Breaking Bread (04/13/24)
If we ask which part of us would have seen the angels in the empty tomb, it would have been the spiritual part. The sight of our spiritual eyes would have been opened and we would have seen and heard
those angels exactly as if they were still in this world.
But if we had been on our way to Emmaus, what then? When it says their eyes were held or restrained, it’s
talking about their spiritual eyes. As they walked and disputed about the recent events it says ‘Jesus Himself drew near and went with them.’ The story from then on takes place in the spiritual world. Yes, the disciples were still in this world, but the Lord was gradually opening their spiritual eyes so that they could see and hear Him.
...It is called being ‘led by the Spirit’. In this state a person physically travels from one place to another without being aware of the intervening space and time. Like the women at the empty tomb, the two travellers had no idea that they were conscious in the other world, so vivid was their experience. And so,
as they draw near the village – and with evening approaching – they invite the Lord to stay with them. At this point, they not only hear and see Him, but He gives them bread: ‘Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight.’
Literally, it seems like an anticlimax. After walking with Him all that distance, they finally recognize the Lord in the breaking of bread! But then, He disappears! No parting words. He just vanishes! Their spiritual eyes are suddenly closed. They’re back in the world of space and
time. But things have changed.
First, they’re led to think about the journey they have just made: ‘And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us
while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?”’ Then comes another key statement. On that walk, the Lord had opened their eyes to see something vitally important: ‘And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.’
This tells us that the inner subject of the Word is the Lord Himself, [and then there is the] connection between the Lord’s love and wisdom in the Word and the symbolism in the breaking of bread. When He breaks the bread and gives it to the two men, it stands for the teaching – from love – of what is good and
true. In a word, opening our eyes to all the good and useful things that we can do when we love the Lord and other people. On these two loves hang all the Law and the Prophets. (Rev. Fred Elphick, from Known in the Breaking of Bread)
