Late in the afternoon of the third day two men are walking away from Jerusalem.
It is sixty stadia to Emmaus, a walk of some three hours, and they have taken their time over it: they talk about everything that has happened, and the talking turns again and again into dispute — back and forth, like the friends on the ash heap, until no one gets any further. Their faces are downcast. It is not knowledge they lack. They can recite the whole file, and they do so, flawlessly: Jesus the Nazarene, a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people; handed over by the chief priests, condemned, crucified. Even the latest news they have taken in — women who were at the tomb this morning, the body that was not there, angels who said He lives; a few of their own went to look and found it as the women had said. "But Him they did not see." And with all of this in their heads they walk away from the city.
Someone comes to walk beside them. Their eyes are held, so that they do not recognize Him — the sentence stands in the passive; something is being done to their eyes. He asks what it is about. They stand still, and Cleopas can hardly believe it: are you then the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know what has happened there in these days?
And then comes the sentence in which everything lies open:
"But we had hoped that He was the one who would redeem Israel."
The redeemer-word — and it stands in the past tense. We had hoped. A tomb has changed the tense of the verb. And another marker of time follows, as proof that it is over: "and with all this, today is the third day since this happened."
They name the third day as a deadline that has passed. For them the clock has run out.
II. Slow of Heart
Then the stranger speaks, and the first thing He says is no comfort.
"Foolish ones, and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things, and so enter his glory?" Necessary — there stands the verb of necessity, and it stretches over suffering and glory at once: one arch, two ends, and the cross in the middle. That is, in a single question, the whole plan. And then He begins to walk as no one ever walked before: "and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself."
No one took minutes of that conversation. Three hours' walk, and the Scriptures open, and the Expositor is Himself the Content. Somewhere along the way the dust that was crowned must have come up, and the crown that stayed lying outside the garden; the servants who were sent, rising early and sending, and last of all the son; a priest-king who met a victor with bread and wine; a redeemer at a city gate who took field and bride and name in one purchase. That same evening, in Jerusalem, He names the collections from which He read: the law of Moses, and the prophets — and the psalms. So the four songs of this book too lay on that road. What it must have been when their turn came — the shepherd's question to the night sky, the decree of Zion, the oath about the priest forever, the wedding song — answered from the mouth of the One they are about: that was not written down, and this whole book has been nothing other than an attempt to keep up with that walk from a distance.
This is the same voice as always. It has spoken out of a storm, from a smoking mountain, in a thin silence before which a prophet hid his face — and where it sounded like that, no man stayed standing. Now it sounds for three hours at walking height, at the length of a breath, beside two men who are going the wrong way. And they stay standing. They only notice that something is burning.
III. Stay With Us
At the village He acts as though He means to go further.
It is no play; it is the same courtesy as always: an offer that lets itself be refused, a kiss that is not forced. He forces His way in nowhere. But they do force — the word that stands there is strong, they press Him: "stay with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is already far gone." And He goes in to stay with them.
At the table it happens. The guest takes the bread — that is the host's part, but no one protests — and He blesses, and breaks, and gives it to them. And their eyes are opened, with the same verb with which He opened the Scriptures along the way, and they recognize Him. There was once before in Scripture a king who wished to be recognized like this: by what he carried out and handed round, bread and wine, to meet a weary victor. No citation binds the two tables, and no one need go looking for one — but it is the same gesture, and it is the gesture by which this King evidently lets Himself be known: not by his face, but by his outstretched hands.
And at the moment of recognition He has vanished from their midst. The table is still there. The broken bread is still there. They have seen Him for precisely one gesture's length — and it was enough.
IV. That Same Hour
What they then say to each other has been the measure of this whole book, from the first page:
"Was our heart not burning within us, while He spoke to us along the way, while He opened the Scriptures to us?"
The heart knew before the eyes did. While they still thought a stranger walked beside them, something was already burning within — the Scriptures were opening and the heart caught fire at the opening text, hours before there was any recognition. That is how close those two lie to each other, the opened Word and the burning heart; whoever undergoes the one has already begun the other.
And then the sentence that carries this evening:
"And they rose up that same hour, and returned to Jerusalem."
That same hour. The meal is left standing. It is evening, and it is the same sixty stadia, now in the dark, and now uphill — and the road they walked down this afternoon in gloom, they walk back in the night, and nothing about that road has changed except themselves. A burning heart does not stay seated. In Jerusalem they find the eleven gathered, and before they can get their story out, it is called out to meet them: the Lord is truly risen. They ran with the news through the night, and the news was there before them.
HeartThe Fellow Traveller
On the afternoon of his resurrection day, with death behind Him and all power in his hands, He spends three hours on two gloomy people walking the wrong way. He does not fetch them back with a command; He walks along, the wrong way, and opens the Scriptures until their heart burns. He does not force Himself upon them — He acts as though He means to go on, and lets Himself be invited in by those who do not even recognize Him. This is how He is. The voice that made mountains smoke goes on foot, and keeps to the pace of the one who walks in gloom.
V. Come
God has spoken, in many portions and in many ways, and last of all in a Son — and after that Word there was nothing more to say; there was only answering left to do. At the end of the Bible stands that answer, and it is short.
"And the Spirit and the bride say: come."
The bride — she who may stand at the right hand — has one word, and it is a cry to Him. And from the other side comes the answer to the answer, the last thing He says in Scripture: "yes, I am coming soon." Whereupon Scripture closes with its last prayer — the prayer that the first congregations already kept in its own language, untranslated, as a watchword: maranatha, our Lord, come.
Whoever has once felt the heart burn keeps, of all the words of this book, one — and it is this:
"Amen, come, Lord Jesus."
Underlying-text footnotes. All translations are my own, concordant working translations; in the typeset edition the notes stand at the foot of the page.
I. The Wrong Way
Late in the afternoon of the third day two men are walking away from Jerusalem.
It is sixty stadia to Emmaus, a walk of some three hours, and they have taken their time over it: they talk about everything that has happened, and the talking turns again and again into dispute — back and forth, like the friends on the ash heap, until no one gets any further. Their faces are downcast. It is not knowledge they lack. They can recite the whole file, and they do so, flawlessly: Jesus the Nazarene, a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people; handed over by the chief priests, condemned, crucified. Even the latest news they have taken in — women who were at the tomb this morning, the body that was not there, angels who said He lives; a few of their own went to look and found it as the women had said. "But Him they did not see." And with all of this in their heads they walk away from the city.
Someone comes to walk beside them. Their eyes are held, so that they do not recognize Him — the sentence stands in the passive; something is being done to their eyes. He asks what it is about. They stand still, and Cleopas can hardly believe it: are you then the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know what has happened there in these days?
And then comes the sentence in which everything lies open:
The redeemer-word — and it stands in the past tense. We had hoped. A tomb has changed the tense of the verb. And another marker of time follows, as proof that it is over: "and with all this, today is the third day since this happened."
They name the third day as a deadline that has passed. For them the clock has run out.
II. Slow of Heart
Then the stranger speaks, and the first thing He says is no comfort.
"Foolish ones, and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things, and so enter his glory?" Necessary — there stands the verb of necessity, and it stretches over suffering and glory at once: one arch, two ends, and the cross in the middle. That is, in a single question, the whole plan. And then He begins to walk as no one ever walked before: "and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself."
No one took minutes of that conversation. Three hours' walk, and the Scriptures open, and the Expositor is Himself the Content. Somewhere along the way the dust that was crowned must have come up, and the crown that stayed lying outside the garden; the servants who were sent, rising early and sending, and last of all the son; a priest-king who met a victor with bread and wine; a redeemer at a city gate who took field and bride and name in one purchase. That same evening, in Jerusalem, He names the collections from which He read: the law of Moses, and the prophets — and the psalms. So the four songs of this book too lay on that road. What it must have been when their turn came — the shepherd's question to the night sky, the decree of Zion, the oath about the priest forever, the wedding song — answered from the mouth of the One they are about: that was not written down, and this whole book has been nothing other than an attempt to keep up with that walk from a distance.
This is the same voice as always. It has spoken out of a storm, from a smoking mountain, in a thin silence before which a prophet hid his face — and where it sounded like that, no man stayed standing. Now it sounds for three hours at walking height, at the length of a breath, beside two men who are going the wrong way. And they stay standing. They only notice that something is burning.
III. Stay With Us
At the village He acts as though He means to go further.
It is no play; it is the same courtesy as always: an offer that lets itself be refused, a kiss that is not forced. He forces His way in nowhere. But they do force — the word that stands there is strong, they press Him: "stay with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is already far gone." And He goes in to stay with them.
At the table it happens. The guest takes the bread — that is the host's part, but no one protests — and He blesses, and breaks, and gives it to them. And their eyes are opened, with the same verb with which He opened the Scriptures along the way, and they recognize Him. There was once before in Scripture a king who wished to be recognized like this: by what he carried out and handed round, bread and wine, to meet a weary victor. No citation binds the two tables, and no one need go looking for one — but it is the same gesture, and it is the gesture by which this King evidently lets Himself be known: not by his face, but by his outstretched hands.
And at the moment of recognition He has vanished from their midst. The table is still there. The broken bread is still there. They have seen Him for precisely one gesture's length — and it was enough.
IV. That Same Hour
What they then say to each other has been the measure of this whole book, from the first page:
The heart knew before the eyes did. While they still thought a stranger walked beside them, something was already burning within — the Scriptures were opening and the heart caught fire at the opening text, hours before there was any recognition. That is how close those two lie to each other, the opened Word and the burning heart; whoever undergoes the one has already begun the other.
And then the sentence that carries this evening:
That same hour. The meal is left standing. It is evening, and it is the same sixty stadia, now in the dark, and now uphill — and the road they walked down this afternoon in gloom, they walk back in the night, and nothing about that road has changed except themselves. A burning heart does not stay seated. In Jerusalem they find the eleven gathered, and before they can get their story out, it is called out to meet them: the Lord is truly risen. They ran with the news through the night, and the news was there before them.
HeartThe Fellow Traveller
On the afternoon of his resurrection day, with death behind Him and all power in his hands, He spends three hours on two gloomy people walking the wrong way. He does not fetch them back with a command; He walks along, the wrong way, and opens the Scriptures until their heart burns. He does not force Himself upon them — He acts as though He means to go on, and lets Himself be invited in by those who do not even recognize Him. This is how He is. The voice that made mountains smoke goes on foot, and keeps to the pace of the one who walks in gloom.
V. Come
God has spoken, in many portions and in many ways, and last of all in a Son — and after that Word there was nothing more to say; there was only answering left to do. At the end of the Bible stands that answer, and it is short.
The bride — she who may stand at the right hand — has one word, and it is a cry to Him. And from the other side comes the answer to the answer, the last thing He says in Scripture: "yes, I am coming soon." Whereupon Scripture closes with its last prayer — the prayer that the first congregations already kept in its own language, untranslated, as a watchword: maranatha, our Lord, come.
Whoever has once felt the heart burn keeps, of all the words of this book, one — and it is this:
"Amen, come, Lord Jesus."
Underlying-text footnotes. All translations are my own, concordant working translations; in the typeset edition the notes stand at the foot of the page.