Theology on the Way to Emmaus

Only Luke records the story of the disciples on the Way to Emmaus. It is arguably one of the most beautiful and evocative accounts of the resurrection told in Luke’s gospel. Like many of the resurrection appearances, there is an ambiguity about the identity of the risen Lord. And yet, as one New Testament commentator points out, this is a story which is also characterised by extraordinary passion. It is not simply that the disciples do not recognize him. The Greek hints that they are prevented from recognizing him. The disciples argue – passionately – and they are brought to a standstill by the sheer ignorance of this stranger. Our translation suggests that they were ‘looking sad’, but it is perhaps more accurate to say that they stood ‘with glowering faces’. The disciples speak to this stranger with all the rawness and anger of grief, with a sense of heart-wrenching loss. These are people whose hopes and aspirations have been completely destroyed: ‘We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.’ But instead, they are running away, consumed by their sense of disappointment and dislocation, the disorientation of grief.

The story of the disciples on the journey to Emmaus oscillates between elusiveness and recognition, between seeing and not seeing. It is perhaps for that reason that this story has fascinated artists over the centuries. I was reminded of this during Holy Week when Latherine Wodehouse hosted the study day in the Western Art Print Room at the Ashmolean. We were gazing at Jacob Matham’s ‘Kitchen scene with kitchen maid preparing fish’. It’s a study which dates from 1603. You can see a depiction of that moment in the Emmaus story when the disciples recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread. But that moment of recognition is accompanied by the kitchen staff nonchalantly preparing a lobster and gutting some fish. They appear to be almost oblivious to the drama unfolding in the background. Again there is a tension between seeing and not seeing. 

I don’t know whether this print ever came into the hands of the Spanish artist, Diego Velàzquez, but there are some striking parallels with the painting which you see above. This painting was bequeathed to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin in 1987. You can see just to the left of the kitchen maid a depiction of the supper at Emmaus, although this was only revealed when the painting was cleaned in 1933. There is a very similar painting of A Kitchen Maid in the Art Institute of Chicago where the supper at Emmaus is replaced with a wall of shadows. 

We don’t know whether the depiction of the supper at Emmaus was added at a later date, or whether Velàzquez himself covered it over. Perhaps he was dissatisfied with its effect. And I should perhaps add, that you can only see the hand of the second disciple on the edge of the painting because an estimated 6 cms of the painting has been lost on the left-hand side. Again there is a tension between seeing and not seeing.

But one of the fascinating things about this corner of the painting, is that we don’t know whether we are supposed to see this depiction of the supper at Emmaus as a portrait hanging on the wall, or a hatch through which we can see a meal unfold in an adjoining room, or do we see a reflection in a mirror? 

There are other paintings where Velàzquez  explores similar effects. There is a similar kitchen scene featuring Jesus with Mary and Martha which dates from a similar period and which you will find in the National Gallery. But his much later painting in the Prado in Madrid perhaps brings these elements into clearer focus. Las Meninas is his great masterpiece. It portrays the artist himself working on a canvas, while the Infanta, the heir to the Spanish throne is admired by an exotic array of court figures, but if you look beyond the Infanta, you see a door with a figure walking through, and then next to it, a mirror. We know that the artist was fascinated by mirrors. According to contemporary accounts, he possessed ten of them (which may have been slightly obsessive). But do we see in the mirror the reflection of the artist’s canvas? Or do we see the reflection of the Spanish King and Queen standing in the place where we are standing? Velàzquez is teasing us to think about the way in which we represent representation.

Now why the little lesson in art history? How does this help us to make sense of the gospel story which we have listened to today? The disciples recognised the risen Lord in the breaking of the bread. The story invites us to contemplate the meaning of the resurrection, but it does so by drawing our attention to the drama and mystery at the heart of the eucharist. Of course, the rite which we celebrate every Sunday goes by a number of other names: the holy communion, the divine liturgy, the Lord’s Supper, the Mass. The fact that we use so many different words and phrases to describe this sacrament should give us pause for thought. The range of language illustrates the disagreements have arisen between Christians of different traditions over the centuries. But these different names also illuminate the richness of symbol and imagery at the heart of the Eucharist.

Of course, we may relate to the Eucharist as simply a way of remembering something that has taken place in the past. There is a Protestant strain of thought that relates to the Eucharist as simply a remembrance, a commemoration, of the meal which Jesus shared with his disciples on the night before he died. The portrait prompts our memory of an event which unfolded in the past, just like that portrait on the wall behind the kitchen maid. Of course, over the centuries wehave tended to focus somewhat obsessively on the transformation of the elements – the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ. We look on the sacred host and it provides a window into heaven. We see the presence of the Risen Lord in bread and wine, ‘an epiphany of the sacred’, in much the same way that we might look through the hatch into an adjacent room in Velàzquez’ painting. And yet what these accounts of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist perhaps miss is that by focussing entirely on what might or might not be happening to the elements of bread and wine, we do not necessarily consider the way in which we too may be transformed by our participating in the Eucharist.

When we speak of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, it is always a transforming presence, a presence which challenges us and changes us because it takes us to the heart of the Easter mystery, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The disciples are changed as a result of their encounter with the risen Christ: ‘did not our hearts burn within us?’ And as we gaze on the mirror on the wall in Velàzquez’ painting, we discover that we too are in the room alongside the disciples. In the breaking of the bread, we encounter the risen Lord. We suddenly see what we had not seen.

Many years ago, I was one of the Residentiary Canons at Sheffield Cathedral. We used to go down for the ‘earlies’ as they were called. Mattins at 7.30am followed by the Eucharist. The services happened before the Cathedral Archer Project opened. This project was a day centre for the homeless in the city, offering food, counselling and healthcare. In the winter, the Cathedral was warm and often some of the homeless clients would come to the service before breakfast. 

It was always a bit chaotic in the morning. There was Irene, who always asked before receiving communion if you were a real priest – which was a bit disconcerting the first time it happened but you soon got used to it. And there were people who worked in the centre of Sheffield, Cathedral volunteers, the occasional student, the asylum seeker and refugee. I was often struck by the tension between this rather curious gathering, and the social order which we blithely inhabit, often without giving a moment’s thought to its injustice and inequality. But when we gathered at the altar, in spite of the chaos, none of it really mattered, because – for one sacred moment – each one of us became an honoured guest at Christ’s table. Each of us discovered in acknowledging our own fragility and vulnerability, something which satisfied all our hunger and all our need. And that was what mattered in that moment of encounter. We recognised him in the breaking of the bread.