Each of the four gospels contains a story about Jesus appearing to His disciples after the Sunday morning when they had found the sepulcher empty. For example, see Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:14-19; Luke 24:13-33; John 20:19-31, and John 21.

In Luke, there’s a story of two disciples walking from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus, a walk of about seven miles. Shortly after they leave the city they are approached by another traveler who has noticed their troubled faces and serious talk and asks them what is troubling them. Walking along together, they ask the stranger, “Haven’t you heard of the troubles in Jerusalem, how the prophet from Galilee, who we hoped would be the one to save Israel, was given up to be crucified? And strange to say, when some of the women went on the third day to anoint His body, they saw angels who told them that he was not there but was risen from the dead.”

On hearing this, the traveler chides them for not believing, and says “Don’t you see that Christ had to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?” The stranger then tells the two disciples many things concerning Jesus, from the books of Moses, and the prophets, in the Old Testament. The two disciples listen with awe, but do not recognize the stranger. At length they arrive at Emmaus. The stranger appears to want to go on when the two stop, but they beg him to stop also, because it’s getting late in the day, and they want to hear more. So they all sit down to share the evening meal, and when the stranger takes up the loaf of bread and breaks it and gives them pieces, their eyes are opened and they recognize Him, and He vanishes.

One can imagine the stunned awe that came over them both as they realized that this was Jesus. They knew He was crucified, and yet He had walked and talked to them for several hours. The women were right! The angels were right! He was alive!

The New Church believes that there are internal meanings to all the stories in the Word of the Lord, the sacred scriptures, and that this internal meaning, within the literal stories about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Joshua, Samuel, David, and the rest, and all the sayings of the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi, and the four gospels… this meaning is what makes the Word holy.

So what can we see here in this story? Well, that internal meaning in “Moses and the prophets” is the story of Jesus’ life in the world, from His birth in Bethlehem through all His growing years until His “death” and then His rising. Because Jesus knew that, and had certainly read the Scriptures and understood them internally, He knew for a long time how His earthly life was going to close, and that it was necessary for it to close as had been “written”, in order to save the human race. So He told the two disciples that story as they walked toward Emmaus.

More about that walk... In the Word, any mention of walking is really referring to how we live our lives from day to day. In many stories of the Word, it is said that someone walked with God. It is said that we should walk in His ways and that we should walk the straight and narrow path.

Also in this story we are told that this was a journey of sixty stadia (in the original Greek). Sixty (or other multiples of "six") represents the lifelong work of rejecting the temptations that come from our inborn selfishness. Apocalypse Explained 648. So, this journey to Emmaus means our life’s journey - as a person that is trying to follow the Lord’s teachings and become an angel.

The destination was Emmaus. In the Word any city represents a doctrine, an organized set of truths that we have put in order so that we can live according to them -- our rules of life. See Arcana Coelestia 402. They are not necessarily good, as with Jerusalem or Bethlehem, but can also be evil doctrines, e.g. Sodom or Babylon. My dictionary tells me that the name Emmaus means “hot springs”. Another universal meaning in the Word is that water means truth in its beneficial uses, but can also mean truth twisted into falsity by those in hell, in an opposite sense. See, for example, Arcana Coelestia 790. Think of the wells that Abraham dug, or the waters that Jesus promised to the woman of Samaria as they talked by Jacob’s well, or the pure river of water flowing out from under the throne in the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. In its converse sense, where water is destructive, think of the flood that destroyed all but Noah and his family, or the Red Sea that had to be parted so that the children of Israel could cross. The springs represented by Emmaus were holy truths bubbling up from the Word for us to use. And these are hot springs, and heat means love. So that's our destination, where truth and love together are flowing out for us to use, in a continual stream from the Lord.

This plain little anecdote about the disciples meeting the Lord on the road to Emmaus isn't just a story about Jesus's resurrection with a spiritual body. It is also a story of how we should be living our lives. We can be traveling toward heaven, listening to the Lord, walking in the way with him, and at the end He will break bread and have supper with us.

281. The fifth experience.

The Lord has permitted me to be simultaneously in the spiritual and the natural worlds, so that I have been able to talk with angels just as I do with men, and thus to discover the states of those who after death arrive in that hitherto unknown world. For I have talked with all my relations and friends, as well as with kings and dukes, not to mention scholars, who have met their fates; I have been doing this now constantly for twenty-seven years. I can therefore describe from direct experience the nature of the states people undergo after death, both those who have lived good as well as those who have lived wicked lives. At this point I shall only relate something about the state of those who have convinced themselves from the Word of false doctrines, in particular those who have favoured the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The stages through which they pass are the following:

(i) When they have died and come alive again in the spirit, an event which commonly takes place on the third day after the heart has ceased to beat, they seem to themselves to have a body exactly like the one they had while living in the former world. This is so much the case that they are quite unaware that they are not still living in the former world, but it is not in a material but a substantial body, which appears to their senses to be material, though it is not.

[2] (ii) After a few days they see that they are in a world where there are various communities established. This is called the world of spirits, and it lies midway between heaven and hell. All the communities there, though countless in number, are arranged in wonderful order, according to whether their natural affections are good or evil. Those communities which are arranged in accordance with good natural affections are in touch with heaven; those arranged in accordance with evil affections are in touch with hell.

[3] (iii) The newly arrived spirit, that is, the spiritual man, is taken and introduced to various communities, good as well as evil, and tested to see whether he responds to various kinds of good and truth, and in what way; or whether he responds to evils and falsities, and in what way.

[4] (iv) If he responds to various kinds of good and truth, he is taken away from evil communities, and brought into good ones. He visits various of these communities until he comes to one which answers to his natural affection. There he enjoys the good corresponding to that affection, and this continues until he puts off his natural affection and puts on a spiritual one, then he is raised to heaven. This is what happens to those who have lived in the world a life of charity, and thus also a life of faith; that is to say, they have believed in the Lord and shunned evils as sins.

[5] (v) Not so those who have used logical arguments and especially the Word in order to convince themselves of false ideas, thus living a purely natural, that is, evil life. For evils are the companions of false ideas and cling closely to them. Since these people do not respond to various kinds of good and truth, but only to evils and falsities, they are taken away from good communities and brought into evil ones. They visit various of these communities until they come to one which answers to the longings of their love.

[6] (vi) But because in the world they have made a show on the surface of good affections, although inwardly all their affections were evil or lustful, they are by turns kept in their outward character. Those who in the world had been in charge of groups, are here and there put in charge of communities in the world of spirits, either in general or in sections depending upon the seniority of the offices they had previously held. But since they have no love for truth or justice, and cannot even be sufficiently enlightened to know what truth and justice are, they are dismissed after a few days. I have seen such people moved from one community to another, and in each given administrative duties, but after a short while each time dismissed.

[7] (vii) After repeated dismissals some of them are too upset to want, and some are too afraid of losing their good name to dare, to take on any more posts. So they withdraw and sit looking sad. Then they are taken away to a wilderness where there are huts; they go into these, and are given some work to do. They receive rations proportionate to the work done; if they do none, they go hungry and get no food, so that their need forces them to work. The kinds of food there are like those in our world, but of spiritual origin. The food is provided for all from heaven by the Lord, in keeping with the useful work performed. The idle, being useless, receive none.

[8] (viii) After some time they get tired of the work, so they leave the huts. If they were formerly priests, they have a desire to build. At once there appear piles of shaped stones, bricks, beams and planks, and heaps of reeds and rushes, clay, lime and tar. On seeing these they are seized with a passionate desire to build. So they begin to make a house, taking up now a stone, now a piece of wood, now a reed and now mud, and placing one on top of the other without any orderly arrangement, though to their eyes it appears well arranged. What they build in the course of the day falls down during the night. The next day they collect the fallen pieces from the rubble, and start building again. This continues repeatedly, until they get tired of building. This is the result of correspondence, because they have heaped up passages from the Word with the intention of proving the false ideas of their faith, and their falsities cannot build any other sort of church.

[9] (ix) When they tire of this, they go away and sit by themselves, doing nothing. Since, as I said, the idle receive no food from heaven, they begin to feel hungry. Then they can think of nothing but how they can get some food and allay their hunger. While they are in this condition, people come to them, from whom they beg alms. But they are told: 'Why do you sit idle like this? Come home with us and we will give you work to do, and feed you.' Then they get up cheerfully and go home with them, where each is given work to do and food as a reward for work. But because all who have convinced themselves of false ideas of faith cannot do good and useful work, but only work with wicked purposes, they do not work fairly, but cheat and work only under compulsion. So they abandon their work, and only want to meet others, talk, stroll about and sleep. Since their masters can no longer make them work, they are sent away as useless.

[10] (x) When they are sent away, their eyes are opened so that they see a road leading to a sort of cavern. When they reach it, the door opens, and they go in to see whether there is any food there. On being told that there is, they ask permission to stay there. Permission is given and they are taken in, and the door shuts behind them. Then the overseer of the cavern comes and says to them: 'You cannot go out again. Look at your companions; they are all working, and in proportion to their work they receive food from heaven. I am telling you this so that you may know how it is.' Their companions also say: 'Our overseer knows what work each of us is fitted for, and he gives us a suitable task each day. Every day that you complete your task, you get food. If you do not, you get neither food nor clothing. If anyone hurts another, he is thrown into a corner of the cavern onto a sort of bed of hellish dust, where he undergoes wretched torments. This continues until the overseer sees some sign of repentance from him. Then he is taken out, and told to get on with his work. Each man is also told that, when he has done his work, he may stroll about and chat, and later go to sleep. He is taken still deeper into the cavern, where there are whores; each is allowed to pick one for himself and call her his woman, but promiscuity is forbidden under severe penalties.

[11] Hell is composed of such caverns, which are nothing less than eternal labour-camps. I have been allowed to enter some and look around, so that I could make this known. All the people there seemed to be of low status, nor did any of them know who he had been and what position he had held in the world. But the angel who accompanied me told me that this one had been a servant in the world, this one a soldier, this an officer, this a priest, this of high birth, this a wealthy man. Yet all of them know nothing but that they were servants or people of similar status. This is because they were inwardly alike, despite their outward dissimilarity. It is the inward character which brings people together in the spiritual world.

[12] The hells in general consist of nothing but such caverns and labour-camps, but there is a difference between those containing satans and those containing devils. Satans is the name given to those who are subject to false ideas and to the evils that arise from them; devils is the name given to those who are subject to evils and the false ideas that arise from them. In the light of heaven satans look livid like corpses, some of them dark like mummies. Devils in the light of heaven have a dark, fiery look, some of them pitch black like soot. All of them have monstrous faces and bodies. But in their own light, which resembles that from burning coals, they look not like monsters, but like human beings. This concession is made to them, so that they can associate with one another.