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.

81. "'And have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary.'" This symbolizes their effort and work in acquiring for themselves and also teaching the constituents of religion and its accompanying doctrine.

The name of Jehovah or the Lord in the Word does not mean His name, but everything by which He is worshiped. And because He is worshiped in accordance with doctrine in the church, His name means everything pertaining to doctrine, and in the broadest sense, everything pertaining to religion.

These are the meanings of the name of Jehovah, and the reason is that in heaven the only names found are ones that reflect a person's character, and God's character includes everything by which He is worshiped.

One who is not aware of this symbolic meaning of a name in the Word can understand it only as a name; and in this alone there is nothing pertaining to worship and religion.

[2] Someone who keeps in mind, therefore, this symbolic meaning of "the name of Jehovah" when it is mentioned in the Word, will of himself understand its symbolic meaning in the following passages:

In that day you will say: "Confess to Jehovah, call upon His name." (Isaiah 12:4)

...O Jehovah, we have waited for You; the desire of our soul is for Your name... ...by You we make mention of Your name. (Isaiah 26:8, 13)

From the rising of the sun My name shall be called on. (Isaiah 41:25)

...from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, My name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered to My name...; for My name shall be great among the nations... ...you profane (My name) when you say, "The table of Jehovah is defiled...." But you sneer at (My name)..., when you bring the stolen, the lame, and the sick. (Malachi 1:11-13)

...all peoples walk in the name of their god, but we will walk in the name of Jehovah our God... (Micah 4:5)

Everyone who is called by My name, for My glory I have created him, I have formed him... (Isaiah 43:7)

You shall not take the name of Jehovah your God in vain; ...Jehovah will not hold him innocent who takes His name in vain. (Deuteronomy 5:11)

They were to worship Jehovah in one place, where He should put His name (Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 13-14, 18; 16:2, 6, 11, 15-16). And so on in many other places. Who does not see that the name in them does not mean simply a name?

[3] It is the same with the name of the Lord in the New Testament, as in the following places:

(Jesus said,) "You will be hated by all because of My name. (Matthew 10:22; cf. 24:9-10)

...where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20)

Everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters... for My name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and... eternal life. (Matthew 19:29)

As many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. (John 1:12)

...many believed in His name... (John 2:23)

He who does not believe is judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:17-18)

...believing (they will) have life in His name. (John 20:31)

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! (Matthew 21:9; 23:39; Luke 13:35, cf. 19:38)

[4] In respect to His humanity the Lord is the name of the Father, as witness the following:

Father, glorify Your name. (John 12:28)

Hallowed be Your name (and) Your kingdom come. (Matthew 6:9-10)

See also Exodus 23:20-21. ³

"Name" in the case of other people refers to a quality of worship, as in the following:

(A shepherd) calls his own sheep by (their) name... (John 10:3)

You have a few names in Sardis... (Revelation 3:4)

I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem..., and My new name. (Revelation 3:12)

And the like elsewhere.

It can be seen from this now that the statement, "You have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary," symbolizes their effort and work in acquiring for themselves and also teaching the constituents of religion and its accompanying doctrine.