{"id":6563,"date":"2021-05-16T08:00:41","date_gmt":"2021-05-16T00:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=6563"},"modified":"2021-10-06T04:23:46","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T20:23:46","slug":"272-emmaus-were-not-our-hearts-burning-within-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=6563","title":{"rendered":"272. Emmaus: \u201cWere not our hearts burning within us?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.\u00a031\u00a0<\/sup>Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.\u00a032\u00a0<\/sup>They said to each other, \u201cWere not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?\u201d<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0[Luke 24:28-32<\/span>, NRSV<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0<\/a>Friend of the Humble (Supper at Emmaus)<\/span><\/em><\/strong>, by Leon Augustine Lhermitte,1892.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll things begin from the heart,\u201d you can hear the wise old Buddhist monk says to his young students at a temple up on the mountain. All human affairs emerge from human hearts. Spiritual formation is formation of the heart. The Emmaus story reveals that the resurrection must be first an experience of the heart.\u00a0The Emmaus story slips by you as just another story in the Gospels without the power with which it is invested, unless the Risen Christ grips your heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy were the disciples\u2019 hearts burning within them?\u201d was a question often asked about the Emmaus episode.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Emotional Dimension<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Greek terms Luke uses for \u201chearts burning\u201d are \u201ckardia kaiomen\u0113<\/em>\u201d – a present passive participle tense. In Thomas Rosica\u2019s view, this points to a gradual warming of the disciples\u2019 hearts as Jesus spoke to them on the road. This gradualness<\/em><\/strong> underlines the \u201cslow of hearts\u201d (bradeis<\/em> t\u0113 kardia<\/em>) that best describes the hearts of the two disciples and ours that are at times \u201cveiled, blinded, terrified, heavy, destroyed<\/em>\u2026\u201d As a result, Rosica suggests that \u201cthe journey motif of this passage is not only a matter of the distance between Jerusalem and Emmaus but also of the painful and gradual journey of words that must descend from the head to the heart; of a coming to faith<\/strong><\/em>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In his TPI New Testament volume on Saint Luke<\/em>, C.F. Evans brings attention to Luke\u2019s silence on the effect of the miraculous disappearance of the risen Lord at the breaking of the bread. Instead, what Luke offers is a record of the effect of the disciples\u2019 recognition of the risen Lord. And even there, that effect is the reflection that their hearts had been burning \u201cwhile<\/u><\/em><\/strong> he talked to us on the road, while<\/u><\/strong> he opened to us the scriptures<\/em>\u201d. Of this, Evans expounds:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Luke uses the double clause to make the statement emphatic.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Luke brings together the two motifs of the story \u2013 (i) recognition, and (ii) scriptural interpretation \u2013 and in his usual fashion by using the same word in different senses. The eyes that had been \u201cclosed\u201d did not prevent them from understanding<\/u><\/em> what Jesus was explaining in scriptural interpretation. They only prevented them from recognizing<\/u><\/em> who it was that was instructing them on the true meaning of the scriptures. But at the breaking of the bread, they were miraculously \u201copened\u201d (dianoigein<\/em>, v.31) to see who \u201che\u201d had been.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. The result is that they are moved to recall, not how he had opened<\/em> (dianoigein<\/em>, v.32) the scriptures, which they had understood, but the burning intelligence<\/em><\/strong> that had accompanied the understanding.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. \u201cBurn<\/em>\u201d in a metaphorical sense is found only here in the NT, and scholars are not certain to what it refers. The \u201cburning of the heart\u201d possibly denotes, as it does elsewhere in Psalm 39 and Jeremiah 20, an inner turmoil and distress which cannot be contained.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Evans opts for taking \u201cheart<\/em>\u201d used by Luke here to have the Semitic sense of \u201cmind\u201d, so that the burning is meant by Luke to point to a mind set on fire by understanding.<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Evans also locates the difficulties about the meaning and the relevance of the word \u201cburn\u201d as having caused the adoption of variant words in Latin-translated manuscripts such as: covered<\/em>, blinded<\/em>, obtuse<\/em>, destroyed<\/em>, weighed<\/em> down<\/em>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Likewise, Luke Timothy Johnson in his Sacra Pagina volume on The Gospel of Luke<\/em> particularly notes that in some Latin manuscripts, \u201cburning\u201d has been changed to \u201cveiled\u201d or \u201cblinded\u201d. He does not, however, think the changes are good in any way, for they miss the psychological point of the recollection. Rather, he thinks the emotion of love is appropriate here, just as \u201cburning\u201d is sometimes so associated in Greek literature.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Stressing the emotional dimension as well, Darrel L. Bock in his IVP New Testament Commentary series on Luke<\/em> suggests that the disciples\u2019 words on burning heart \u201cpoint to how emotional [Jesus\u2019 biblical] exposition had been for them, like a message being sown into their soul<\/em>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    In light of these and other similar comments, Joseph A. Fitzmyer\u2019s brief remark in his famous 2-volumn work on The Gospel According to Luke<\/em> in The Anchor Bible series creates a bit of a problem. That is because Fitzmyer calls the \u201cburning hearts\u201d in Luke\u2019s narrative which \u201csums up the reaction of the disciples, when they realize the full import of [Jesus\u2019] catechesis and his actions<\/em>\u201d a \u201crhetorical exclamation\u201d. Fitzmyer\u2019s choice of the term \u201cexclamation\u201d helpfully offers the necessary accent to the burning hearts reality. However, his use of the adjective \u201crhetorical\u201d seems open to two readings and may confuse. If by rhetorical he means to accentuate Luke\u2019s literary skills which find their finest expression here, his remark will be well accepted. But, if all that he means is that the descriptive \u201cburning hearts\u201d terminology is mere rhetoric, a kind of metaphoric gloss that has no real inner substance, then his remark contradicts the other scholars\u2019 and may be seen as somewhat insipid and unhelpful.<\/span><\/p>\n

    On this score, it may be helpful to underscore three elements in the disciples\u2019 action which seem clearly to evince far more than mere rhetoric. First, upon recognising the risen Lord, they rose without eating their supper. Second, even though by then it was well into the evening, they at once made the return trip back to Jerusalem from where they had just come. And third, on arriving Jerusalem and finding the Eleven together with the other followers, they gave witness to what they had (presumably) run seven miles to tell, of \u201cwhat happened on the road\u201d with the Lord, and \u201chow he was known to them at the breaking of the bread\u201d (24:35). Their exhilarating excitement was palpable<\/em>. While it was not a medical condition of \u201cpyrosis\u201d or \u201cacid reflux\u201d, their \u201chearts burning\u201d was certainly no mere rhetoric. It was an experience that could not be denied<\/em>. In passing, we may note that the returning duo, together with the faithful who remained in Jerusalem, were engaged in an excited mutual witnessing and that was how faith was built up in the faith community. Their hearts gripped in heightened excitement, do\u00a0 you think anyone of them slept a wink that night?<\/span><\/p>\n

    A Personal Experience<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    The element of exhilarating human experience speaks intimately to me.<\/span><\/p>\n