Today we see there is a connection between the Word, the Scriptures opened, eyes closed, led to the table in Emmaus and their eyes been opened, and how our eyes need to be opened regarding the Eucharist table. It is not some kind of mystery only opened to an exclusive few, rather it is opened to those who first had the Scriptures opened.
We cannot approach the Table unless our heart has been first prepared by the opening of the Scriptures. As I have said in one of my messages in this series, our experience starts but is not exclusive to the Scriptures, but the Scriptures open us to a dimension that supersedes the natural senses. This effect of closing the eyes from recognising the Risen Lord has the effect of not involving the physical senses in the full comprehension of Jesus, this comes at the end. So the full comprehension fully involving both spiritual and physical faculties is at the end of this episode. We must examine that this Table in this lowly house in Emmaus has significance as much as the Tabernacle Table of Shewbread, the Table in the Temple, not because of its location but what it represents.
The Table represents the final phase of a covenant process. We have to go back to the times of Abraham who understood very well the covenant process. Today and in these ages the power of covenant is being put into very superficial terms. Covenant with God carries very serious connotations especially in the case of covenant breaking, which 1 and 2 Kings relates as well as Chronicles. We see in the final chapters how Nebuchadnezzar carries off the people, and Zedekiah who not only broke covenant with God throughout his life, also sought to break agreements with the Babylonian king, which brought his invasory forces. To celebrate this standing of Covenant, a TABLE was set in the Tabernacle of Moses.
David knew the power of the Table when he mentions it in Psalm 23, and speaking of the various cups of the Seder. We should always investigate the significance of the various elements of the Old Covenant and how they are shadows of something better and fuller in the New Covenant, yet they lose nothing of their spiritual significance and power. David sees that God sets His Covenant Table in a context of war, as David is God’s warrior. What does God set our Table in the midst of? For the Gospels, none leave out this detail in the life of Jesus, the Last Supper, the cups and the significance of the Preparation Jesus had to put the disciples through before His Own Betrayal. Seismic events would take place once they had been at the Temple. Scott Hahn would put down in his book “The 4th Cup” the significance of each cup and their outworking for us now.
Even Paul in his letter to the Corinthian Church institutes what is the acceptable approach to the Covenant Table, now that the Temple has been superseded by the Church. Superseded that is because we see in Jesus’ death the rent curtain, 40 years down the road from that happening the demolition of the Temple by the Roman general Titus.
So the Table as in Luke 24 is symbolic of covenant, and Jesus did not interrupt this emphasis here. In fact it is here that the full comprehension of the Person of Jesus begins. And we should encourage the approach in our Churches. Where there is a Table set for this purpose, of bread and wine, as instituted by Melchizedek in Genesis 14, we have the continuity of a manifestation of covenant in our midst, which is the Presence of Jesus.
Let us approach the Table, conscious of its continuity and consistency through the ages. The end being is “We beheld Him in all His Glory.”
Maranatha! Lord come quickly.
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