It was on the last full day of our pilgrimage trip to Holy Land that we finally got to Emmaus. To Emmaus Nicopolis, that is – the Byzantine town that scholars have traditionally identified as the Emmaus of Jesus’ time. There are actually a few other possibilities, including one that surfaced in 2019, Kiryat Yearim, an ancient fortified hill town a bit closer to Jerusalem.
By then our group of 25 had been together for ten days, and had developed a happy, comfortable rhythm. We knew the way on foot from our home base at St. George’s Guest House into the Old City, and had visited some sites there. We’d been off and back on the bus in Bethlehem and the Kidron Valley, and seen the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Shrine of the Book. We’d spent three nights in Nazareth; hit a couple of spots on the sea of Galilee; taken the sky tram up the face of the Mount of Temptation; and checked out the cave where Jesus is said to have fasted and prayed for 40 days and 40 nights.
And looking back, now, from the vantage point of this morning, it seems to me that everything we’d seen and experienced was being gathered up on that final day, when we arrived where this story we just heard takes place...(read more)
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