[Salvation]

Monday, Second Week of Easter

Now that very day two of them were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.

Luke 24:13-14

Having told the story of the empty tomb, Luke concludes his Gospel by telling of three appearances of the risen Christ on Easter Sunday.

The first is to two disciples on their way to Emmaus. In this story we see an outline of the Mass.

• The disciples meet Jesus and begin a conversation with him (Introductory Rites).

• Jesus explains the Scriptures to them (Liturgy of the Word.

• They share a meal (Liturgy of the Eucharist),

• The disciples depart to bring this good news to others (Concluding Rite).

Luke is writing some 40 or 50 years after the death and resurrection of Christ. Already, the basic structure of the Mass was beginning to take shape. Luke wants us to know that this is where we especially meet the risen Christ.

When we participate in the Mass, we are connecting with a ritual that is not a modern or medieval invention. It goes back to the very beginning of Christianity. And the leader of every Eucharist is still the same – the Risen Lord.

These two disciples might wonder why we would take it for granted. For them, it was worth a seven-mile walk…and another seven-mile walk to tell the others about it.

Am I willing to spread the good news of the Risen Christ?

Spend some quiet time with the Risen Lord.

[Salvation]

April 5, 2005

Emmaus

Luke says Emmaus was a village about seven miles from Jerusalem, but he doesn’t say in which direction. There is no known village called “Emmaus” at the time of Jesus and still called that today. That leaves the door open for speculation. There are three main contenders:

(1) At the time of Jesus there was a village called Ammaous. Its name has changed several times since then. But Ammaous is about 20 miles from Jerusalem – hardly possible for two disciples to travel that far on foot and then come back the same day.

(2) Another village called Ammaous at the time of Jesus is 3.5 miles from Jerusalem. That’s only half the distance Luke describes, unless he was giving the figure for their round-trip. In the course of history, different names were given to this site. It was destroyed in the 1948 war.

(3) Since the 12th century (the time of the Crusaders), the town known today as el-Qubeibeh has been identified as Luke’s Emmaus. It lies almost exactly seven miles northwest of Jerusalem. But the existence of this site at the time of Christ cannot be verified.