Holy Saturday without an observance of the Easter Vigil, has an odd feeling. The worship journey through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday on the way to Easter Sunday hits an emotional roadblock on Holy Saturday – a feeling of “all dressed up and nothing to do.” (The few who observe the Easter Vigil on Saturday evening experience no such vacuum.) It is a ‘between point,’ which finds its mirror image in the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-25). The latter instance is a point between Jesus’ resurrection and his appearance to the Eleven in all his glory. Prior to this Emmaus event, the women (the first Apostles) had told the men that Jesus is alive; and they are met with scorn and disbelief (“But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them” 24:11). Peter is inquisitive enough to go look for himself, but otherwise the post-resurrection period is fundamentally a ‘between point.’
The situation of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is poignantly described in words filled with brokenhearted disappointment and unsatisfied longing: “… we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (vs. 21). Ironically, they speak these words to the resurrected Jesus who has drawn alongside them on their journey, but whom they are prevented from recognizing – at least until he has “opened the scriptures” to them. This “opening” takes the disciples (and the reader) on yet another journey. (Journey is an important metaphor in Luke’s Gospel in which Jesus’ entire ministry consists of a journey from Galilee to Jerusalem.) This new scriptural journey is one of successive contrasts and reversals:
Chaos to life (Creation)
Slavery to freedom (Escape from Egypt to the Promised Land)
Destruction to renewal (the Exile and return)
Death to life (the Resurrection)
This opening of the disciples’ heart (the seat of intellect) causes their hearts to “burn” (vs. 32), a Greco-Roman metaphor for being overcome with love. And yet, their eyes are not “unbound” (vs. 31) until Jesus “breaks bread” with them (vs. 30-31), in the same took-blessed-broke–gave formula seen at the Feeding of the Multitude (9:16), at the Passover in the upper room (22:19), and which will form the pattern of Christian communal life in the Book of Acts (also authored by Luke): “They [the post-Pentecost believers] devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers”(2:42).
When the two disciples turn around and return to Jerusalem, they exclaim to the Eleven, “The Lord has risen indeed…!” (vs. 34). The ‘between point’ is over; now the Paschal mystery is fully understood; God’s plan is fulfilled; and Jesus’ presence is found in the shared meal, the breaking of the bread.
