The nonrecognition of Jesus by the Disciples can seem unusual, difficult to understand. Context is of course important to any recognition – if you’re in what is thought to be the ‘wrong’ place or in the ‘wrong’ clothes, it might be easier to be uncertain who you are. When I lived in London, this was telling – it’s a big place and you might catch a glimpse of someone and not be sure who it was, and if you are to be confused anywhere, a busy capital city with millions of people walking around continually seems a good enough place as any. But then you speak t someone you know, walk with them – well maybe one or two people might be uncertain, but a handful? Seems unlikely, especially when the person you’re talking to is the very person you are fleeing from being recognised as a disciple of! But they recognise him when they eat, sometime later. That’s quite beautiful and unites the Disciples with the feeding of the five thousand – in that people can ignore the teaching, the discipling, but hang around for the free buffet – so we are not alone in occasional despair – but it was precisely at the physical feeding that, after all those years, they were genuinely converted and literally and spiritually turned themselves around to face the work of discipleship. They recognised Him in this meal, and here we are, doing the same thing in this rather peculiar way now, some two thousand years later. 

As they drew near to Emmaus, Jesus “made as if to be going further”. The disciples got him to stay with them, but, like Mary Magdalene that morning, they could not keep him with them for long. For Jesus was then a pilgrim; he was on a journey, an urgent one; he had to go further and the disciples – that is, we ourselves – must follow him. But, so to speak, we can’t keep up with him.

Jesus went further, went ahead, in two ways:

That morning, he had told Mary Magdalene, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father”. Jesus had to take his glorified human Body out of this cosmos, which is subject to decay, into God’s own glory. This was to establish the state of glory that we hope to share when he comes again to take us to be with him where he is, when he comes to transfigure our lowly body after the pattern of his own glorious Body. He has not come back for them, he has gone before them, to prepare a place for them and us in His Father’s house. As He promised. 

We are still on pilgrimage; we are like the disciples who cannot recognise Him, except through this meal – and I do not mean only in the bread and the wine, but in our sharing of it, in our fellowship. The Bible contains all that is essential for salvation – how could it not, as it is what He left us as our guide on this pilgrimage He has shared with us – and it also contains the establishment of the Church, and the gathering of her people in the Eucharist, so we are to recognise him here, in each other as well. We are the Body of Christ, and we are, as He was, on a pilgrimage that will end up united to the Father through the Son, guided by the Holy Ghost in the Church of God. 

Jesus went ahead of his disciples in another way. He went out from Jerusalem into the whole world. The power of his Cross and Resurrection has radiated from Jerusalem throughout all creation. Even those who lived as God’s friends before Jesus came, were drawn on their journey of faith and hope, drawn into God’s friendship, by the Sacrifice they glimpsed from afar, like Abraham and His sons forever. 

Jesus still goes ahead of his disciples into the whole world; the power of his Cross and Resurrection still resonates to draw all humanity to the true God, each person who has ever lived is drawn to the Cross, and here we make it visible in our lives so the world may believe – this is the first calling of the Holy Church of God, to be witnesses to the resurrection. 

The disciples at Emmaus would follow Jesus on that journey into the world. First they had to go back to Jerusalem to re-join Simon Peter and the other Apostles – to be one again, as we are called to be one. There the Holy Spirit, the great Gift won for us by Jesus’ Sacrifice, would form them into Christ’s own Body. Then they would be able to go out and preach the Good News, and from that beginning, here we are. 

In our mission, we are following Jesus, and he still goes ahead of us. We are, each of us, charged in some way to bring the Good News to those who need it, and this is because we are caught up in Christ’s own journey to each human being. When we reach anyone, however, we will find that Jesus has got there first. Jesus and the Spirit will be there already, awakening the thirst for truth and goodness, and it is therefore our calling to show how we live out our discipleship – and then the Kingdom grows, and we grow, and Christ lives in us and we in Him. And here He is, indisputably, in His body and blood and in His people, called and chosen to walk with Him on the road to salvation, and to turn back from seeking safety in Emmaus and seek people wherever He sends us.