44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” [Luke 24:44-49, NRSV]
Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden, 1509-10
Luke’s Gospel begins by affirming that many other writers have set down a record of the events concerning Jesus. The events recorded are referred to as “events which have been brought to fulfillment among us” (Luke 1:1). Throughout the Gospel, Luke’s use of the concept of fulfillment underlines that all these events are guided by God and that ancient expectations are to be realized. Concerning the Emmaus story, the fulfillment of Scriptures in the death and resurrection of the Messiah is stressed as one of its major themes. As part of the fulfillment of prophecy, the necessity of suffering was made clear by the Risen One.
In a systematic way, Luke strategically places in key moments throughout Chapter 24 the spoken words of Jesus to underscore the fact that the story of Jesus that he has been telling only makes sense as the great climax of the story told by Moses, the prophets and the psalms. The vision of messianic suffering is most clearly evoked by reproducing repetitively the words and images of suffering in the following verses:
- Verse 7: “that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”
- Verse 26: “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?”
- Verse 44: “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.”
1. Luke 24 and Genesis 3
This messianic suffering, in essence, is the story of how the creator God is saving the world through Israel, but specifically through the visible words and actions of Jesus of Nazareth. In The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is, N.T. Wright sees Luke’s story-line as clearly inviting the readers to compare and contrast the central theme in Luke 24 with Genesis 3.
- In the garden of Eden, the (first) man and woman begin their mission on earth, which is to be God’s image and likeness in the world, bringing God’s love and care, beauty and order upon the whole creation.
- The woman, succumbing to the words of the tempter, took the forbidden fruit and ate it with the man. Thereupon, “the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves” (Gen 3:7). In sorrow, what ensued was the explosion of manifestations of self-interests on issues of honour and shame before God. This spurred escapist finger-pointing by both the man and the woman in futile attempts at denying personal responsibility (the man accusing the woman, the woman the snake). In sin, guilt and shame, they were eventually banished to the outside world of thorns and thistles, toil and moil (Gen 3:17-18).
- This story of the first man and woman is evoked in the road to Emmaus story, except that Luke represents the Genesis story in reverse. The two disciples (assuming them to be Cleopas and wife, see John 19:25), are likewise now walking in sorrow and shame, with their dreams (hopes) in tatters. After going through a heart-burning experience on the road as Jesus explained the Scriptures to them, and having their eyes “opened” to recognize the Risen Lord at the breaking of the bread, they again picked up their mission and got on the road to return to Jerusalem. In so doing, they “thereby become part of the vanguard for God’s project of restoring the world in which his image-bearers take his forgiving love and wise ordering – that is, his kingdom – to the whole of creation” (Wright, p.164).
- It is as if Luke has systematically inserted the number of meal scenes in his Gospel, so that the Last Supper was the seventh, the number reminding us that the week of the original creation is over. The meal at Emmaus then, was the eighth meal scene, and being on the Easter Day, it marked the beginning of the new creation – the arrival of God’s new world order. Israel’s exile is now really over. Humanity’s exile from the Garden of Eden is finally over. Now, starting with Jesus’ disciples, the human race must begin to reckon with the fact that the human race has not only been beneficiaries of a new lease of life in God’s new world order through the work of Jesus Christ, but that they are also its ambassadors and witnesses.
2. Luke 2 and Psalms 42 and 43
In this new world, there will be a new understanding of who Jesus is.
- Staying in the Temple after the Feast of the Passover talking to the religious elders while his parents left Jerusalem for home with family and friends, Jesus said to the worried-sick parents three days later: “Did you not know that I would be about my Father’s business?” (2:49). His parents had suffered three agonsing days looking for him. They had to rush back to Jerusalem to find him again. And they did not understand what he was saying to them.
- Some two decades later, so Luke has it, another couple took to the road and left Jerusalem for home in Emmaus. They, too, have waited three agonising days before hitting the road away from Jerusalem. Again, at what they thought was their destination, Emmaus, they heard Jesus say, “Did you not know…” that the Messiah must suffer all these things before entering into his glory? Then, their eyes were opened at the breaking of the bread, and they rushed back to Jerusalem, full of excitement and joy.
Such a framing device by Luke involving a departure from Jerusalem and a rushing return reminds readers of Psalms 42 and 43.
In Luke 2, Mary and Joseph were thirsting to see Jesus their Son and, away from Jerusalem, living with sorrow and tears for not finding him. In Luke 24, another couple in sorrow finally found the true light and truth of God in the person of Jesus, through the exposition of Scriptures, and the breaking of the bread. Then, they too, are led back to Jerusalem, to the city of God, and back to the place of hope, promise, and fulfillment.
Evoking the image of return from the place of tears to the place of hope and joy in Psalm 43:4, Luke concludes his Gospel with these words: “And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.” (24:52-53). On the road to Emmaus, God’s light and truth had come to lead the two disciples into His presence, where despondence gave way to joy, and mourning to dancing. How did that happen? It happened, in the first place, because the Messiah has gone to the place of pain, where the people of Israel and indeed of the whole world were in distress. It was the place of suffering humanity. Just as Isaiah’s Suffering Servant had experienced, the Messiah has been cast down, oppressed by the enemies, savaged and disfigured.
- He suffered deep rejection and humiliation.
- In Gethsemane, in agonising prayers, he quoted Psalms 42 and 43, saying, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful.”
- And on the cross, he acted out Psalm 42:9, pleading, “My God, my God, why have you forgotten me?” (Mark 15:34).
- Freely, he entered into deep suffering for the suffering Israel, and he went into exile from the Garden of Eden, to redeem all who were in exile from the Garden. And God accepted all that he has done and stood for in utter human freedom, in full commitment and orientation of the human will to the vision of God. God affirmed them as very good, and raised him from the dead.
- Jesus’ ministry and passion that climaxed in his crucifixion and resurrection, taken as a whole, makes up the stuff of true Christianity. In his life and work, on the cross and in the resurrection, he has become the very embodiment of God’s light and truth that Psalm 43 speaks of and the Evangelist John writes about – “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). In our darkest hour, God’s light and truth are always there.
3. From Temple Worship to the Breaking of the Bread
Today, the Eucharist is firmly established as the paramount symbol where God’s presence is deeply felt. In Luke’s time, he sought to establish the central symbol of Jesus breaking the bread by carefully repeating it in his narrative. It stands at the heart of the Emmaus story where Jesus is recognized when he takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it – the familiar fourfold meal pattern. The same is related by the two disciples in their excited announcement to the others in Jerusalem.
Luke’s schema is patently clear, considering where he recounted the fourfold meal pattern in the breaking of the bread by Jesus:
- Before the Last Supper, Luke narrated Jesus breaking bread in the miracle at the feeding of the five thousand.
- At the Last Supper, Jesus broke the bread with his apostles.
- At Emmaus, he broke bread with the two disciples.
- Then, in his summary of the life of the new Church, Luke includes “the breaking of the bread” as one of the four marks that characterize the communal living (Acts 2:42).
To include the breaking of the bread in the list that characterizes the communal life in the era of the Church, suggests evidently that bread-breaking carried particular significance. Luke’s readers in the early church, his original, first readers, would have clearly taken note that Luke has brought together (i) the exposition of Scriptures, and (ii) the breaking of the bread, as Word and Sacrament, which stand for the story and the symbol of the central and normative marks of communal life in the incipient church. Temple worship is henceforth replaced by the breaking of the bread in Jesus’ name.
In all this, Luke is saying that competent exposition of the Scriptures to bring out the true story about the Messiah warms hearts and grows faith, and the Lord of light and truth is known at the breaking of the bread. The two belong together, interpreting each other for understanding and living. Together, they point to the new world, this new creation to which believers are sent to promote the vision and the values of the kingdom of God. Jesus the Messiah was all about inaugurating and advancing the kingdom of God, on earth as in heaven. In whatever they do, disciples of Jesus find their true home in kingdom-promotion work.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, July 2021. All rights reserved.
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