Dinner

When my brother Cleopas asked me to join him on his journey, I didn't think twice. I hoped to escape from the engulfing sorrow that was upon Jerusalem in the time of Pilate. I thought maybe in the town of hot waters, I would have a chance to wash all the trauma away from my troubled heart.

When the men of Galilee invited us to follow their Rabbi, I never thought I would travel this journey of despair ever again. To me, life was all about escaping. I thought when the Nazarene Rabbi called himself the Messiah, Rome was undone and that I had escaped. And yet here I am again, fleeing even after I followed him.

"Shalom to you my friends," a stranger interrupted my thoughts. "Are you headed to Emmaus?" he asked. We both didn't have the energy to answer so we simply nodded in unison. "Would you mind if I join you?" The stranger requested. Cleopas told him it was okay.

The stranger was the one who broke the silence after a while, "Why are you in such despair?" "We used to follow the dead Rabbi," I finally choked it out of my throat, the weight of it was no longer bearable. And something about this stranger made me want to cry. But he was confused and he asked whom we were talking about. "Haven't you been to Jerusalem? They killed the innocent man in the place of Barabbas," Cleopas almost shouted at him in surprise. "I am sorry for your loss," was all he said. "You know before he was arrested, he threw a dinner party. He was with the twelve. And they told me that he knew he was going to be killed because he told them something about eating his flesh and drinking his blood." Cleopas spoke directly to me, totally ignoring the stranger. I was puzzled by the information. Why would he do such a thing? I wondered. If he knew he was going to be killed in such an excruciating way he wouldn't have come to Jerusalem for the holiday in the first place. Wouldn't he? "There is a parable I heard from my mother," said the stranger. Parable?

"There is a man who stands at everyone's door and knocks. If anyone heard his voice and opened it for him, he would dine with them. And as he did, he would tell his hosts that he would remain with anyone who eats with him, and him in them. The Rabbi reminded me of this man." "Why would anyone run around to people's houses and eat their rashes?" I  asked. "It is only a parable, my friend. It represents an actual concept though," he replied. I wanted to know what it represented and I assumed that he would explain. Instead, he looked at the setting sun and implied that he should probably be on his way to where he would spend the night. I was enjoying his company and I was curious to find out what the parable meant so I asked him to stay with us for the night. He didn't agree at first but my brother's mouth did its trick and an hour later we were around a campfire ahead of our tents.

Once we sat we started to talk about the Rabbi once again. And the stranger told us how it was for told by Isaiah and the great prophets that a man will be killed to save people from their sins. But not much of what he said made sense. "'Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.' isn't it written?" he asked. I and Cleopas were so confused that we couldn't even recite the book we grew up learning. "Okay, I guess we are all hungry and tired. Maybe a little bit of bread might help," he said before he broke the bread and gave us. I took it from his hand and it all clicked at once. He interpreted the parable just by sharing bread.

The man in the parable offers his flesh and blood for his hosts. And when the hosts sat to eat it, they would see what he had done. He chose to eat dinner because dinner is eaten when everyone is done running for the day and they would be fully focused on him. Breakfasts and lunches are eaten to run once more, but dinners are eaten to rest. And anyone who dines with him rests.

The man in the parable was with us; The stranger, the Rabbi, the Messiah was he who died for our sins as he said he did earlier. And it is when I received the bread (his flesh) that I saw.