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.

1368. That 'Ur of the Chaldeans' means external worship containing falsities is clear from the meaning of 'the Chaldeans' in the Word. At verse 9 above it has been shown that 'Babel' means worship which interiorly contains evils, whereas 'Chaldea' means worship which interiorly contains falsities. Consequently Babel means worship which inwardly contains no trace of good and Chaldea worship which inwardly contains no trace of truth. Worship which inwardly contains no trace of good and no trace of truth is worship which interiorly contains what is unholy and idolatrous. That such worship is meant in the Word by 'Chaldea' becomes clear from the following places: In Isaiah,

Behold, the land of the Chaldeans! This people is not. Asshur founded her in the tziim. They will erect their watch-towers, they will raise up her palaces; he will make her into a ruin. Isaiah 23:13.

'The land of the Chaldeans who are not a people' stands for falsities, 'Asshur founded' for reasonings, 'watch-towers' for delusions. In the same prophet,

Thus said Jehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, For your sake I have sent into Babel and have broken down all the bars, and the Chaldeans in whose ships there is shouting. Isaiah 43:14.

'Babel' stands for worship which interiorly contains evil, 'the Chaldeans' for worship which interiorly contains falsity. 'Ships' means cognitions of truth that have been perverted.

[2] In the same prophet, sit in silence and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans, for no more will they call you the mistress of kingdoms. I was angry with My people, I rendered My heritage unholy, and I gave them into your hand These two things will come to you suddenly in one day - loss of children and widowhood. In full measure they will come upon you on account of the multitude of your sorceries, and on account of the greatness of your enchantments. Isaiah 47:5-6, 9.

Here it is evident that 'Chaldea' means profanation of truth and is called 'sorceries and enchantments'. In the same prophet,

Go away out of Babel, flee from the Chaldeans. Isaiah 48:20.

This stands for flight from profaning good and truth in worship. In Ezekiel,

Make known to Jerusalem her abominations; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. You committed whoredom with the sons of Egypt. You committed whoredom with the sons of Asshur. Hence you multiplied your whoredom even into the land of Chaldea. Ezekiel 16:2-3, 26, 28-29.

This refers to the Jewish Church in particular. 'The sons of Egypt' stands for facts, 'the sons of Asshur' for reasonings, 'the land of Chaldea into which it multiplied its whoredom' for the profanation of truth.

Anyone may see that Egypt, Asshur, and Chaldea are not used to mean countries, and that no other kind of whoredom is being referred to.

[3] In the same prophet,

Oholah committed whoredom and doted on her lovers, the Assyrians her neighbours. And she did not give up her acts of whoredom brought from Egypt. She added to her acts of whoredom. And she saw men; it was portrayed on the wall, images of the Chaldeans painted in vermilion, girded with belts on their loins, with dyed flowing turbans on their heads, all of them leaders in appearance, the likeness of the sons of Babel, the Chaldeans, the land of their nativity. She loved them passionately as soon as she set eyes on them and she sent messengers to them in Chaldea. The sons of Babel defiled her by means of their acts of whoredom. Ezekiel 23:5, 8, 14-17.

Here 'the Chaldeans', called 'the sons of Babel', stands for truths that have been profaned in worship. 'Oholah' stands for the spiritual Church which is called 'Samaria'. ¹

In Habakkuk,

I am rousing the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation, marching into the breadths of the earth, to possess habitations that are not its own. A dreadful and terrible nation; and from itself proceeds its judgement and its pride. Its horses are swifter than leopards, and sharper than the evening wolves. Its horsemen spread out, and its horsemen come from afar. They fly in like an eagle hastening to devour. The whole [nation] comes for violence; the panting desire of its face ² is set towards the east. Habakkuk 1:6, 9.

Here the Chaldean nation is described by means of many representatives meaning the circumstances in which truth is profaned in worship.

A further description of Babel and Chaldea is given in two whole chapters - in Jeremiah 50, 51 - where it is plainly evident what they both mean. There Babel plainly means in worship the profanation of celestial things and Chaldea the profanation of spiritual things. From these considerations it is now clear what is meant by 'Ur of the Chaldeans', that it is external worship which interiorly contains what is unholy and idolatrous. I have also been allowed to learn from these people themselves that their worship was such.

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