The Traveller

Our exploration of the woodcuts used to illustrate the classic Grande Bible de Tours, etched by renowned French artist Gustave Doré, takes us now from Crucifixion to Resurrection with Luke 24:26-27—

"Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

Cleopas and his companion are fleeing from Jerusalem. And in all honesty, it seems about the most sensible thing that they could do.

We don’t know terribly much about Cleopas. Like most of Christianity’s first generation, he is remembered for whom He followed, loved, and preached—Jesus Christ—than for any incidental biographical details. Tradition holds him to have been a brother of St Joseph, and so uncle to the Christ. But who knows? As for his companion, well, they aren’t even named, but I find it reasonable to imagine her his wife.

The two of them skedattle, and I for one can’t blame them. What an insane week they must’ve just lived through: to come down to Jerusalem, at the Passover, the wildest time of the year; to see Jesus ride in, hailed as a King, by a frenzied crowd at the precipice of rebellion; to witness Him arrested by night in Gethsemane, dragged through a kangaroo court, and crucified in the morning for all of Judea to see.

It would be heartbreaking, traumatizing, overwhelming, whether He was their nephew or not. Then imagine the following Sabbath, Holy Saturday, hunched in hiding, unable to travel due to sabbitarian restrictions, terrified that a cross awaited them as well. Come sunrise Sunday, some women in the group, who had set out bravely to properly embalm Jesus’ body, come back breathless, telling tales of broken tombs, blazing angels, and the resurrected dead.

I’d hit the road too. Whatever was going on, it was unlikely to be good. Cleopas and his companion prove prudent, relatable, and oh so very human. Yet on their way to Emmaus, some eight miles away, exhausted from the Holy Week behind them, they encounter a stranger who walks beside them on the road. To him they recount their troubles, telling the story of Jesus, with perhaps the saddest utterance in Scripture: “But we had hoped—!”

To all of this the traveller replies, “Was it not necessary?” And He interprets the whole of the Bible in the light of Jesus Christ, explaining to them the triumph of the Cross, how the Messiah must trample down death by death. Cleopas and company are transfixed. What a fire this stranger has lit within their souls! Thus as evening comes, and they stop for the night, they beg the stranger to stay with them, abide with them, break bread with them.

You likely know the story. As soon as He has blessed and broken the bread, the Stranger is revealed as none other than the Risen Jesus Christ. And the moment He is recognized, He vanishes from their sight. Practically bursting at this revelation, they immediately, “that very hour,” run back to Jerusalem, back in the dark, to find the nascent Christian community buzzing with the Good News that Christ appeared to Simon Peter. To these reports, our two sojourners, fresh off the road to Emmaus, now give witness to their own Resurrection encounter with Christ.

What I find particularly delightful about this passage, reported only in the Gospel of St Luke, is that this is how all of us encounter Christ today. He is ever with us, ever walking on our Way. But we do not recognize Him, do not know that we have known Him, until the Scriptures are explained through the lens of Jesus’ life. Then, in the prayers of the evening and the breaking of the bread—in Holy Communion—we see Him for who He truly is, and He changes everything.

He transforms our fear to boldness, our weeping into joy. His Word and His Sacraments turn us completely about, sending us back into community, back into the Church, to witness to His love within our lives. We return to Jerusalem, return to the Cross, return to the empty tomb. Such is the rhythm of the liturgy, the rhythm of our lives: called together, sent out, and gathered together again—as we proclaim to all the world that Christ is Risen.

In Jesus. Amen.