NOTES for Luk 24:1-35

Reading the Gospel accounts of the disciples' meetings and fellowship with the risen Teacher, many people wonder why, having recognized Him at the moment of the breaking of bread, the apostles immediately lose sight of the Savior. It would seem that just a moment ago, as they were walking along the road, they saw Him perfectly clearly; He was beside them, and now He is no longer there, and no one knows how or where He disappeared.

Meanwhile, the nearness of the Kingdom entering the world can explain much here. Even before His death and resurrection, Jesus spoke of the Kingdom having drawn near, of its now being close, of its already entering the world. And after His resurrection He again confirms this thought. But now the situation has changed: after the resurrection Jesus already belongs fully to the Kingdom, and He is present in this world insofar as the Kingdom has entered it. He no longer crosses the boundaries of the Kingdom; He does not touch the fallen world, not physical nature as such, but that part of it which has not yet come into contact with the Kingdom. Meanwhile the apostles still belong precisely to the fallen world, and belong to it entirely. For them the situation will change only after Pentecost, when they come into contact with the Kingdom, feel its breath, and enter it; then they will learn to see the Kingdom as it is, to perceive its infinite depth, where there are no distances and where it is therefore easy and simple to meet Christ: one need only call Him.

For now, before Pentecost, the disciples see only, so to speak, the outskirts of the Kingdom, that boundary by which it touches the still untransfigured world. The boundary itself is transparent; it is easy not to notice it. And the risen Savior, who is on the other side of it, appears to be walking the same road as the apostles. He really is walking the same road, but His part of the road runs on the other side of the boundary that separates the Kingdom from the fallen world.

The disciples, of course, notice no boundary: they are sure that the mysterious Stranger is an inhabitant of their world, not a resident of the Kingdom. And as long as He remains as close to the boundary on His side as His disciples are on theirs, the apostles notice nothing. But then the moment of the breaking of bread comes, and Jesus is where He can only be at that moment: at the center of His Kingdom, as befits the King. From the boundary of the Kingdom He goes into its depths.

And, naturally, He becomes invisible to the apostles, because they cannot yet look that far into the depths of the Kingdom. It appears to them that the Teacher disappeared precisely at the moment when they finally guessed Who was before them. In reality, of course, Jesus had not disappeared anywhere: if the apostles had been able to see the Kingdom as it is, they would have seen their Teacher there in glory. But their time had not yet come. Pentecost was still ahead. For now, the apostles could only wonder and guess why their Teacher appeared so unexpectedly and disappeared from sight just as unexpectedly.

On the morning of the Resurrection, the women were the first to come to the tomb. It is believed that, according to the customs of that time, women were less threatened than men by reprisals for showing sympathy to one who had been executed, and therefore they were not afraid to come to His grave. Even if that is so, let us not on that basis diminish the degree of their love and devotion to the Teacher. There is a strength that is open, immediately visible and indisputable, but there is also another strength, one that shows itself in apparent weakness. Many times the "weaker" sex has proved strong precisely in situations where this was the exact kind of strength needed, strength made perfect in weakness.

But open strength, required of a man, is not rejected either. We see Peter, who overcame his temporary denial, and again we recognize his character, his decisiveness and impulsiveness. His strength is returning to him.

Opponents of Christianity call it a religion of the weak. No, Christianity makes the weak strong and is itself a source of strength. Only this is not the kind of strength that, like a bodybuilder, shows off pumped-up muscles. The strength of faith is not noticed at once and is often not taken into account. Goliath also never imagined that he would be defeated by the modest young David, who had no heroic musculature.

God calls each of us to act exactly this way. Go and see for yourself. It looks to you like foolishness and the hysteria of nervous women - go and check. You have complaints against God that the world is arranged unfairly - then go and ask Him yourself what is going on. Someone told you something that horrified you or seemed absurd to you - find everything out yourself from the One who is the source of this strangeness. But do not sit idle; seek.

There are questions whose answers we can receive only by turning to the One who can answer them. Even if the very thought that we need to turn to Him personally, without intermediaries, meets resistance in us. We should not be satisfied with retellings and other people's opinions. In our relationship with God, we must first of all rely on the fact that He came to restore a direct connection with each person. Including me.

God summons each of us to behave only the same way (as Peter). Go and look by yourself. If you think that it is stupidity and hysterics of nervous’ women, then go and check. Are there any pretensions against God, that the world was inequitably organized, well, just go and ask Him yourself – what's the matter? You have been told of something dismaying you or seeming absurd to you? Clear up everything yourself from Who is the source of this strangeness. Only, don't remain inactive, be active! There are questions, answers of which we can have, only by addressing to the One, Who can answer them. Even if the idea itself of the necessity to address Him personally, without intermediaries arouses in us an opposition; it is not worth contenting oneself with adaptations and with others’ opinion. In our relationship with God, we above all have to lean on the fact that He came to restore a direct link with every person; including you and me.

God summons each of us to behave only the same way (as Peter). Go and look by yourself. If you think that it is stupidity and hysterics of nervous’ women, then go and check. Are there any pretensions against God, that the world was inequitably organized, well, just go and ask Him yourself – what's the matter? You have been told of something dismaying you or seeming absurd to you? Clear up everything yourself from Who is the source of this strangeness. Only, don't remain inactive, be active! There are questions, answers of which we can have, only by addressing to the One, Who can answer them. Even if the idea itself of the necessity to address Him personally, without intermediaries arouses in us an opposition; it is not worth contenting oneself with adaptations and with others’ opinion. In our relationship with God, we above all have to lean on the fact that He came to restore a direct link with every person; including you and me.

As can be seen from the evangelist's words, the apostles were far from believing in the Savior's resurrection right away, even when it was testified to them. Of course, the distrust in this case may have been connected with the fact that women told them about such an important event: women's testimony, especially when it concerned spiritual and mystical experience, was not customarily trusted very much.

And the issue here was not so much distrust of women's testimony as such, as distrust of that emotionality and inclination toward fantasies often characteristic of women, which in spiritual life can easily play a cruel joke on a person. And still, the issue was probably not only this.

The apostles simply did not believe in the possibility of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. In part, perhaps, they were even afraid to believe. Only very recently they had been certain that they would become participants in grand events, in that messianic war everyone was waiting for and which, according to everyone's expectations, was supposed to end with the Messiah and His Kingdom immediately triumphing on earth. A Kingdom, of course, earthly, visible to all, strong, one whose reality no one would be able to doubt, not even its worst enemies.

And those enemies, of course, would be overthrown; they would lie in the dust, asking mercy from those whom they had so recently despised and considered nobodies and nothing. Now all dreams and hopes had collapsed, disappeared like a mirage in the desert, leaving behind an emptiness that seemed impossible to survive. Fear of this very emptiness first made the disciples scatter in Gethsemane at the moment of the Teacher's arrest, and then hide in houses, avoiding any contact with anyone except one another. And now there were some new stories, some continuation of the story that they did not want at all; what they wanted was for everything to end as soon as possible and somehow, if not be forgotten (such things are not forgotten), then at least settle down inside, and for the terrible emptiness to disappear somewhere.

Meanwhile, the continuation of the story seems to promise nothing good; in any case, there is no peace to expect, and the women's stories only reopen recent wounds. Most likely, of course, something had simply appeared to them; their hearts hurt too, and when there is pain, what does not appear?... Here lay the thing that kept them from believing the testimony. None of the disciples of the already risen Savior could fit into their consciousness that emptiness could be not pushed off somewhere it would not be seen, but filled, and filled precisely by the One who had just died on the cross.

And awareness of the new reality came to them far from immediately: after all, the consciousness of fallen man is not adapted to perceive it at all. But when (already after Pentecost) the apostles' consciousness changed, everything became clear to them. Not when their Teacher rose from the dead, but when they themselves came to share in the life of His Kingdom. But it cannot happen any other way: reality becomes reality for a person only when it becomes part of his own life. Or his very life, as the life of the Kingdom he seeks can become a Christian's own life.

An interesting question: why do the apostles walking on the road to Emmaus not recognize their Teacher? Of course, they were not expecting the Resurrection; it seemed to them that everything was over, and to the One they took for a stranger they bitterly told everything "that had happened in these days in Jerusalem." But how can one fail to recognize the One with whom one has spent several years, speaking with Him every day? A changed humanity, not easily perceived by the eyes and senses of fallen man? Perhaps yes, for the Kingdom reveals itself with difficulty, and only in part, to untransfigured sight. But at the moment of the breaking of the bread they see Him with complete clarity. What happened?

A theologian could perhaps build an entire sacramentology on this one fact. But the matter here may be both simpler and more complex: the disciples simply partook of the Kingdom, entered it, and found themselves right at its center, where He, their Teacher, is. And from within the Kingdom the Kingdom can be seen well, so the apostles, of course, immediately made out Jesus without difficulty. But how and why it turns out that the Kingdom now opens to the disciples, then closes again to them, remains something one can only wonder about.

One thing is clear: now it is truly near, so near that one can cross its boundary without even noticing it. Yet, on the other hand, it turns out that one can cross the boundary of the Kingdom without noticing not only the boundary, but even the Kingdom itself. One can pass through it without seeing or sensing anything, without noticing even the One whom, while He still belonged in His human nature to the untransfigured part of creation, it had been impossible not to notice. Apparently what is needed is a relationship actualized here and now, a bond like the one uniting those gathered around the broken bread, in order to experience the reality of the Kingdom. And it turns out to be infinitely great: as soon as the apostles recognized Jesus and found themselves in the same spiritual dimension with Him, He immediately disappeared from sight, dissolving into the infinite distance, for He is at the center of His Kingdom, and the apostles, it appears, are still very far from the center...

And yet the meeting took place. That is the main thing. The rest will follow, for ahead lies an entire life, a life to be lived in the Kingdom.

If in the previous story the women never met the risen Jesus, becoming participants in the Gospel of the Resurrection only by faith in His word, now a real meeting is described for us. For Christ, unrecognized by the travelers, remains Himself, and they really did share conversation and a meal with Him, even though they recognized Him at the very last moment. Earlier, Jesus taught crowds of people and openly argued with the scribes and Pharisees, but after the Resurrection only those who themselves want it with all their heart can see and recognize Him. And this recognition takes place precisely in the heart: "Were not our hearts burning within us?"

The experience of these two disciples is open to everyone who cannot reconcile themselves to the death of hope. In fact, it is the experience of the Church, when "two or three are gathered" in order to meet Christ in the Scriptures, for everything there is written about Him, and to recognize His presence at the meal of the Kingdom.

A strange situation at first glance: the disciples are walking along the road beside the Teacher without recognizing Him. How could this have happened? Of course, Jesus changed greatly after the resurrection, but at other times and in other situations His disciples still recognized Him, even if sometimes not immediately. But here, throughout a journey that was by no means short, they never recognized Him!

The evangelist says that their eyes were "held" - that is how the corresponding Greek word sounds literally. It was as if something kept them from seeing. Some barrier, something through which the gaze cannot penetrate, which does not let it pass through. So what was this invisible barrier? Invisible because they were walking along the road right next to each other, talking, and it would seem nothing could have prevented the apostles from recognizing Jesus.

But they saw Him while at the same time, in a sense, not seeing. Did they see indistinctly? Hardly; then they would have raised the question much earlier. More likely, they saw clearly, but... as if not the One who was actually walking beside them. It happens when the person you are speaking with puts on a mask very much like a human face: it is easy then to mistake him for someone else, but no one who sees him will doubt that a human being stands before him, even if an unfamiliar one. So what barrier changed the appearance of the risen Jesus so much?

Obviously, the very one that separates the Kingdom from our world, which is still not transfigured. He was already dwelling in the Kingdom, for after the resurrection His life belonged entirely to the Kingdom, and in the untransfigured world He was visible only to those, and only to the extent, who could perceive the reality of the Kingdom entering the world. The apostles, however, were not truly ready for such perception. Of course, they had spent a great deal of time beside Jesus during His earthly ministry; they had seen manifestations of the power of the Kingdom and felt its breath.

But they had not yet truly shared in its life. Their sharing in the Kingdom and its life would happen later, on the day of Pentecost, when the breath of the Kingdom would burst into the world like wind. Then, after Pentecost, they would learn to see Him clearly and distinctly. The barrier would disappear for them. For now it still exists, and, seeing the Teacher, they do not recognize Him unless He Himself makes Himself recognizable to them. After all, only a resident of the Kingdom clearly sees its realities. And its King as well.

Paradoxical things happen to the apostles during their fellowship with the risen Jesus. At first, for quite a long time, they walk along the road beside the Teacher without recognizing Him. Then, at the moment of the breaking of bread, they recognize Him and immediately lose sight of Him. What is happening? Did Jesus really change so much after the resurrection that He could not be recognized at all? Hardly, since at other times the apostles recognized Him.

Perhaps His nature after the resurrection ceased to be visible to the eyes of an ordinary person. Clearly not, because both before and after the events described, His disciples saw Him, and more than once. So what is the matter? Apparently, it is a question of who sees what is happening in the Kingdom, and to what extent. In truth, the Kingdom "has drawn near," as the Savior Himself says. It is now close. And the Risen One abides in it fully, to the end; He no longer belongs to the former, untransfigured world.

And He can be seen only to the extent that one can penetrate the Kingdom with one's gaze. But from our world, not yet transfigured, the Kingdom can be seen only a very little. One can see, so to speak, only its outer edge. On the other hand, it is now everywhere, it is always near, and if someone is walking beside you on the road, you can never be sure that this someone is in the same world as you. He may very well turn out to be an inhabitant of the Kingdom, whom one can dimly see, without recognizing his face, even from outside, through that boundary that separates the Kingdom from this world. That is how the apostles saw the risen Jesus walking beside them on the road to Emmaus.

They were on one side of the boundary, and He was on the other; but as long as He was near the boundary, His disciples noticed nothing, thinking that He belonged to the same world as they did. But then came the moment of the breaking of bread, when in order for that breaking of bread to be accomplished in fullness, He needed to move away from the boundary into the depth of the Kingdom, toward the Throne that is its center.

And it is there that the disciples recognize Him, because the breaking of bread brings them into participation in His life, and immediately they lose sight of Him: they cannot look into the depth of the Kingdom, into its center, where their Teacher has gone. This is not surprising, since the apostles, despite their constant fellowship with the Teacher both before and after His resurrection, still lived wholly in this world. The Kingdom remained something external for them. After Pentecost, when they themselves become its inhabitants, they will learn to see the Teacher everywhere, wherever He may be and wherever they may find themselves. But that still lay ahead; for now, the Teacher appeared to them and disappeared. As did His Kingdom.

One wants to look at the appearance of Jesus described by Luke through the eyes of a person present nearby. We see a company of people gathered in the evening for fellowship, united by the name of their Teacher. Two of them, who had just come from Emmaus, are eagerly and fervently telling their friends about the Lord whom they met on the road. What a miracle it is to see Him and receive confirmation of the importance and necessity of celebrating the Eucharist, in which the Lord Himself is recognized as present.

And then, absorbed in the story and in attention to it, the people see Christ appear. Everything falls silent, and the words sound: "Peace to you." Their hearts are filled with confusion and fear, with disbelief at what is happening: after all, He did not come in through the door! But Jesus, setting aside everything external, immediately invites them to look deeper, into the depth of their own heart. And to find there a place for His peace.