The Way to Emmaus

The Way to Emmaus

By Lindsay Grandison MacArthur

And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?

Luke 24:28-32

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The first thing you notice in The Way to Emmaus is how little room the travelers take up. Three figures, hardly taller than the grass at the roadside, walking a road that runs on past them through open country. Everything else is field and sky. Next, you notice the light. Evening is approaching, but the light has not yet gone. It fills the scene, falling across the road behind the travelers and the road still ahead. There is real emotional honesty in the painting’s scale. Seven miles is an awfully long walk when you are grieving. Cleopas and his companion left Jerusalem confused and discouraged, and the road to Emmaus did not shorten itself for their sorrow. Much of the Christian life looks like this: a long road ahead, ordinary ground covered one step at a time, all under a sky that seems so much bigger than we are.

But they were not walking it alone. The stranger who fell in beside them was the risen Christ, and the painting lets us see what the disciples could not: the whole landscape of their journey was already lit. As Henri Nouwen wrote of that conversation, “What had seemed so confusing began to offer new horizons; what had seemed so oppressive began to feel liberating; what had seemed so extremely sad began to take on the quality of joy! As he talked to them, they gradually came to know that their little lives weren’t as little as they had thought, but part of a great mystery that not only embraced many generations but stretched itself out from eternity to eternity.” The road is vast in the picture not because the travelers are insignificant, but because the story they were walking inside was far larger than they knew.

Then the village comes into view. Luke tells us that “he made as though he would have gone further.” The two disciples still did not know who He was. Yet they desperately wanted Him to stay. Abide with us. It is toward evening. As Alexander Maclaren observed, “He delights to be held by beseeching hands, and our wishes ‘constrain’ Him.” And then comes one of the gentlest sentences in the story: “And he went in to tarry with them.” They did not have to recognize Him before they asked Him to stay.

Perhaps there is something here about what it means to endure. We cannot make the road shorter. We cannot always recognize the One walking beside us. But we can walk with Him and implore Him to stay. Enduring is not gritting our teeth and going it alone; it is holding fast and being taught by Him while our understanding is still unfolding. As Patricio M. Giuffra has taught: “We may wonder why the two disciples did not know the Savior was walking with them. And yet how often do we fail to understand that He walks with us? Often we are so focused on the challenges, and even the joys, in our daily lives that we do not see that the Savior is by our side. We may not see how He stays with us, strives with us, works with us, and cries with us. Even in our saddest moments, if we take notice, we can feel Him with us and hear His words: ‘Be still, and know that I am God.”

Their time with the Savior renewed them. Before the night was over, they would hurry back to Jerusalem to testify of the risen Christ. The distance was the same; the hope they carried was not.

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