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.

1577. That 'let there not be strife, now, between me and you, [and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen]' means that there ought to be no disagreement between the two becomes clear from what has been stated already. This agreement, or unity, of the internal man and the external man contains more arcana than can ever be fully told. The internal man and the external man have never been united in anyone - for it never has been possible nor is it ever possible for them to be united - except in the Lord; and this is a further reason why He came into the world. With people who are regenerate the internal man and the external man appear as though they are united; but in fact they are the Lord's, for the things that are in agreement are the Lord's, whereas those that are not are man's.

[2] There are two sides to the internal man, namely the celestial and the spiritual, and these two form a single entity if the spiritual has its origin in the celestial. Or what amounts to the same, there are the two sides to the internal man known as good and truth. These two form a single entity if truth has its origin in good. Or what also amounts to the same, there are the two sides to the internal man, love and faith. These two form a single entity if faith has its origin in love. Or what yet again amounts to the same, there are the two sides to the internal man, will and understanding. These two form a single entity if the understanding has its origin in the will. The light from the sun can serve to make the point plainer still. If both warmth and light are present in light from the sun, as they are in spring-time, all things consequently start to grow and thrive. But if, as in winter, there is no warmth in the light from the sun all things at that time consequently fade and die.

[3] From this it is clear what constitutes the internal man. What constitutes the external man however is evident from the fact that with the external man everything is natural; for the external man is one and the same as the natural man. The internal man is said to be united to the external when the celestial-spiritual comprising the internal man flows into the natural comprising the external man and causes them to act as one. The natural as a consequence becomes celestial and spiritual as well, though it is a lower variety of celestial and spiritual. Or what amounts to the same, the external man as a consequence becomes celestial and spiritual as well, though it is a more exterior variety of celestial and spiritual man.

[4] The internal man and the external man are completely distinct and separate since celestial and spiritual things are what move the internal man but natural things the external man. But although they are distinct they are nevertheless united, that is to say, when the celestial-spiritual comprising the internal man flows into the natural comprising the external man and reorganizes it as its own. In none but the Lord has the Internal Man been united to the external Man. It has happened to nobody else except insofar as the Lord has united and does unite them. It is solely love and charity, that is, good, which effects union, and there can never be any love and charity, that is, any good, unless it comes from the Lord. Such is the union which these words of Abram are meant to convey - 'let there not be strife, now, between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are men who are brothers'.

[5] The words 'between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen' are used for the following reason: just as the internal man has two elements, namely the celestial and the spiritual which, as has been stated, form a single entity, so too does the external man. The celestial side of the external man is called natural good, the spiritual side natural truth. 'Let there not be strife between me and you' has regard to good - that is, let there be no conflict between good in the internal man and good in the external, while 'let there be no strife between my herdsmen and your herdsmen' has regard to truth - that is, let there be no conflict between truth in the internal man and truth in the external.