The story of the men who travel the road to Emmaus with Jesus, talking about God during the whole journey without ever recognizing the man they’re walking with, is one of the most beloved stories in scripture. They do eventually figure out who Jesus is when he breaks the bread, but it astonishes us to think that they could spend all that time talking with Jesus without ever guessing it was him. It’s tempting to think that if that was one of us, we’d have guessed it in five minutes or less.
But is that really true? Would we recognize Jesus if we saw him? If we talked to him? Would we recognize him if he hunkered down at our dinner table and started celebrating the Eucharist? Or would we back away slowly, regretting that we’d let the crazy man into our house?
During his long journey to
