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.

10654. Verses 18-23 You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat the unleavened bread that I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, because in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt. All that opens the womb ¹ is Mine, and of all your cattle you are to give the male, whatever opens [the womb] among oxen and small cattle ² . And whatever opens [the womb] among asses ³ you shall redeem with [one of] the small cattle; and if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And My face shall not be seen empty-handed ⁴ . Six days you shall work, and on the seventh day you shall rest; in ploughing and in harvesting you shall rest ⁵ . And you shall keep the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the end ⁶ of the year. Three times in the year all your males shall be seen at the face of the Lord, Jehovah, the God of Israel.

'You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread' means worship of the Lord and thanksgiving on account of deliverance from evil and from the falsities of evil. 'Seven days you shall eat the unleavened bread' means a holy state then, and making Divine Truth, purified from evil and from the falsities of evil, one's own. 'That I commanded you' means in accordance with Divine order. 'At the appointed time in the month of Abib' means a new state. 'Because in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt' means because then there was deliverance from hell. 'All that opens the womb is Mine' means that all the good of innocence, charity, and faith is to be ascribed to the Lord. 'Of all your cattle you are to give the male' means which is imparted by means of truth. 'Whatever opens [the womb] among oxen and small cattle' means present in the external and internal man. 'And whatever opens [the womb] among asses you shall redeem with [one of] the small cattle' means that merely natural faith must not be ascribed to the Lord, [only the truth of innocence present within it.] 'And if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck' means that if the truth of innocence is not present within it, it is to be separated and cast aside. 'All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem' means that the truths of faith devoid of good are not to be ascribed to the Lord. 'And My face shall not be seen empty-handed' means the reception [of what is given] out of mercy, and thanksgiving. 'Six days you shall work' means the first state of regeneration, when a person is in possession of truths and at that stage is engaged in conflicts. 'And on the seventh day you shall rest' means the second state of regeneration, when a person is governed by good and at this stage experiences peace. 'In ploughing and harvesting you shall rest' means so far as the implanting of truth in good and the reception of that truth are concerned. 'And you shall keep the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of the wheat harvest' means worship of the Lord and thanksgiving on account of the implanting of truth in good. 'And the feast of ingathering at the end of the year' means [the worship of a thankful mind on account of the implanting of good after that, and so on account of] regeneration and complete deliverance from damnation. 'Three times in the year all your males shall be seen at the face of the Lord, Jehovah, the God of Israel' means the Lord's constant appearance and presence in the truths of faith as well.

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