The Journey to Emmaüs

OR

CHRIST’S MINISTRY LEADS TO COMMUNION

WITH HIM

There is something very familiar to us in the story of the journey to Emmaüs. To transfer our interests from earth to heaven, the death of Christ having closed up all here, and His resurrection (with the descent of the Holy Ghost) having opened the way there, is very easy to speak of, and is correct doctrine; but we must go along that road with Him to get it individually, nor can we get the joy of it in any other way.

It is of immense moment to know that Christ has ceaseless interest in all that affects His saints on earth. No doubt therefore that the very hairs of our head are all numbered, and that He cares for us even in what we eat and what we drink, and what we wear, Luke 12. It is for this reason, and in the knowledge of it, that we do “in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving”, make our requests “known unto God”, Phil 4: 6. Nothing is so small that I have not His ear about it, whatever I may have to meet in my every-day path. And it is in these things told out without any reserve into His ear, that we find the familiarity I refer to. This story is however all connected with the earth. Christ by His word ministers on the road, seeking to relieve (though at present unknown as in the new place) all burdened hearts. His interest is before us here, as to all that affects His saints. “Jesus himself drew near and went with them”, Luke 24: 15. They told Him all that troubled them, all that interested them, in that journey, and they had His interest in it all.

“He is not here, but is risen”, Luke 24: 6. This was God’s word to them. The two disciples had heard it, yet their hearts were still in doubt and unbelief. The eye closed as to who He was who spoke to them, aptly illustrated the real state of the heart as to the word. They could not know Him as risen while refusing God’s word. The Lord Himself now comes to minister to them in all the scripture the “things concerning himself”. Light is breaking in, for when they have heard, they wish Him to abide with them. “Slow of heart to believe” (Luke 24: 25), a word true of many of us, they I doubt not, at last believed. Then Christ can help them. But I think you must be subject to the word before Christ can act and lead you into the enjoyment of it. The obstruction removed, then they know Him as the risen One, that is, they know Him in that condition in which He is at present to be known. Hence as to the old condition (Christ as on earth) He must disappear. And again, “he vanished out of their sight”, v 31.

To know this story as ours so far as we have got already, there must be present affection for Christ. There may be great ignorance, but I do not think that you can have any consciousness of His interest in you in every little daily detail without affection. One thing they were clear about, He was not on the earth, and it had ended all (apparently) of their hopes. That is affection. It appears to me that they were willing now, though I do not think they understood it, to take the place of obscurity, the despised place in consequence. (Emmaüs is said to mean ‘obscurity’, or ‘the despised place.) He joins and walks with such, however ignorant they may be, with one definite object.

Now the second part begins. The Lord wants us to be of His company. This means He wishes us to know communion, and this is involved in the words to Peter, “part with me”, John 13: 8. I think communion is as to heavenly things, 1 John 1: 3. It is one thing to know the Lord is with you in your circumstances, it is quite another for you to be now present in Spirit (even while on earth) with Him in His. John 13 unfolds how this can be.

I have no doubt that many are in the affection and know Christ as the One who is interested in them, and in everything which appertains to them; but all this is on earth, and they will go to heaven, too, some day. This is the extent of their knowledge, that is, it is what they understand by ‘Christianity’. But there is plainly more than that in this passage. The break is in verse 31.

Would you retain Christ and be in communion with Him, and in His present place (in spirit now), you must know more than that you can tell Him all your interests, and count on His interest in the tale. The Lord is interested in all that belongs to you on earth, but He has interests of His own. (He had to speak of their ignorance of this when He said to His disciples, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of ”. Now the Holy Ghost is come, and to find yourself by the Spirit in the circle of Christ’s interests is your greatest joy on earth, stability is in them, and these the Lord desires to lead these two disciples in to, and to lead every saint into today, if he does not already know them. The Lord now is risen, ascended, and has sent down the Holy Ghost. There is moreover a spot on earth where the Lord’s presence is, and where He never withdraws Himself. All that is what I call the other side, or the second part of the story, and on knowing this, joy depends. The ministry of joy is from Christ, where He is now.

To be really for Christ here, I must know Him where He is.

Now Christ, when known as risen, must vanish as being in our circumstances (blessed as His interest in them is), because since the greater is Christ risen these latter form the less, and the less is included in with Christ’s associations, and mine as a Christian with Him in heavenly glory. These last are now discovered fully in and to the assembly. “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them”, Matt 18: 20.

It is evident then that He companies with us here, in order to lead us into company with Himself there. They missed Him in the house, so they got up and travelled all the way back to Jerusalem, where they found “the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them” (Luke 24: 33), but most blessed of all, they got into His company again. “Jesus himself stood in the midst of them”. And He teaches them the truth of resurrection, and afterwards that of ascension (for it is one scene), and they are now to be henceforth instructed by the Holy Ghost (v 49) as to what is His when in heaven, that is, they are to be in spirit with Him, in His own scene and circumstances.

We are, at one period of our history, like them in this journey to Emmaüs, and the Lord is accompanying us. It is a blessed journey, as to which we can all say, Do not our hearts burn within us, while He talks with us by the way? But I fear there are some souls who have known, and who now know, Christ as vanished from them, and from their homes too, who have never gone “back” to Jerusalem, and who have not found the Lord in the midst of that assembly today, which was typified by the “gathering” at Jerusalem that night.

The more I enjoy Christ at home, the more regularly will you find my place filled in the local assembly. I always know where I shall find HIM. It is a delusion to say, ‘because I enjoy Christ at home, therefore I will stay there’, see Heb 10: 25. If you say so you will lose Him there. You may count upon Him in His own circle, but not always in yours, because self-will may come in there (witness Lot in Canaan). But as one looks around upon the empty seats in our meetings for prayer and edification, the question forces itself upon the heart, ‘Do those who should occupy these seats know in themselves and in their own house, the company of that blessed One who walked with the two disciples that day to Emmaüs, until He brought them into His own circle?’

So Luke closes. We know Him in communion as the Blesser in heavenly glory, and we belong to Him there. We taste it in the company of His saints on earth, because He Himself is there, and until He come, as to fact, we worship Him, and praise and bless God with “great joy”. Great joy is the fitting sequel to those who once going to Emmaüs walked and were sad, yet, thank God, it is these same persons who know the joy. I ask then in closing. Do we know Him as the dead Christ, as the vanished Christ, or as a present Christ, and the object of our worship? And is it communion or distress? sadness or joy?

From A Voice to the Faithful—vol 27, 1893