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The Walk to Emmaus

A lesson set written by Nathanael Vissia from www.ersesrfour.org 

Summary of all workshops in this Rotation: 

Note: Click on the underlined name of a workshop to be taken, via a new browser window, to the lesson here at Rotation.org.

Scripture Reference: Luke 24:13-33 

Verses & Theology: (Also could be called a "Bible Background")

These are provided to help the teachers think about and build a framework for understanding the story to help in answering some of the questions that the students might raise in class.   

13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened.  

These first few lines set the stage for the story.  The “two of them” being Cleopas and someone else, possibly his wife.  Obviously, these are not of the original 12 disciples, but members of another ring of disciples.  But why are they leaving Jerusalem?  We are not told.  But we can infer from their language.  When talking to Jesus about Jesus, they call Jesus a “prophet” and say that they had hoped he’d save Israel (v 21).  Notice the past tense and the downgrade to prophet from Messiah.  There is a palpable sense of “what could’ve been.”  These two disciples are acting like they went to a horse race, bet on the wrong horse and are now returning to their everyday lives – whimsically and sadly reminiscing about the treasure they almost had, but just wasn’t to be.  It was looking good there for a moment, things were going to be different, but instead, their horse lost, and so things were going to stay the same.     

15 Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 

Two things about this short passage:

1.  Even though the two disciples are discouraged and leaving Jerusalem, they are still talking about Jesus. They haven’t fully returned to their old ways of life yet. The stories of Jesus are still strong in their hearts and minds. As they share and talk to each other of these stories, then Jesus becomes real to them; appears to them; joins them; walks with them; teaches them.  

2.  However, even though they are disciples, know Jesus, and are actively remembering the stories of Jesus, they do not recognize the Resurrected Jesus. This tells us that even when resurrection is staring us square in the face, there is something about resurrection that we struggle to fully comprehend or see on a physical level.       

31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.  

The thing that causes the two of them to be able to see Jesus is a pattern of life that Jesus lives out in their presence, the pattern of take, bless, break, give.  Jesus lives out this pattern in three different scripture stories:  This story, the feeding of the thousands and the Last Supper. Because these disciples had followed Jesus, had listened and learned what Jesus taught, then they were able to recognize the patterns of Jesus in the moment – they could see that he lived on. That pattern, then, is what opens their eyes. Once they actually see the Resurrected Jesus, however, he disappears. Resurrection is not primarily a physical experience for us, even though it was for Jesus. For us, for the disciples, resurrection is the conclusion of our internalizing God’s/Jesus’ way into our lives. The way we internalize God is just like how the disciples internalized: Follow Jesus, talk about the stories, keep Jesus and what he was doing first and foremost in mind. This invites the way of Jesus into our beings and way of life. Jesus’ Way of life continues on, alive and well, when we invite the way of Jesus into our life.  This is how the Body of Christ is formed.   

33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together.  

Once we are aware of how Jesus is alive in us and around us, that changes our focus and our direction. This is shown in a physical sense in the story as the two disciples do a U-turn away from their previous destination, Emmaus, at night no less, and return to where they just left: Jerusalem. Once we are aware of Jesus alive in us, everything changes.   

Themes to Focus on from the Scripture:

• Faith Community – This story starts with the two disciples staying together. Yes, they broke away from the main faith community (the disciples in Jerusalem), and seemed to have given up by returning to their normal lives. But they still stayed with each other as they traveled. The things they had in common were their experiences as disciples. And so, that’s what they talked about as they walked. They talked about Jesus. They probably talked about their own understandings about Jesus and their own experiences with Jesus. This was the bond that held them together and then, as we see in this story, their talking about Jesus also brought in and welcomed the Resurrected Jesus into their midst.
• Biblical Literacy – Biblical literacy is a fancy way of saying, “Know the faith stories!” This doesn’t mean you need to know book, chapter and verse. This doesn’t mean you need to memorize bible verses. What this means is that you are familiar and comfortable with the stories, know the characters in the stories by knowing their motivations and mistakes, as well as knowing a general timeline of when they existed.

In the Emmaus story, as the three of them walk, Jesus is able to talk to the two disciples using a shared language, the language and stories of the scripture. Jesus speaks to them through the Bible. Being able to see the Resurrected Jesus (as demonstrated in this particular story) is a two-step process. It is through the experiences of following Jesus and then talking about those experiences that first invited Jesus into the two disciples’ midst. Then, once Jesus is invited into their midst, their conversation shifts to scripture (starting with Moses, according to our story) which eventually leads to the two disciples recognizing Jesus in their midst.

• Recognition – Recognition is not automatic. As a child, I had the hardest time finding specific shirts in my closet. I didn’t move the shirts in any particular order (like from left to right). I just flung my hand out and swiped at them. I also was impatient and often ready to give up with a sigh and a “It’s not here” complaint. I’d then attempt to shift responsibility and have someone else look for me, “Mom, where’d you put my shirt?”

To be able to recognize and name something that is before you takes work and preparation. To be able to recognize the Resurrected Jesus in our midst, we need to first follow and know Jesus, the man. We need to know the other scripture stories as well. And we need to discuss these stories and experiences with each other. As we do these things, then we’ll see how the Resurrected Jesus is living within us and our faith community. 

Lessons can also be viewed at rfour.org. (This link takes you away from Rotation.org)

From there, each workshop lesson can be downloaded/viewed in .doc or .pdf format. The first three pages of each lesson provide background (mostly provided above). The actual lesson plan starts on the 4th page.

Broken bread image is offered by theilr, under a Creative Commons License via Flickr. 

A lesson written by Nathanael Vissia, from R4 Ministries

Printed from https://www.rotation.org 

A representative of Rotation.org reformatted this post to improve readability.