Reading Luke 24:13-35: In this passage, we have the account of Cleopas and another disciple travelling on the road to Emmaus, where they talk with one another, trying to make sense of Jesus’s Crucifixion and Resurrection. Jesus joins them on their journey, and joins in the conversation, although they do not know that it is Jesus until the end of the journey. It is a beautiful story about the role that Jesus can play in our lives as we struggle with sadness, heartache, confusion, a crisis of faith, and trying to make sense of something that seems to make no sense.
The journey starts out with Cleopas and his friend ‘communing together and reasoning together’ in verse 15. As this was happening, Jesus ‘drew near’ – although they did not recognize Him – and went with them. So in this verse, there is this idea that as we engage in pondering and deliberating, the activity of thinking about spiritual things, wresting with questions, pondering over things we don’t understand, and reaching out to other people about those things that are troubling us or the things we are grappling with, Jesus will draw near to us, and walk with us on our journey.
Then, in verse 17, Jesus says to them: ‘What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?’ Here, it is almost as if Jesus is inviting them to participate in self-reflection now. So they start out with this overwhelming sadness and confusion about the events they have experienced, and as they are reasoning about that, Jesus invites them to reflect on what they are doing, what they are saying, what they are feeling. Cleopas responds to Jesus, ‘Don’t you know what has just happened here in Jerusalem?’ Jesus continues the questioning: ‘What things?’ So again, is this a method of questioning meant to get us to turn inward, a method which is essential to pondering and deliberation, a method which helps us to ‘do our part’ in getting answers, as it were.
Their answer is one which describes the Crucifixion, but also is mixed with an account of a challenge to their testimony: ‘We trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel’. So, perhaps we could put their answer this way: ‘We are sad because we really believed Jesus was the Messiah, but since He died, we don’t really see how that can be so anymore.’ So in response to Jesus asking them why they are sad, asking them to pinpoint exactly what events are troubling them, they reveal that their reasonings and deliberations are centered around a kind of a faith crisis, in a way. How are they going to continue on in their belief with this new event they have witnessed?
They continue with something like: ‘the women disciples we know said that Jesus’s body was gone when they went to the sepulchre this morning, and they also saw angels. But we haven’t seen any of those things, and we don’t know what is going on’. So this seems to be a further step in the reasoning process: discussion of the problem, admission of faith crisis in light of recent events, acknowledging different aspects to the crisis, not knowing who to believe. Like all spiritual reasoning, it’s a mixture of thought and strong emotion here. The strong emotions are present because these are questions which matter.
Jesus then tells them they are ‘foolish’ and ‘slow of heart to believe all the things the prophets have spoken’. So the word ‘foolish’ is actually anoetos, which literally means, ‘without mind’ or ‘without understanding’. I’m assuming this is from the Greek nous, which means mind, or the part of the mind which understands something like first principles. But the idea is that they are not thinking, they are not ‘reasoning through’ a matter, so they are being mindless about it. This is slightly odd given that it seems like they are reasoning and deliberating together, but I guess what Jesus means is that they aren’t really doing it yet, they haven’t really figured out how to reason about spiritual things. ‘Slow of heart’ means something similar – you are taking too long to figure these things out.
Then Jesus says, ‘Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?’ So, Christ is trying to get them to see these troubling events in a spiritual light, to help them view their faith crisis in a way that will instead strengthen their faith. ‘And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.’ So, with that initial perspective changing realization, that these events were for the good, He then engages in the mindful reasoning properly, through explaining the scriptures to them to help them make sense in a deeper way of what has just happened.
I think it is very significant that Jesus reasons with them through being anchored in the scriptures. It is consistent with Jesus’s other admonishments to study the scriptures, and also with His criticism of the Pharisees for not understanding the scriptures, and then imposing that lack of understanding on others, so that their spiritual progress was hindered as well. I think if we try to ponder spiritually on things without being anchored in the scriptures, we will eventually wander down the wrong path, and ‘be lost’.
But, back to the larger story of the journey to Emmaus. The process of spiritual enlightenment described here seems to me to be the process that I go through with the Holy Spirit: identifying a troubling event or issue, start to ponder on that thing, then start to ponder spiritually – that is, asking God to help me with the pondering, examine the pain of the troubling thing (there has been some kind of loss here), wonder what to do, who to believe, and so forth. Once I have invited God to accompany me in my pondering, at some point the Holy Spirit gives me a revelation or an insight which changes my perspective and the way I view the problem. Then, once that initial inspiration comes, there often proceeds a series of insights and revelations after that.
But also please note: there is no time frame specified here. The process of pondering with God on your sadnesses, questions, and confusions is indeed a process, and it cannot be rushed. But it can be made lighter, with reassurances from the Holy Spirit that we are indeed on the right path, even if we don’t have all the answers. After all, there is supposed to be ‘joy in the journey’ on the road to Emmaus.
The Light of Christ in the Darkness 