The Resurrection of Christ: Further Along the Road to Emmaus

What are we to understand when we speak of the Resurrection of Jesus? Ancient Scriptures and interpretations from a brilliant theologian-pope provide amazing clues.

April 8, 2026 within the Octave of Easter
by Father Gordon MacRae with theological assistance from Pope Benedict XVI

Note: The following is Part 2 of our Holy Week post, “The Darkness of the Cross Enlightened on the Road to Emmaus.”

In the above captioned post, we left you on the Road to Emmaus. Jesus of Nazareth had been accused of blasphemy by the Jewish Sanhedrin. He was handed over to the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate for judgment. He was placed on trial, convicted, mercilessly scourged and then crucified. Those who followed and believed in him were devastated and lost. Some had hoped to find in him the manifestation of the Kingdom of God. Some hoped for a messianic end to the tyranny of Rome and its occupation of Judea. Others hoped for redemption. All were left demoralized. All had come to ruin. This is where we left you on the Road to Emmaus.

Some of the disciples of Jesus remained in Jerusalem in hiding. Others left, believing that all hope had come to an end. This includes the two who encountered a stranger on the Road to Emmaus about seven miles down that road from Jerusalem. One of them, Cleopas, and his fellow traveler, disciples of Jesus both, were among those who had hoped that Jesus would ultimately reign as a king in Jerusalem and rescue their nation from the oppression of Rome. Jesus, after hearing of their plight, while still disguised from their sight, challenged them: “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 24:25-27)

That Christ should suffer is a mystery foretold in the Old Testament according to Acts 3:18. On the Road to Emmaus Jesus gives to the two fleeing disciples an overview of Salvation History from the Hebrew Scriptures. His entire life was foreordained in Scripture, his birth, his earthly ministry, his death and his Resurrection.

Having come to the village in which they intended to stay, while the stranger intended to go further on, the two disciples asked him to remain with them saying “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” While they were at table in that village the stranger took bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them recalling the sequence of his actions at the Last Supper. Immediately their eyes were opened and they recognized him in the breaking of the bread. Then he vanished from their sight.

“Did not our hearts burn within us as he spoke to us on the road while he opened to us the Scriptures?”

— Luke 24:32

They immediately abandoned their flight from Jerusalem and returned as quickly as they could. They found the Eleven, the Apostles, gathered together along with other disciples who remained. Some of the Eleven declared to them what the others in the room had already heard with great excitement, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told of what happened on the road, and of how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

The disciples became animated as the horror of the Crucifixion was slowly transformed into this newfound hope of the Resurrection as the appearances of Christ multiplied. They had no expectation or notion of what this meant. Coming down from the mountain after their experience of the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-13), Jesus cautioned them to tell no one what they had seen or heard. “So they kept the matter to themselves while wondering what rising from the dead meant.” The disciples did not know, and could find out only by encountering the reality of it. So what exactly did the Resurrection of Christ mean? For my answer to this, I count heavily on the view of one of the most accomplished Catholic theologians of our time, Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI.

An Evolutionary Leap

“ ‘If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified that he raised Christ’ (1 Corinthians 15:14-15). With these words to the community of Corinth, Saint Paul explains drastically what faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means for the Christian message. It is its very foundation. Our faith stands or falls on the truth of the testimony that Christ is risen from the dead.”

— Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol 2: Holy Week, p241

Our answer to the question of the Resurrection will determine whether Jesus merely was in history or also still is. This is a most important question. So what actually happened to Jesus? For the witnesses who encountered the Risen Lord in Scripture, it is hard to say because for the most part they did not fully understand this new reality about Christ. There are multiple “resurrection” stories in the New Testament. Luke (11:17) tells us of the raising of the son of the widow of Nain. Mark (5:22-24, 35-43) tells of the raising of the daughter of Jairus. John (11:1-44) famously relates the raising of Lazarus.

What happened to Jesus is entirely different from these. His Resurrection was not merely the miracle of a resuscitated corpse. We have all heard stories of people brought medically back from the brink in near-death experiences. What the Gospel relates about Christ is very different from any of those accounts. The Resurrection of Jesus was about breaking out into an entirely new form of life, a life that is no longer subject to the law of dying and becoming, but rather lies beyond it. The Resurrection of Jesus opens up a new dimension not only of his existence, but also of ours.

Reading these conclusions from Pope Benedict XVI in Jesus of Nazareth, his masterwork of theological exegesis, almost seems like science fiction, but it is neither science nor fiction. It is not a newly written script for an episode fo Startrek: The Next Generation. It is rather an account seeking understanding that has always been at our fingertips. Benedict XVI cautioned that this opens up an analogy that could be easily misunderstood, but delving into it is a necessity of salvific truth and faith. The Resurrection of Christ constitutes an “evolutionary leap,” a new possibility of human existence that affects everyone and that opens up a new kind of future for humanity.

The Cosmic Body of Christ

On the basis of all this biblical evidence, what are we now in a position to say about the true nature of Christ’s Resurrection? Pope Benedict presents it as something akin to a radical “evolutionary leap” in which a new dimension of life emerges, a new dimension of human existence.

This is what is meant by those passages in Saint Paul’s letters written from prison (Colossians 1:12-23 and Ephesians 1:3-23) that hint at the cosmic Body of Christ, indicating that Christ’s transformed (Resurrected) body oversteps the boundaries of what we are able to conceive. Here is an example:

“He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son … . He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the Church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fulness of God is pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his Cross.

— Colossians 1:13-20

The Resurrection of Jesus points far beyond history but has left a footprint within human history that was attested to by witnesses as an event of unprecedented kind and importance.

This man Jesus, complete with his body, now belongs totally to the sphere of the divine and eternal. The evidence in the Gospel is clear. The Resurrected Jesus can walk among us. He shows the Doubting Apostle, Saint Thomas, the wounds in his hands and side. He lets Thomas probe those wounds that are now for eternity a part of him, accepted on our behalf.

From here on, in both spirit and body, Jesus has a place within God. Even if man by his nature is created for immortality, it is only by virtue of the Resurrection of Christ that the place exists for our immortal souls to find their “space” in which immortality takes on its meaning as communion with God. This is hinted at in a mysterious passage from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Colossians written from prison. It was the Second Reading for our Easter Sunday Mass this year. I, too, have written some things from prison that press against the boundaries of easy understanding, but I do not hold a candle to Saint Paul:

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

— Colossians 3:1-3

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. It is unclear whether I have shed any light at all on the mystery of the Resurrection of Jesus. But it is most clear to me now that the Resurrection of Christ sheds light on us as we stand in God’s Presence.

You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Darkness of the Cross Enlightened on the Road to Emmaus

The Apostle Falls: Simon Peter Denies Christ

Mary Magdalene: Faith, Courage, and an Empty Tomb

Fr Seraphim Michalenko on a Mission of Divine Mercy

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Mother’s Day Promises to Keep, and Miles to Go Before I Sleep

Honoring Mom on Mother’s Day brought me to Robert Frost’s most famous poem and its deepest meaning about life, loss, and hope.

You may remember a post I wrote a few years ago entitled “A Corner of the Veil.” It was about my mother, Sophie Kavanagh MacRae, who died on November 5, 2006 during my 12th year in prison. That hasn’t stopped her from visiting, however. I had a strange dream about her a few nights ago, and I keep going back to it trying to find some meaning that at first eluded me.

The United Kingdom celebrates Mothering Sunday on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, but in North America, Mother’s Day is on the second Sunday of May. I wonder if that was what prompted my vivid dream. It was in three dimensions, sort of like looking through one of those stereoscopic View Masters we had long ago. Pop in a disk of images and there they were in three dimensions and living color. My dream was like that, even the color — which is strange because I am colorblind since birth. My rods and cones are just not up to snuff, and though I do see some color, my view of the world is, I am told, not far afield from basic black and white and many shades of gray. Priesthood saved me from a lifetime of wondering why people grimace at my unmatched clothes.

Back to my dream. I was standing on Empire Street in Lynn, Massachusetts, in front of the urban home where I grew up. My mother was standing with me, but in the dream, as in today’s reality, we could not go inside that house because neither of us lived there any longer. My dream contained overlapping realities. It was clear to me that my mother had died, but there she was. And it was clear to me that I am in prison, but there I was with her on that street in front of the home I left forty years ago.

The scene was the stuff of dreams, and it strikes me now that this dream was a reminder of something essential, some truth I could easily let slip away, but must not. I once wrote of that house and that street in an early TSW post called “February Tales.” I wrote of the books that captivated me in childhood, books that I read for hours on end perched high in the treetops along our city street. To this day I can hear my mother calling out a window in her Newfoundland brogue, “IF YOU FALL OUT OF THAT BLOODY TREE AND BREAK YER LEG, DOEN’T COME ARUNNIN’ TO ME!”

As my mother and I crossed the street away from that house in my dream, we spoke, but nothing of that conversation survived in my consciousness except one sentence, and it was perplexing. I said, as I kissed her good-bye, “I have promises to keep.” With a pack over my shoulder in my dream, I turned away to walk toward the end of our city street. In my youth, there was a bus stop there where I could board a bus that would take me the ten miles to Logan Airport or on to Boston’s North Station. From there, I could go anywhere. As I walked down the street in the last scene of my dream, I looked back to see my mother waving. I was leaving. I was always leaving.

You may recognize my final words to my mother in the dream. They are a line from a famous, multi-layered and haunting poem by the great Robert Frost entitled “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Here it is:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

A Life and Death Conversation

I say this poem is multi-layered because all by itself, with no search at all for deeper meaning, it tells a nicely unadorned tale on its surface. However, I believe Robert Frost packed this little verse with profound meaning about life and death. For me, the owner of the woods who lives in the village is God, the Author of Life, our Redeemer from death, and One who calls us to a task that gives meaning to our lives — even when we have no idea what that meaning is just yet. Even when we do not even know the task to which we are called.

There is something haunting and alluring about stopping by woods on a snowy evening. If you have ever stood in the woods at night while it snows, then you know the awesome, mesmerizing silence of that experience. All sound is absorbed, and the powerful sense of aloneness can produce inner peace. But it can also trigger a sense of foreboding, of being cut off from the sounds and sights of humanity, cut off from life in the village. Today’s fear of death is, in its essence, a fear of utter silence, of the world of no more.

Even the poem’s “little horse” is a symbol of the simplicity of our animal nature. The horse ponders not the meaning of the woods, and “gives his harness bells a shake” to bring his rider back to his senses. “We’ve no reason to stop here.” The horse knows nothing of his rider’s yearning for surrender, for a time of removal from the civilization and social responsibility in which the Owner of those woods is engaged in the village ahead.

It’s okay to stop by the woods on a snowy evening. We just can’t stay there. Not yet. Robert Frost’s woods represent death. “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,” and they stand in the poem as an invitation to final surrender and rest. “Sleep” in the poem is a metaphor for death, just as it is for Jesus as he awakens Lazarus from the sleep of death:

“‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.’ Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we too may die with him.’”

— John 11: 11-16

If you have read this far, and my analysis of Robert Frost’s poem hasn’t put you to sleep, then like me you might wonder what exactly I meant when I whispered to my mother that “I have promises to keep.” The dream didn’t spell it out for me, so I had to search for its deeper meaning.

In our poem, the rider seems to be on a journey, though Frost gives us no indication of its purpose or destination. At the end of his journey, the rider has “promises to keep” but the woods, “lovely, dark, and deep” are an enticing release from both the journey and his burdens. But the responsibility of his promises pulls harder than the woods, and his release — his inevitable death — is postponed. The rider moves on toward his destiny and the fulfillment of his promises — both those he has made and those made to him. He moves on, as I did in the dream of my mother, with “miles to go before I sleep.”

The Promise

My mother died a terrible death, having suffered for three years from hydrocephalus, the build-up of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain. It was misdiagnosed in her early seventies, and by the time it was properly diagnosed, it could not be treated. She visited me in prison with a cane, and then a walker, and then a wheelchair, and then, for the last year of her life, not at all. Though only sixty miles away from my prison, she could not even speak with me by telephone for the last six months of her life. She became paralyzed, and entered a prison of her own.

In our last visit in the New Hampshire State Prison visiting room a year before my mother died, I told her I was sorry for what had become of my life and my priesthood. Most mothers of priests — especially Irish mothers — take a certain pride in the priesthood of their sons. My mother left this world with her own priest-son in prison. I worried about the wounds to her pride my false imprisonment wrought.

But all was not lost. There was grace even in that. Sometime near Mother’s Day I hope you might read anew — or for the first time — “A Corner of the Veil.” It describes a promise I made to my mother that I would never take the easy way out of the crisis to which priesthood brought me. I intend to keep that promise, and in a dream last week, my mother showed up to help strengthen its resolve. But more than that, “A Corner of the Veil” is about the continuity of relationship between the living and the dead. That post described a very subtle but deeply meaningful connection with my mother beyond this life, and I might have missed it if I let the growing spiritual cynicism of this world take root in prison and take my faith as it grew and festered.

What I described in that post is a true tale, and a powerful one, and I haven’t yet recovered from the nudge — a smack upside the head, really — from my mother. It was her wake-up call to me to stop by the woods on a snowy evening just long enough to peer through a corner of the veil between this life and the next, and to renew my engagement with both the mysteries and promises of my faith despite where I must, for this moment, live it.

I have heard from so many readers Beyond These Stone Walls asking me for prayers for their mothers, living and dead, some beloved and some estranged, some deeply missed and some slowly leaving this world. On Mother’s Day I promise, the Owner willing, to offer Mass for all the readers of Beyond These Stone Walls who are mothers, and for all of your mothers. Those who have passed from this life are, I think, also reading, and they can hold me to it. Perhaps they’ll gather. Perhaps they’ll even plot. Were that the case, my mother would surely be in Heaven!

We, the living, have promises to keep, and miles to go before we sleep. First among those promises is to engage in a vibrant life of faith that opens itself to the continuity of life between this world and the next, something our culture of death denies.  Fostering that faith, and making fertile its ground, is a great responsibility, and the source of all freedom. That’s the absolute truth! Just ask Mom!

“And he said to them, ‘How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ And they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things within her heart.”

— Luke 2: 49-51