The Journey To Emmaus

The gospel reading we just read about Jesus' journey to Emmaus with two persons is one of my favourite resurrection stories and possibly my favourite from the Gospel of Luke. Over the twenty-six years of my ministry, among many other texts in the Gospels, this is one of the most-loved stories I would wait to come up in the Lectionary to preach on. When it comes up, I have always struggled to decide what not to say in the sermon.

This has been a challenge for me. As an ardent seeker and expositor of God's Word, I have—and continue to—extensively research the vast background of the Scripture passages that I particularly like. My twenty-five-year teaching responsibility at universities and theological colleges further propelled this thirst.

However, when I was appointed to the United Arab Emirates in 2010, I somewhat broke with my practice of sharing something of the vast background behind the Scripture readings when preaching. The congregations there -- mostly five hundred or more in numbers in one sitting -- were not interested in the finer details than what they already knew superficially of the Biblical text.

Looking back, this was among the many reasons that led me to return home to Australia on top of the unbearable heat of the desert that I could not bear.

Now that I am back on home soil with you as the congregation God has given me to look after, I know I can share more with you based on my experience over the past few years.

So, I would like to share with you some background information about the two gentlemen Jesus met on the way to Emmaus, which Luke does not give. This information helps us understand the message behind the story of Jesus' journey to Emmaus.

St Luke, a real historian, may have decided to leave out this information because, in his day, the facts about the two gentlemen may have been widely known. It would have been unnecessary to give details about them, which would have been evident to everybody.

This information comes from a variety of sources, including some gospels. These were written towards the end of the first century, and sometime later, the books that should have been included in the New Testament were finally decided. Today's New Testament was agreed upon by the Council of Carthage in Tunisia in 397 AD. (If you may remember, I visited Carthage in 2018 and visited the site and the ruined church complex where this Council was held)

In the Gospel story of Jesus' journey to Emmaus, Luke mentions two gentlemen talking about the events that had taken place in Jerusalem a few days ago. Luke names one gentleman, Cleophas, but the name of the other is not mentioned. The place where they were going, Emmaus, is not on the present map of Israel. Only recently have archaeologists found this place.

Sources external to the New Testament say that Cleophas was a tax collector who lived in Capernaum (where Jesus spent some of his adult years—Matthew 4:12) as a neighbour of Joseph and Mary. His daughter Susan grew up with Ruth, Jesus' youngest sister. And for Jesus, he was Cleophas, who had lived next door. Cleophas admired Jesus but wasn't in the inner circle of disciples.

What about the other gentleman? His name is said to be Philoees. He was a Roman tax administrator married to Ruth, Jesus' youngest sister (there is no record of this in the NT). He arrived in Jerusalem only the day after Jesus had died.

They didn't have mobile phones, TVs, or texting facilities in those days. Ruth and the other family members could not have informed Philoes about the events leading up to Jesus' arrest, death, and resurrection. He may have arrived in Jerusalem from Rome (which is km 2300 kilometres away from Jerusalem) over many days only to be assigned to go to Emmaus the following day.

So, Philoes may have arrived in Jerusalem between Jesus' death on Friday and resurrection on Sunday. The Gospel story says that the two gentlemen had left for Emmaus on foot Sunday. Emmaus was a town about 7 kms north of Jerusalem.

If we take this little extra information into account, we may guess why Luke leaves out the personal details of the two gentlemen. Perhaps people knew them so well that he did not have to mention their names. It would have even been an amusing story people knew about the brother-in-law of the Lord and the next-door neighbour Cleophas not having recognised Jesus.

Or, having mentioned one name, maybe Luke wanted to keep people guessing who the other person who missed out on recognising the Lord was. Either way, they would have been known as "the famous two" who had met the Lord on the way to Emmaus. I hope you can see the irony and humour of this.