Listening to Cleopas

“We were heartbroken and going home to Emmaus. Our Lord had been killed, executed by those barbarians, and for what? We couldn’t work it out. Some of the women had said they’d seen Him alive again, but you know how gullible women can be. It all sounded much too good to be true. No, he was gone, and all our hopes and dreams had gone with him.

“It was a dreary walk back to our old lives, going over everything that had happened. And then this fellow came up behind us. We hadn’t heard him coming. He just seemed to be suddenly walking with us. We didn’t mind – anything to distract our sadness. He asked what we were talking about and we stared at him. We thought he must have been from out of town not to have heard about Jesus Ben Joseph from Nazareth, crucified like a common criminal. And after all the good he’d done for people. You just can’t trust people, one minute they love you and the next they’re crying for your blood. No, we just couldn’t work it out - we thought he was the One.

“Anyway, this fellow shook his head slightly, as if to himself.  And then he started talking about the Scriptures, you know, the sections talking about the coming Messiah and what had to happen to him. He explained everything in detail. He sure knew a lot about the prophets, maybe he was a rabbi or something. Funny though, there was something familiar about him, couldn’t really put your finger on it. But he certainly made sense, and we were feeling a lot better, more encouraged somehow, by the time we got to our house.

“The fellow was going to walk on, but it was getting late so we asked him in for a meal. We didn’t have much to offer him, just some bread and wine. But he seemed grateful as he sat down.

“And that’s when it happened!  He gave thanks to God for the meal. Then he took the bread and blessed it, broke it in pieces and was giving it to us, when we gasped! It was like scales fell from our eyes and we could see. It was our Lord – He was alive! And sitting right there, across the table from us!

“We were so stunned. He smiled and then just disappeared. As you can imagine, we took a minute to come to our senses. But, oh, we should have known. Our hearts had been so moved, like a warming fire, while He’d been with us, talking to us!

“So, what to do? Straight away, we got up from the table and went back to town. We had to tell our friends, everybody and anybody who’d listen, that our Lord is alive!

“Since then when we get together with our fellow believers, we do exactly what our beloved Lord did with the two of us. We read out the Scriptures and talk about what they mean for us. It still makes our hearts feel hot because it’s like He’s still talking to us. Then we take bread and wine, we thank God and bless them, we break the bread and give it to each other with the wine, and Christ is with us again! Then we go out, stronger, to do our work for Him.

“We never take the meaning for granted. We do it all to remember - to remember Him, to have and to hold Him in our very selves. And we keep doing this every time we get together. Long may it be so.”

Daina Cooper