On the third day after his execution and on the day Jesus is raised from the dead, but before he has yet appeared to the disciples, two of his disciples are on the way from Jerusalem to Emmaus -- a village said to be about 10 kms away. They are discouraged and tired, and feel empty and hopeless. Along the way they are joined by a stranger, who listens to their discouragement and then relates what happened with Jesus to what the scriptures say always happens with servants and prophets of God in the world. When they reach a stopping-place for the night and they invite the stranger to stay with them, as the stranger breaks the bread for the evening meal they suddenly recognize him as Jesus risen from the dead -- at which point he disappears and they immediately rush back to Jerusalem to tell the others.
I looked up Emmaus on-line (good "old" Wikipedia!) and found out there is no record of an ancient village matching the one the story describes. There are several candidates, but none completely fits the story as it's been told.
It's suggested the story is metaphoric, rather than literal.
Which makes me wonder, if Emmaus is a state of mind -- a particular state of faith and of response to the message and promise of the kingdom of God, what kind of state of mind is it?
If Jerusalem -- at least for the disciples when they first travelled there with Jesus (remember Palm Sunday?), was a place of deep faith, undying commitment and high expectation of God's good will being done in and for the world, then is Emmaus -- after the defeat and demise of Jesus, a place of shaken faith, questioning, weakened commitment, and retreat to a more limited view of what Earth is to be, and of our role in it?
And isn't that the road we are on these days? At one end, deep faith in, and high commitment to the kingdom of God on Earth. At the other, doubt, weakened commitment and retreat to something less. And all of us moving one way or the other between the two?
And if we're not happy with the way we're going at the moment, how do we turn it around? What does the story say about that? And how do we find our way into it?
And...if you want an extra thing to think about ...... something else I found out!
There are in antiquity at least two other examples of "vanishing hitch-hiker" legends. The first is older than this story of Jesus and concerns Romulus, one of the twins who with his brother, Remus, was officially revered as founding the City of Rome. In the story Proculus (meaning "Proclaimer" in ancient Latin) is journeying from Alba Longa to Rome at the time Rome is an uproar because Romulus has been killed and his body has vanished. On the journey, Proculus is joined by a stranger who, unknown to him, is the resurrected Romulus, and who in the course of their conversation explains to Proculus the secrets of his kingdom, and how to conquer and rule the world. Then Romulus ascends to heaven. Proculus recognizes then who the stranger was, and he goes on to proclaim to others all that Romulus explained to him.
The Romans who read Luke's Gospel would surely have known this story from their own folklore and official imperial mythology. The fact that Cleopas (one of the two disciples in the story of the resurrected Jesus) also means "Proclaimer" in Greek would have only sealed the deal.
What strikes me as significant here is not only how the two stories are similar, but also how they are different -- like whatever difference we can imagine between what the imperial-city-building Romulus and what the crucified servant Jesus would have had to say to distraught followers about how to continue making the world the way it's meant to be.
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