If you are ever inclined to doubt that the Word of God continues to show life-transforming power, even in the twentieth century, you ought to read a relatively new book by England’s great social critic Malcolm Muggeridge, entitled Jesus Rediscovered.1 In England, as also to some extent in America, Muggeridge has gained a tremendous reputation, first, as the editor of the satirical weekly news magazine Punch, and then more recently as a television personality. As Britain’s scourge of the Establishment, Muggeridge has taken on the government, the royal family, international politics, even the church. And it is safe to say that in the eyes of most Englishmen there has probably never been a less likely candidate for conversion to Christ or Christianity.
Nevertheless, Muggeridge today gives testimony to the power of Christ through the Scripture to transform his life and the lives of others. And he recounts his conversion as something that happened to him when he was in Israel for the British Broadcasting System. Several factors contributed to it. But the truth of the Gospel and of Christ’s living presence really first came to him when, for the filming of a program on the New Testament, he was walking along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, as those two disciples did nearly two thousand years ago on the morning of Jesus’ resurrection.
I believe that the road to Emmaus is a road that must be walked, in one sense, by everyone who would become a Christian, or would become a better Christian. And it is in that light that I would like us to study it. The walk started out in disbelief and sadness. It ended in joy, excitement, love, and true devotion. The same can happen to each one of us.
Like all of Christ’s appearances to the disciples after the resurrection, His appearance to the two Emmaus disciples involves a story, and we must begin by telling it.
Who were these two disciples? The answer to this question is not as uncertain as most people, who are accustomed to referring merely to the “Emmaus disciples,” are likely to assume. For one thing, the story itself gives the name of one of them. If you turn to Luke 24:18, you will find that one of the disciples was called Cleopas. Moreover, if you will then use any good concordance of the words occurring in the New Testament and look up the word “Cleopas,” you will soon find a second mention of his name in another account of the resurrection. The reference is John 19:25. There we read, “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” It is true that John spells the name a bit differently. He leaves out the letter “e.” But the spelling of names often varied in antiquity, and here the two names undoubtedly refer to the same person.
Thus, we learn that the wife of Cleopas was also present in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion, and we may, therefore, assume that she was the one returning to Emmaus with him on the morning of the resurrection. Moreover, I believe that we can know even more than this. For it seems clear to me that John has given us her name when he writes of “his [Jesus’] mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene.”
I must admit that because of the way John has written this verse it is not at once obvious whether John is identifying the first Mary he mentions as the sister of the virgin Mary or as the wife of Cleopas. But a little thought shows that the second of these should be preferred.
1Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969). Muggeridge tells his personal story in the Foreword (pp. x-xi).
