1.What do we know about Lukes gospel?
2. Read Luke 24:13-35
3. What do we know about the transition time between morning and evening?
4. Is there significance in that they are “On the way” away from Jerusalem?
5. When have we not recognized Jesus as the stranger among us?
6. When have we doubted others? Why do you think they didn’t believe the women?
7. When have you been slow to recognize Gods plan?
8. When has God spoken to you around a meal?
Luke is a gospel that emphasizes God's love for the poor, the disadvantaged, minorities, outcasts, sinners and lepers. Women play a more prominent part than in the other gospels. Luke never uses Semitic words; this is one argument for thinking that he wrote primarily for Gentiles.
It is later on Easter Day, the day on which Mary Magdalene and the other women have discovered the empty tomb.
As two of Jesus' followers walk to Emmaus, they talk about the day's news, the recent startling events. Eusebius, the first church historian, tells us that “Cleopas” (v. 18) was a relative of Jesus.
The two do not recognize Jesus. Jesus asks “What things?” (v. 19). Their reply shows the limitations of their understanding of who Jesus is: they do realize that he is a prophet and, like Moses, “mighty in deed and word”, but they have no idea how much more he is. Jesus has disappointed them: they expected him to deliver Israel from Roman domination, and to begin an earthly kingdom of God (“redeem Israel”, v. 21). Three days have passed (long enough, in Jewish belief, for the soul to have left the body) and, despite Jesus' statement that he would be raised from death, nothing has happened!
The women told us that he is alive, but when Peter and John went there, all they saw was the empty tomb! (v. 24).
Jesus tells them how slow they are to grasp how the Old Testament prophecies are fulfilled in him. Was it not God's plan (“necessary”, v. 26) that Jesus should be crucified and ascend to be with the Father? He interprets his life as a fulfilment of all of Scripture, from “Moses” (v. 27, the first five books of the Bible) to “all the prophets”.
The meal seems to be a Eucharist: “he took bread, blessed and broke it”" (v. 30). Then, from Jesus’ interpretation and their hospitality to this “stranger” (v. 18) “their eyes were opened” (v. 31), i.e. they develop a deeper understanding of who Jesus is, that he is divine. At the Last Supper, Jesus said he would not share food with his disciples until God’s kingdom came. He has now eaten with the two, so the Kingdom has indeed come. “The Lord has risen indeed ... !” (v. 3)
Literally, the word "Emmaus" means "warm well." As I see it, a warm well runs closer to the surface. The deeper the well, the colder the water - perhaps, even, the more abundance of it. Shallower wells might run dry, depending on their source
The road to Emmaus is the way. That was the first name for the church, "The Way."
We walk the roads every day and fail to see the God who is walking with us. The disciples simply failed to see the divine in the ordinary.
The events recorded in the text occurred on the day of resurrection
Companion means, Com (with); panis (bread) "people who have their 'panis', take bread together.
The disciples were heading away from Jerusalem. They had evidently decided, despite what the women were reported to have said, that their part in the community of Jesus' disciples was over.
