SUMMARY
The resurrected Jesus joins two of his followers as they journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus, but they do not recognize who he is until he breaks bread in their presence during dinner. Jesus subsequently appears to his followers in Jerusalem, explains that the Scriptures have been fulfilled, and tells everyone to wait in the city until they receive “power from on high.”
ANALYSIS
There is something familiar and something different about Jesus when he appears to his followers as they gather together. He is real and embodied–people touch him and he eats food. But he is not immediately recognizable and is able to disappear and reappear. This suggests that his followers encounter the same Jesus they had known before, but that he has also been transformed. He has been raised to a new kind of existence. Their recognition and understanding are not automatic; their eyes and minds need to be opened, and they need to have the Scriptures explained to them. Faith does not come naturally, for it requires an encounter and a reminder or a recognition coming from Jesus himself.
Jesus describes his suffering, death, and resurrection as necessary to fulfill the Scriptures, but this Gospel does not dwell on precisely which scriptural texts he is talking about or what it means to call them “fulfilled.” Luke’s overriding point appears to be that Jesus fulfills Scripture in a comprehensive or cumulative sense, that he completes and confirms God’s commitment to the world, a commitment that saturates the Jewish Scriptures.
