The Threefold Opening of the Old Testament

The pattern here is the pattern of christian worship. Christ draws near to us on the first day of the week. He makes himself known in the breaking of bread, and then sends us forth with joyful tidings. The moment that their eyes are opened to him, he disappears from their sight. Luke has been enacting this fact throughout his gospel. And the stor emmaeus follows a pattern seen in two other lucan stories: saul the persecutor on the road to damascus and the story of the ethiopian eunuch. In both of these stories, we have the movement of a journey. We suddenly recognize the identity of the one who has been travelling and