There are difficulties in the way of determining where Emmaus stood, but the name of the village will ever fill the Christian’s heart with sweet associations. Distant from Jerusalem some seven and a half miles, this place was the proposed destination of two of Christ’s disciples the first Lord’s day.
As they conversed, a stranger to their eyes drew near. His words of sympathy at once opened their hearts, and they told him their distress, and he, in reply, unfolded to them the Scriptures.
Though they knew it not, the apparent stranger was the Good Shepherd, who had died for the sheep, and, by the Father’s commandment, had not only laid down His life, but taken it again. At their request, He sat at meat with them in Emmaus, and, breaking bread, blessed; and their eyes were opened, and they knew it was Jesus.
With this blessed assurance they rose up, and at once retraced their steps, with burning hearts, to tell the disciples and the little company gathered with them of the risen Jesus, and in turn to hear from them the welcome words, “The Lord is risen indeed!”
Now this is not mere history. Historically true the record is, but it is ministry as well as history—the ministry of the Lord, the Shepherd, gathering His sheep, who had been scattered at the time of His cross. And in the gracious minis try of Jesus, we find what is as much for ourselves as for the two disciples!
He joins Himself in spirit to us as we walk by the way, and enquires the subject of our discourse, asks the why and the wherefore of our doubts, and the sadness of heart which is theirs, who knew Him not risen from among the dead. By His Spirit He opens the Scriptures to His own, and their understandings to the Scriptures, and more, reveals Himself in the Scriptures to their souls.
None amongst His own have ever had their hearts engaged with Him to whom He has not made Himself known. “The law of Moses and the prophets, and the Psalms,” all testify of Him—the sacred record has His name inscribed on its every page. Have we not heard His voice talking with us by the way, and opening to us the Scriptures? And did not our hearts burn within us?