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.

3272. 'Twelve princes of their peoples' means all the first and foremost features of that spiritual Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'twelve' as all things of faith and so of the Church, dealt with in 577, 2089, 2129 (end), 2130 (end); from the meaning of 'princes' as first and foremost features, dealt with in 1482, 2089; and from the meaning of 'peoples' as those who are governed by truths, dealt with in 1259, 1260, and so those who belong to the spiritual Church, for they are said to be those with whom truths predominate. The fact that all numbers in the Word mean real things becomes quite clear from the number twelve which occurs so many times. Whenever that number is used in the Word it means all things. For example, the twelve tribes in the Old Testament and the twelve apostles in the New mean all things of faith, and so all things of the Church. Here 'twelve princes' accordingly means all the first and foremost features of that Church which are represented by just so many sons of Ishmael.

[2] That the number twelve means those things becomes clear from what has been introduced in the places mentioned above, as well as from the following in the Word: In John,

I heard the number of the sealed out of every tribe of Israel - twelve thousand sealed out of the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand sealed out of the tribe of Reuben, twelve thousand sealed out of the tribe of Gad, and so on. Revelation 7:4-6, and following verses.

Here 'twelve thousand sealed out of every tribe' means nothing else than that everyone who receives faith, that is, who receives the good that accompanies it, is saved. In the same book,

A woman encircled with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. Revelation 12:1.

'A woman' stands for the Church, 252, 253, 'the sun' for celestial love, 'the moon' for spiritual love, 30-38, 1529, 1530, 2441, 2495. 'Twelve stars' stands for all things of faith - 'stars' being cognitions of good and truth, which are matters of faith, 2495, 2849.

[3] In the same book,

The holy city New Jerusalem, having twelve gates, and above the gates twelve angels, and names written which are those of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. He measured the city with the measuring rod, twelve thousand stadia. And he measured its wall, a hundred and forty-four cubits (twelve twelves), which is the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. The twelve gates were twelve pearls. Revelation 21:12, 14, 16-17, 21.

Here nothing else is meant by the holy city than the Lord's spiritual kingdom, and by the gates, wall, and foundations the things that constitute charity and faith, all of which things are meant by the frequently mentioned number twelve. The fact that neither the twelve tribes nor the twelve apostles are meant literally may be recognized by anyone. In the same book,

In the middle of its street, and of the river, on this side and on that, was the tree of life bearing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month. Revelation 22:2.

'Twelve fruits' means all things of charity.

[4] In Matthew,

Jesus said, Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on His throne of glory, will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Matthew 19:28.

Here 'the apostles' is not used to mean the apostles, nor 'thrones' to mean thrones, nor 'tribes' tribes, but matters of faith in their entirety, see 2129. Furthermore when the twelve tribes are referred to in the Old Testament Word they mean all things of the Church. The same applies to the twelve stones set according to the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, in the Urim and Thummim, Exodus 28:21; to the twelve loaves of the presence that were laid out on the table, Leviticus 24:5-6; and so on with every other reference to twelve. Also the names themselves of the twelve sons of Jacob or Israel contain all things of faith, as will be seen in the Lord's Divine mercy in Chapters 29, 30 below.