The Mystery of Christ
The Liturgy as Spiritual Experience

by Father Thomas Keating

Chapter 2 Part XIV

The Easter-Ascension Mystery

On the Road to Emmaus

     Two disciples of Jesus that same day (the first day of the Sabbath) were making their way to a village named Emmaus, seven miles distant from Jerusalem, discussing as they went all that had happened. In the course of their lively exchange, Jesus approached and began to walk along with them. However, they were restrained from recognizing him, He said to them, "What are you discussing as you go your way?"
    They halted in distress, and one of them, Cleopas by name, asked him, "Are you the only resident of Jerusalem who does not know the things that went on there these past few days?"
    He said to them, "What things?"
    They said, "All those that had to do with Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet powerful in word and deed in the eyes of God and all the people; however, our chief priests and leaders delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. We were hoping that he was the one who would set Israel free. Besides all this, today, the third day since all these things happened, some women of our group just brought us some astounding news. They were there at the tomb before dawn and failed to find his body, but returned with the tale that they had seen a vision of angels who declared he was alive. Some of our number went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see."
    Then he said to them, "What little sense you have! How slow you are to believe all that the prophets have announced! Did not the Messiah have to undergo all this so as to enter into his glory?" Beginning, then, with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted for them every passage of scripture which referred to him.
    By now they were near the village to which they were going, and he acted as if he were gong farther. But they pressed him: "Stay with us. It is nearly evening--the day is practically over." So he went in and stayed with them.
    When he had seated himself with them to eat, he took bread, pronounced the blessing, and then broke the bread and distributed it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him; whereupon he vanished from their sight. They said to one another, "Were not our hearts burning inside us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?"
    They got up immediately and returned to Jerusalem, where they found the Eleven and the rest of the company assembled. They were greeted with, "The Lord has been raised! It is true! He has appeared to Simon." Then they recounted what had happened on the road and how they had come to know him in the breaking of the bread.
[Luke 24:13 - 35]
Gospel of the Third Sunday of Easter

    This story shows us two of Jesus' disciples who represent the basic state of mind in which most of the disciples found themselves on the day of the resurrection. They were utterly discouraged. No one's career and message had ever been so thoroughly defeated and discredited in the public eye as had that of Jesus. Even his disciples and closest friends had left him and fled; indeed, he had been betrayed into the hands of the ecclesiastical and civil officials by one of his closest friends. The hopes of his disciples were in shreds.

    It is clear from this text that the hopes of these two disciples were not in accord with the message that Jesus had been trying to communicate during his lifetime. One of the things they said when he asked for an explanation of their sadness was, "We were hoping that he was the one who would set Israel free." In other words, these disciples--and this may have been Judas' problem as well--had preconceived ideas about who the Messiah was to be and what he was to do. One of their expectations was that he would deliver Israel from the domination of the Roman Empire. In other words, they wanted a Messiah who would fit into the nationalistic aspirations of the Jewish people of that time. Although Jesus had made it clear that he would have nothing to do with political programs, he could not get this idea out of the heads of his disciples. Consequently, when he predicted well in advance that he would be delivered into the hands of the Gentiles and put to death, they did not hear what he said. 

    Our emotional programming is such that we rarely hear what we do not wish to hear. The disciples envisaged the reign of God as a political triumph, not as the mystery of God's intervention in their personal lives.

    The two disciples had heart reports about women going to the tomb and not finding the body of Jesus. It does not seem to have occurred to them that if the women's report about the empty tomb were true, their report that Jesus had risen from the dead might also be true. The confused and disgruntled disciples were paralyzed by disappointment and grief.

    Hiding his identity, Jesus appeared as a stranger, a fellow-traveler along the road, and asked, "Friends, what are you talking about, and why do you look so sad?" His friendly and courteous manner opened them up to dialogue, and they poured out the reasons for their distress.

    Notice that 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.

    Jesus' response to their sad tale was, "How little sense you have! How slow you are to believe all that the prophets have announced!" Then, opening the scriptures to them, he began to put into perspective the true meaning of the Messiah. As they approached the outskirts of Emmaus, Jesus indicated that he was going further; he probably would have gone on unless they had urged him to stay with them.

    He went in to the inn with them and sat down at table. It was now evening, the time of the evening sacrifice and the time that the Last Supper had been eaten. He took bread, pronounced the blessing and broke the bread. Then he distributed it to them just as they had seen him do many times before at common meals.

    Later the disciples acknowledged to each other that their hearts were burning as Jesus explained the scriptures to them. This "burning" brought them to a high level of concentration and attentiveness. Suddenly, as Jesus broke the bread, the data of their external senses and their interior alertness connected. The intuition of faith saw through the outward appearance of the stranger to the Reality. In front of them was the risen Christ! As soon as they recognized him, he vanished from their eyes.

    "They immediately turned around and went back to Jerusalem." There they learned that Jesus had also appeared to Peter. During the course of the day, the apostles had come to accept the fact of the resurrection, either because they  had been to the empty tomb or because Peter had seen the Lord. More importantly, they were beginning to experience interiorly the grace of the resurrection. The risen Christ was awakening within them, enabling them to see the events of the past few days with the x-ray eyes of faith.

    Like the disciples of Emmaus, we, too, have our own ideas of Jesus Christ, his message and his church. We, too, are conditioned by our upbringing, early education, culture and life experience. The disciples could not recognize Jesus as long as their mindsets about who he was and what he was to do were in place. When Jesus demolished their blindness with his explanation of the scriptures, their vision of him began to assume a more realistic tone. The price of recognizing Jesus is always the same: our idea of him, of the church, of the spiritual journey, of God himself has to be shattered. To see with the eyes of faith we must be free of our culturally-conditioned mindsets. When we let go of our private and limited vision, he who has been hidden from us by our pre-packaged values and preconceived ideas causes the scales to fall from our eyes. He was there all the time. Now at last we perceive his Presence. With the transformed vision of faith, we return to the humdrum routines and duties of daily life, but now, like Mary Magdalene, we recognize God giving himself to us in everyone and in everything.

More information can be obtained by reading the book The Mystery of Christ by Fr. Thomas Keating.  It is offered in our Book Store.