by James Martin
These need not be dramatic events. On the road to Emmaus Christ does not appear in a burst of flame or dazzled in sunlight. He is simply another person on the path.
A few years ago, my two nephews came to visit me with their parents—my sister and brother-in-law. My sister had taken them to a museum in New York City, and before we met their father for dinner, they stopped by my Jesuit community.
It’s always a joy when toddlers or small children drop by our Jesuit community, because everything seems new to them. “Oooh,” said my five-year-old nephew when I showed him our house chapel. “It’s a little tiny church!” Later on, my nephews decided that what they most wanted to do was what they always most want to do: watch TV. We huddled around my television and watched cartoons. Matthew climbed up into the chair next to me, and I was surprised at how much love I felt for him. At that moment I thought of what an amazing gift my nephews were. My sister had tried for years to have children, and finally, and with God’s grace, she gave birth to two wonderful boys, and they are one of the best parts of my life.
All at once, watching cartoons, I noticed God. I was happy to notice this sign of God’s presence in the most ordinary circumstance. The ability to notice God is what the two disciples undoubtedly learned in the wake of their much more dramatic encounter.
ON THAT SAME RETREAT my spiritual director gave me a copy of a painting of the Road to Emmaus that I had never seen, by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez. It’s an atypical depiction of the familiar scene, in which Velázquez concentrates on a servant girl who stands in the foreground. She is bent over a table, cleaning up after the meal. Behind her in the next room, at table with Cleopas and his friend, is Jesus, just revealed in his true identity.
The young woman notices what is going on behind her. In her hand, she is half holding a ceramic pitcher, as if she were losing her grip. The other items on the tabletop look ready to topple, a metal bowl is slanted; porcelain ones are overturned. Things are not the same, the world has changed, and she knows this, even if the disciples don’t.
Because she is paying attention.
GEORGE AND I NEVER found Emmaus. At least we don’t think we did. Perhaps we stood on the exact spot where Jesus met the disciples in Latrun, outside the gates of the Trappist monastery. Or maybe we were exactly where the inn once stood when we stopped in front of that school in Abu Ghosh. Who knows? In the end, we simply continued our trip back to Jerusalem, and we were happy to return to our lodgings at the Pontifical Biblical Institute.
Late that afternoon, in the slanting sunlight, I took a long walk through the Old City and got completely lost in the maze of streets and alleys. This time, though, I didn’t mind being lost, because I knew that even in our confusion God is with us.
* * *
THE ROAD TO EMMAUS
Luke 24:13–35
* * *
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
* * *
CHAPTER 24
Tiberias
“Do you love me?”
ONE OF THE FIRST places that George and I visited in Galilee was the scene of one of the last places mentioned in the Gospels. The morning after checking into the Franciscan hostel, we drove directly to Capernaum, and afterward we drove south for roughly a mile, to the Church of the Primacy of Peter. Here tradition has it that the Risen Christ stood on the shoreline of the Sea of Tiberias (aka the Sea of Galilee), called out to the disciples who were fishing, and prepared a breakfast of fish for them over a charcoal fire.
The modest gray stone chapel, built by the Franciscans in 1933, stands close to the shore. Its interior is dominated by a low, undulating, cream-colored rock, the size of a kitchen table, elevated just a foot off the floor. Mensa Christi reads a sign marked with a cross, “The Table of Christ.” Touching the cold stone was unexpectedly moving. Was this the rock on which Jesus prepared his meal? Hard to say, though the stone has been venerated by pilgrims since the early Byzantine period; indeed, incorporated into the current structure are the walls of a structure built in the fourth century.
As with many places in the Holy Land, it was easy to imagine the Risen Christ standing on this spot. Here—or near here—he watched his friends fish as he stood on the sandy beach. It’s not hard to think that Jesus was joyful at seeing his friends. And joyful because he was preparing a gift for them.
THE STORY BEGINS PROSAICALLY. Peter is by the Sea of Tiberias with six disciples: Thomas, Nathanael, James and John, and “two others of his disciples.” It is either late in the evening or just before the dawn. Already assuming the role of a leader, Peter says bluntly, “I am going fishing.” The others tell Peter they will join him.
To many New Testament scholars, the story seems to be in the wrong place. Though John describes it as the third appearance of the Risen Christ, it sounds more like an initial appearance.1 Not only are the seven disciples surprised by Jesus’s appearance and not only do they fail to recognize him, but they have returned to their previous occupations. As the New Testament scholar Francis J. Moloney, SDB, asks, how could they “so easily give themselves to this prosaic return to their everyday activity?”2 Perhaps the post-Easter appearances have disoriented them, and they are confused about what to do next. Maybe they simply needed to earn money. Or perhaps this is, in fact, an earlier appearance, and some of them have not yet seen the Risen Christ.3
If it is an early or even the first appearance, it is not surprising that some of the disciples had returned to the sea. Though they had accompanied Jesus through his ministry and seen his wondrous deeds, they were crushed by his public execution. Conceivably, they have resigned themselves to returning to Galilee and have climbed back into their fishing boats. How often this happens to
us. Even after a profound experience of God, we often revert to our old ways of doing things—with predictable results. The same could be said about the disciples: They have caught nothing. They cannot accomplish anything without Jesus.
Just as commonly, we doubt that the profound experience even happened. “It was all in my mind,” people often say after an experience of God’s presence. I doubt that after seeing so many miracles the disciples thought that their experience of Jesus was “in their heads,” but they may have succumbed to doubt about the future.
At dawn, “just after daybreak,” Jesus appears on the shore near where they are fishing. He calls to them: “Children,” he says, using a form of address (paidia) found nowhere else in the Gospel of John, indicating parental concern. Moloney believes the word conveys an “intimate authority.”4 “Children, you have no fish, have you?” The question in Greek is phrased in the negative and might also be rendered, “You haven’t caught any fish, have you?” Jesus sounds like a parent sad over a child’s failure to accomplish something.
The man on the beach asks them to cast their nets to the right side of the boat. This must have startled the disciples, particularly Peter, whose initial call from Jesus happened just in this way. Maybe they strained to see who was calling to them. Who is that? Could it be? Sometimes when we are the most dejected and we feel that God has abandoned us, God simply turns up.
When they follow his orders, their nets are filled to the bursting point. Is this a miracle or simply Jesus’s perceptive eye? William Barclay suggests that it’s often easier for a person on shore than for those in a boat to see a shoal of fish. Perhaps. Distance gives perspective. Still, it’s hard to imagine Peter not knowing where to fish. Either way, the identity of the man on the shore dawns on the Beloved Disciple.
“It is the Lord,” he says. As at the tomb, the Beloved Disciple is always eager to believe.
But it is Peter who joyfully and impetuously leaps into the water. The marvelous Greek word ebalen is the same word Jesus used for the action of the men throwing the net: “cast.” Peter casts himself into the water. Peter doesn’t have to say that he believes—his actions are a physical profession of faith. Perhaps he bitterly regretted the last time he was asked to profess belief in Jesus with words—during his Passion. Better to act.
Maybe this is as much a profession of desire as it is of faith. Peter simply may want to be with Jesus. Peter probably missed Jesus’s company and mourned the loss of simply being around him. The word company is rich in meaning for Jesuits: the original phrase used for our order is the Compañia de Jesus and connects not only to the company (as an organization) of Jesus, but also to the company (as in companionship) of Jesus. Peter wanted to be in Jesus’s company.
The disciples follow Peter, dragging ashore the heavy net filled with fish—153 of them. Why that odd number? Over the centuries, various explanations have been set forth. That was the number of species of fish thought to exist in the known world, so it represents all of creation. Or the number had a mystical significance.5
Or maybe someone actually counted the fish. Remember John’s counting of the porticoes at the Pool of Bethesda—five—which turned out to be accurate. Perhaps John’s Gospel contains more historical detail than we imagine.
Readers today can just say that there were a lot of fish, so many that the net should have been torn, but remained unbroken. Their catch is a symbol of the missionary success the disciples will have—working together—with Jesus’s guidance. It is as if Jesus is telling the disciples, “I will give you a net so big that it can catch the world.”
Reaching the shore, they discover that Jesus has prepared a simple breakfast of fish cooked over a charcoal fire (hearkening back to the charcoal fire beside which Peter had betrayed Jesus before the Crucifixion) and some bread.6 He will feed them as he did at the Last Supper and at the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes. Once again Jesus uses everyday foods—bread, fish, wine—to invite the disciples to encounter God. As they sit on the beach, the Gospel tells us that none of the disciples “dared” to ask him who he is. They know.
We may be so familiar with this scene that we miss something important. Peter has, not that long ago, denied that he even knew Jesus. What strange behavior he displays. If you were told that the person you had betrayed was waiting for you, would you rush to him joyfully? Many of us would slink away or approach him shamefacedly. Yet Peter grasps that he has already been forgiven—because he knows Jesus. Peter understands that forgiveness is part of who Jesus is. So instead of shrinking before his sins, Peter jumps at the opportunity for forgiveness. It is, quite literally, a leap of faith.
Notice how Peter has changed over the course of Jesus’s ministry. At the Miraculous Catch of Fish, recognizing his own sinfulness, he shrinks before Jesus. He cannot bear his own limitations. At the Breakfast by the Sea, he does not fail to rush to Jesus, even knowing his sinfulness. It is a transformation that has come from spending time with Jesus.
JESUS IS NOT FINISHED with Peter. He knows that his friend needs something else—a public opportunity to be forgiven. So after the meal, beside the fire, he asks Peter a question.
“Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” he says, pointedly using his friend’s original name. “These” may refer to the other disciples. (Do you love me more than you love your friends? Or, likewise, do you love me more than your friends love me?) Or it may refer to his livelihood, as he points to the fish flopping around in the net. (Do you love me more than these fish, more than your old life?) Whatever the case, Peter seems surprised.
“Yes, Lord,” he says, “you know that I love you.” Perhaps his vehemence is not only for Jesus’s benefit, but for that of his friends. Peter may have flushed under Jesus’s apparent scrutiny, like a boy being scolded in class before his classmates.
But Jesus isn’t trying to embarrass Peter. With great compassion he brings up what Gerard O’Collins calls Peter’s “buried past,” to help heal old memories.7
“Feed my lambs,” says Jesus. Then he asks a second time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you,” says Peter again.
“Tend my sheep,” says Jesus.
Jesus asks the same question again. At this third mention Peter “felt hurt.” Maybe he wondered: Doesn’t Jesus believe me? Is he trying to make me look like a fool? I know I did a terrible thing in denying him. Why is he rubbing it in? Or does it dawn on Peter that Jesus is offering him a chance to redeem himself three times, to counterbalance the three denials before the Crucifixion?
Perhaps Peter is hurt because he realizes the depth of his sin. As at the Miraculous Catch of Fish in the Gospel of Luke, Peter comes face-to-face with his own humanity.8 This is an important step in the spiritual life.
“Lord,” Peter says, as if embracing his human frailty and expelling his pride, “you know everything; you know that I love you.”
“Feed my sheep,” Jesus says again.
Jesus tells Peter that in his youth Peter went where he wanted to go. “But when you grow old,” Jesus says, “you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” John adds that this was a prediction of Peter’s ultimate crucifixion, which occurred around AD 64, some forty years before John wrote his Gospel.
Finally, Jesus says, “Follow me.”
At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus performs a miracle on the Sea of Galilee, in Peter’s backyard, as it were, with familiar things: fish. Peter saw the miracle and was ashamed; Jesus nonetheless asked him to follow. Now the pattern is repeated. It is as if Jesus is saying, “I asked you to follow at the beginning, when you didn’t know me and you hadn’t done anything wrong. Now at the end, when you know me well and you have sinned against me and need forgiveness, I ask you to follow me. Again.”
In the original Greek text Jesus uses two different words when he poses the question of love. The first two times he says, “
Agapas me?” The word agape means a universal love or selfless love of all human beings. Peter says yes both times. But in the last instance Jesus uses philein, a brotherly love or the love between friends. “Phileis me?” Most scholars believe that the Gospel writer is simply varying the words, and in any event, Jesus and Peter were not speaking in Greek, but Aramaic.9 (If I were writing about visiting Capernaum I wouldn’t use “amazing” three times on one page, even if it was amazing.)
But it’s possible that Jesus tailored his question to the needs of his friend. He probably knew that Peter, limited as he was, couldn’t agape him. For Peter responds to Jesus’s agapas with philō. Okay, says Jesus, can you phileis me? Can you love me like a brother? Even in his questioning Jesus may be showing his compassion for his friend.
Or as a Jesuit friend once said in a homily, given the spirit of reconciliation in this passage, it cannot be that Jesus ever intended to hurt Peter’s feelings. Then why did Jesus repeatedly question Peter? Like a person hearing someone profess affection for the first time, perhaps Peter’s first confession of love was such music to Jesus’s ears on the beach that day, that he simply delighted in hearing it a second time, and then a third.10
JESUS GIVES PETER THE opportunity to set things right without asking for an apology. He doesn’t say, “Are you sorry?” much less, “Grovel before me.” Christian reconciliation is motivated by love and shuns revenge. Moreover, Jesus calls on Peter to validate his affirmation of love by feeding his sheep, the community at large. Peter is “cast” by Christ into the sea of ministry and into the role of shepherd, a role linked to service and a willingness to lay down his life.
Notice that Jesus knows exactly who he is asking to lead his community: a sinner. As all Christian leaders have been, are, and will be, Peter is imperfect. And as all good Christian leaders are, Peter is well aware of his imperfections. The disciples too know who they are getting as their leader. They will not need—or be tempted—to elevate Peter into some semi-divine figure; they have seen him at his worst.