Word for the Week: Open Your Eyes
Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus... They were talking to each other about everything that had happened.
Luke 24:13-14
Two disciples on the road to Emmaus, walking the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus talking... If you have ever been in a traumatic situation, even a small road accident, then you know the need to talk, to go back over the details, longing to reconstruct the past, anguishing over the ‘if only’s. These two, shocked by the brutal finality of the crucifixion, bewildered by rumours of the missing body, didn’t remember that he had told them he would rise from the dead, but the hint of good news had been overwhelmed by disappointment and the pain of loss.
A fellow traveller joined them, who didn’t seem to know what had happened, so they told him the story all over again. But the reader knows that this stranger is Jesus himself. His enquiries have an odd ring, since he, of course, knew all the answers. But maybe he asked them so that they had to articulate their longings – and misunderstandings. ‘We had hoped that he was going to redeem Israel’, they told him. Then he could begin the process of healing their brokenness by opening their eyes to the good news.
The traveller knew his Bible very well and explained that it all fitted together – that it was all there in Genesis, in the Law and the sacrifices, in Isaiah. ‘How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe!’ But he didn't force them to believe; he didn’t reveal himself with thunderclaps and a magician’s abracadabra. When they came to their front door he acted as if he were going to walk on. Only some instinct of hospitality, perhaps, some desire to know more spurred them into asking him to stay.
When Jesus sat at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him and he disappeared from their sight... They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem, saying, ‘It is true! The Lord has risen!’
Luke 24:30-34
And as for us? We too have the Scriptures he explained on that track to Emmaus long ago. We too have companions for the journey to support and encourage our faltering belief. And we have his Spirit, promised by him, who opens our eyes so that we see the truth. He is indeed risen from the dead.
Margaret Killingray
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