Luke wrote his Gospel 40 or 50 years after the death and resurrection of Christ, for people who had never met Jesus. Luke carefully put this Gospel together, deliberately adding parallels to the Liturgy.
His sequence is exactly what happens in the Liturgy. Presentation of the Scriptures, then the breaking of the bread. But it is presided over by Jesus. Therein lies the difference, and it is all the difference in the world.
Those two men had walked that road before. They had read the Scriptures before. They had had sacred meals before. But not like this, because this was presided over by the presence of Jesus.
They didn’t recognize him in some dramatic meeting, as when Peter spotted him on the shore. They recognized him “in the breaking of bread.” That is the kind of presence we experience. He is here, he is our priest, and we recognize him in the Eucharist.
Luke is answering the question that must have been asked back then and has been asked ever since: “Why should I go to Mass? I can read the Scriptures. I can pray. Why go to Mass?”
I can read the Scriptures, and I should. I can pray, and I should. But there is something different, something unique, in the Liturgy, and it is the presence of Jesus.
There are different levels of presence. That is the distinction. God is everywhere and God was everywhere for those two men. But there is a distinctive, more intense, more active presence of Jesus…as in this incident. And we believe that when a sacrament is performed, that is the kind of presence we experience.
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