeding of the 5,000 users, very similar language about
Distributing the bread, but he had vanished from their sight.
So as soon as they recognized him, Jesus miraculously
disappears one moment. His there.
The next moment, he's not there, and we see that with a lot of
Jesus post-resurrection, appearances, you just seems to
appear and disappear at will. That's something his new
resurrected body gives him the ability to do.
Verse 32, the two disciples say to each other.
Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the
road and explained the scriptures to us.
So while he'd been explaining the scriptures, they had felt
that there was something special about this man.
Maybe when they say God their hearts were burning, maybe that
was God's grace. Prompting them.
But they couldn't quite put their finger on what was going
on but now they work it out, that was Jesus the whole time.
So verse 33, they set out that instant and returned to
Jerusalem. Now it's quite dark at this
point. We know it's evening if they
leave a mayor said, around 6:30 p.m. and if it's 18 miles, it's
a few our journey. So they might not get into
Jerusalem until 9:30 p.m. 10 p.m. something like that.
So they get there late at night. And they find the 11 assembled
together. So they go to Jerusalem and
they're in a room somewhere in Jerusalem, it says 11.
But in fact, there's only ten Apostles here.
So, because Thomas is not here. As we discover later, the 11 is
just a general word, that's used to describe the group of the
Apostles. So the 10 Apostles are in here
plus some other companions, or other translations, have it as
those who are with them. So there's other disciples in
the room with the apostles. Verse 34.
They say yes it is true. The Lord has risen and appeared
to Simon. Now we have to be careful here
with this verse because if we just read Luke's account, it
would make it seem like as soon as clear paths and the other
disciple, get back from Emmaus. That all the apostles, believe
them because the verse just says, yes, it is true.
The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.
But if we compare this with Mark chapter 16 in verse 12, to 13 of
that chapter, we learned that the apostles don't actually
believe the account of the Is disciples.
So they don't believe clear pass.
They don't think is Resurrected. And how can we reconcile these
accounts? And this is why studying the
text of scripture is really important because sometimes
you'll hear the claim that there's contradictions in the
resurrection account. The answer is, if you look at
the blue text, really clearly it says, assemble together with
their companions who said, yes, it is true.
The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.
So In this passage here from Luke, it says that the other
disciples those who are also in the room were the ones who did
believe their story. These are Ones who are saying,
yes, it is true, the Lord has risen.
It's not the apostles themselves.
So there's this sort of out a group in this room in Jerusalem
as well. And the outer group probably
includes people like the women, the women who have already seen
the Risen Jesus. So they're quite happy to accept
the story of the amazed disciples, but the apostles
themselves, do not yet believe. Let's keep that in mind.
It's only later that night. When Jesus appears to them in
the room that they actually do believe.
So this appearance where the Jesus appears to Simon is not
narrated in any of the gospels, but it's the fourth appearance
of Jesus. So the third appearance would be
the one we're looking at here, which is the on the road to
Emmaus. That's the third appearance and
then the fourth appearance is this 1 to 2 Peter and we get a
little more information about it from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15
verse 5 he mentions this appearance Why does Jesus
appeared to Peter first and not the whole Apostles?
Probably because Peter is the leader and he wants Peter to
take up the leadership and to tell the other disciples that
it's real, that Jesus has really resurrected and that fulfills
Jesus command that he gave earlier and Luke chapter 22.
Remember when he said to Peter, when you return, you must
strengthen the others after turning back.
And that's what Peter does here. He sees the Lord.
He runs back to the other Apostles and says it's real.
And so, At the time, these two disciples get back from Emmaus.
The apostles believe it's real. Verse 35, the disciples told
their story of what had happened on the road and how they had
recognized, Jesus at the breaking of the bread.
So they tell the eleven what they experienced and notice they
say clearly we recognize Jesus at the breaking of the bread.
So, some have thought that the reason they wrecked the two
disciples recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread is because
maybe he still has his holes in his hands.
And they see the holes when he lifts it up.
I think that's pretty unlikely. I think the text would tell us
if that was the case, it's much more likely that what they
recognize the reason they recognize Jesus is because they
sense that he's doing a Eucharistic celebration with
them and we'll talk more about this in tomorrow's episode.
Because tomorrow's episode, we pick up Up at this very same
verse for a, in tomorrow is our Gospel reading it.
Start at verse 35. So, we'll look then at what it
means to say that they recognize Jesus at the breaking of the
bread. So, let's take a look at some
catechism references. How does the Catholic Church
understand this passage? How does it inform their
teaching? Well, there's a whole heap of
there's about 25 different, catechism references to this,
passage from Luke chapter 24 and a lot of them are very similar
to other ones. We've looked at in recent days
about the meaning of Jesus. Resurrection.
So we just want to look at some of the ones that are really
striking in terms of the language.
They use ones that really clearly refer to what goes on.
In this passage so paragraph. 1094 it says on this, the
harmony of the two Testaments rests, that the Paschal
catechesis of the Lord is built and then that of the Apostles
and the fathers of the church, this catechesis unveils what lay
hidden under the letter of the Old Testament.
The mystery of Christ it is called typological because it
reveals the newness of Christ on the basis of the figures or
types, which announced him in the Deeds were Words and symbols
of the first Covenant by this rereading in the spirit of
Truth, starting from Christ, the figures are unveiled.
So here the Catholic Church teaches that in order to
understand the Old Testament, we need to see it in the Light of
Christ and that's exactly what Jesus says In this passage on
the road to Emmaus. He explains to them how the Old
Testament, All Points towards Christ paragraph. 1347 is a
discussion about how the mass has changed or rather hasn't
changed throughout the ages. It says, is this not the same
movement as the Paschal meal of the Risen Jesus with his
disciples walking with them. He explained the scriptures,
Them sitting with them at table, he took bread blessed it and
broke it, and gave it to them. So essentially that church
teachers here that on the road, to Emmaus Jesus, first explained
the scriptures through them. And then he did a Eucharistic
meal with them, which is the same format of the mass we have
today. It's the format that Jesus gave
us paragraph. There's some other references in
here to the Eucharist as well, because of the breaking of the
bread. And I'll include that in the
show notes and about Jesus glorified body, and then we get
to paragraph, 6, 43, which is about the appearances of Jesus,
and there's quite a clear reference here to Luke chapter
24. It says, given all these
testimonies Christ's Resurrection cannot be
interpreted as something outside the physical order and it is
impossible not to acknowledge it as a historical fact.
Is clear from the facts that the disciples Faith was drastically.
Put to the test by their masters passion and Death on the cross,
which he had foretold the shock provoked by the passion.
Was so great that at least some of the disciples did not at
once. Believed in the news of the
Resurrection for far from showing us a community seized by
a mystical exaltation, the gospels present us with
disciples demoralized looking sad and frightened for they had
not believe the A women returning from the tomb and had
regarded their words as an idle tale.
When Jesus reveals himself to the 11 on Easter evening, he
upbraided them for their unbelief and Hardness of Heart
because they had not believed those who saw him after he had
risen. So, that's a summary of
everything that takes place here on Easter Sunday.
And notice, I think this is really striking paragraph.
What the Catholic Church teaches there, right of the star that
paragraph, it says it is impossible.
Not to acknowledge the resurrection as Historical fact,
we don't talk about that enough. That is the church's teaching.
Paragraph, 43, 9 talks about the role of Messiah, and common
views about the Messiah at the time of Jesus.
Paragraph 601, says, signing a confession of faith that he
himself received st. Paul professes.
That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures
in particular. Jesus.
Redemptive death fulfills Isaiah's prophecy of the
suffering servant. Indeed Jesus himself explained
the meaning of his life and death in the light of God's
suffering servant. after his resurrection, he gave this
interpretation of the scriptures to the disciples at Emmaus and
then to the apostles Paragraph 572 is in the section about
Jesus Christ, suffered under Pontius Pilate, so it's a
commentary on the Creed. And it says, this the church
remains faithful to the interpretation of all the
scriptures that Jesus gave both before.
And after his Passover was it not necessary that the Christ
should suffer these things and enter into his glory.
So there you hear that quote from Luke chapter 24, And then
the last one we look at today is paragraph 6 41, which is in the
section again about the appearances.
After Jesus resurrection it says, thus the women were the
first messengers of Christ's Resurrection for the apostles
themselves. They were the next to whom Jesus
appears first Peter, then the 12 Peter had been called to
strengthen the faith of his brothers.
And so the sees the Risen one before them it is on the basis
of his testimony. The community exclaims, the Lord
has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon.
So remember here in Luke chapter 24 that we hear about this
appearance of Jesus to Peter, and that's what gets in a rated
in paragraph 6 for one of the catechism.
So all of these post-resurrection appearances,
greatly inform the Catholic faith.
And there's so many catechism references because we need to
understand what the resurrection means.
And so, the catechism spends a lot of time.
I'm trying help Catholics understand what the significance
of it is and the things that Jesus says like on the road to
Emmaus. That's the end of today's
podcast. I hope you learn something new.
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