Two disciples are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the first Easter Sunday, devastated. A stranger joins them, walks with them, explains the Scriptures to them, and they invite him in for supper. At the table, when he breaks bread, their eyes are opened — and he vanishes. They realize what has been happening to them all afternoon: their hearts were burning and they did not know why. The recognition comes before the vanishing; the burning came before the recognition.

From the writers we read together

George MacDonald

Scottish author, poet, and minister (1824-1905)

MacDonald was captivated by the Emmaus story because it shows the risen Jesus doing the ordinary things: walking a road, explaining texts, sitting at a table, breaking bread. He did not appear to these two disciples in a theophany of light and thunder. He joined them on a journey and talked about books. MacDonald's theology of the Incarnation was always drawn toward the ordinary as the locus of the holy: God works in the small and the everyday because that is where most human life is lived, and he wants to be found there.

The burning heart is MacDonald's favorite image of authentic spiritual encounter: not the dramatic rapture or the mystical vision, but the slow warmth of a presence that has been with you longer than you realized. The disciples say afterward: “Did not our hearts burn while he talked?” The burning was present during the ordinary conversation. They are recovering the awareness of a presence they had been experiencing without recognizing. MacDonald would say that is the normal Christian life: looking back and recognizing that the burning was happening the whole time.