The Road to Emmaus

Denis McBride’s “The Road to Emmaus and Beyond: A Journey from Easter to Pentecost” is a great reflection based on the Luke 24 story of the two weary crest-fallen disciples making their way home from Jerusalem to Emmaus. The bottom had fallen out of their world as all their hopes had been dashed. As McBride says: “Their hopes are in the past perfect tense: it is not only the body of Jesus that has been buried, but their hope in Jesus has been entombed as well. …. Their hope that Jesus would prove to be the awaited messiah is now cancelled by their experience of what has happened to him. Their hope has been reluctantly laid down in the tomb, beside the dead body of Jesus.” However, they had a lot to learn, new insights to gain. McBride again: “Their experience of the Lord sends them out of doors, on mission. They do not stay in Emmaus to build a monument to the place where they met the Lord: their experience compels them to share it with others as good news.” But they were desperate to share what had happened. This is indeed a story of mission. “At the heart of their experience there is an imperative to mission: to hand over their experience as good news to others. They do not hoard the revelation of Christ because it is not something that has been given to them for their exclusive benefit. Seeing the Lord is a dismissal for ministry. So they do not try to build a booth to mark the spot, thereby associating the presence of the Lord with one particular place; that presence has now become part of their experience and it is their interior change which marks the spot.” So, it is good for us to note with McBride: “In that sense Emmaus is not just one place in history; Emmaus is wherever the community gather to hold holy the memory of Jesus and break bread together in his name.”