If you are considering the Tao of Holy Orthodoxy, the original, ancient a Christian Path, a good question at first is, “Why should you listen to Jesus?” Who is this 1st century Jewish teacher from Palestine, that we, who live in the 21st century, should recognise His authority and follow Him?
One of my favourite stories is an 2,000-year-old account of two travellers walking on a road.
Both these men had been disciples of Jesus before his death. As they walked toward the town of Emmaus from Jerusalem, where their Master had been publicly executed a few days earlier, they talked about what had happened.
A third man, whom they didn’t recognise, approached them and asked what they were talking about with such heavy sadness. One of the two, Cleopas was his name, answered, “Are you just a visitor in Jerusalem? Don’t you know what has happened these past few days?”
“What things,” this stranger asked.
The disciples explained that they were talking about this Prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, Who said and did amazing things. God was with Him. They had hoped that their teacher would free the people from Roman oppression, but the religious authorities, accusing him of blasphemy and treason, turned him in to the Roman occupiers. Jesus was condemned to death as crucified. Then, a few of the women among the disciples went to his tomb and found the tomb open, but His Body was gone. These women came back from the tomb and reported to the gathered disciples that they had seen a vision of angels, who announced that Jesus was alive! After hearing this, a couple others disciples ran to the tomb and found it as the women had described.
Now, at first this stranger didn’t seem to know anything about what the two disciples were talking about, which is why the disciples told the story, but after the disciples finished with their story, this same stranger began educating the disciples. Drawing together the various writings of ancient Scripture, He explained how everything Jesus experienced in the last several days had been part of the grand Divine Heavenly Plan, which had been unfolding throughout human history until finding its fulfilment in that particular time and place.
As the three men neared the village of Emmaus, the two disciples tried to convince their new friend to stay with them since it was already late in the day. He had seemed intent on going further, but agreed.
Later, as they all sat at a table together, the one who had seemed like a stranger to them earlier took bread in his hands, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the two disciples. Then, suddenly, there eyes were opened so that they recognised Him. The man who had been with them all along was their Master, who had kept the eyes of the disciples from recognising Him. But, as soon as they saw that it was Jesus, He disappeared.
The disciples then said to each other, “When he talked with us on the road and opened to us the meaning of the Scriptures, didn’t we sense the warming fire in our hearts?” They quickly ran back to Jerusalem and found the other disciples together, saying “It’s true! The Lord is Risen and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two disciples told the others what they had experienced on the road and how Christ revealed Himself through the breaking of the bread. (Luke 24:13-35)
All these happened after Jesus had been publicly executed and was raised from the dead after three days in the tomb. Before his death, Jesus miraculously healed the sick and, not long before His bodily resurrection to immortality, restored His friend Lazarus back to mortal life after Lazarus has been dead. Whoever wants to experience freedom from death and the fullness of Life should take Christ and His Way, the Orthodox Way, very seriously.
Understand this: Jesus Christ is not just a teacher who brought His life into harmony with the Tao, attained enlightenment, and learned to harness the Power of Life itself. I mean Jesus is not a Palestinian Buddha, a Jewish Jedi, or a character in a comic superhero cinematic universe. These accounts recorded in Scripture are not reworked mythologies. They are eyewitness accounts anchored in history. This story of the encounter of Christ’s disciples with their Resurrected Lord on the road to Emmaus points is deeper to the reality Christ is and how we can benefit from the Orthodox Way.
If you begin reading a book or start watching a movie toward the end instead of at the beginning, you may misunderstand the central point of the story and miss the the beautiful tapestry of overlapping and intertwining meaning. To learn about Jesus Christ and why the Orthodox Way matter, and how it changes lives, we need to know our shared human story from way back as far as we can go, back to the beginning –- In the beginning.
Text copyright © 2017 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees