The picture of Christ at Emmaus illustrates an event in the narrative of Christ's life which took place on the evening of the first Easter Sunday. It was now three days since the Crucifixion of Christ just outside Jerusalem, and the terrible scene was still very fresh in the minds of his disciples. It happened that late in the day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, not very far from Jerusalem.

They made the journey on foot, and as they walked along the way, "they talked together," says the evangelist[9] who tells the story, "of all those things which had happened. And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him. And he said unto them, 'What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?' And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, 'Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?' And he said unto them, 'What things?' And they said unto him, 'Concerning Jesus of Nazareth.'" Then followed a conversation in which they told the stranger something of Jesus, and he in turn explained to them many things about the life and character of Jesus which they had never understood.

"And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. But they constrained him, saying, 'Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.' And he went in to tarry with them.

"And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, 'Did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with us by the way?'"

The picture suggests vividly to us that wonderful moment at Emmaus when the eyes of the disciples were opened, and they recognized their guest as Jesus, whom they had so recently seen crucified. The table is laid in a great bare room with the commonest furnishings, and the disciples appear to be laboring men, accustomed to "plain living and high thinking." They are coarsely dressed, and their feet are bare, as are also the feet of Jesus. One seems to have grasped the situation more quickly than the other, for he folds his hands together, reverently gazing directly into the face of Jesus. His companion, an older man, at the other end of the table, looks up astonished and mystified. The boy who is bringing food to the table is busy with his task, and does not notice any change in Jesus.

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In the midst is Christ, "pale, emaciated, sitting facing us, breaking the bread as on the evening of the Last Supper, in his pilgrim robe, with his blackened lips, on which the torture has left its traces, his great brown eyes soft, widely opened, and raised towards heaven, with his cold nimbus, a sort of phosphorescence around him which envelops him in an indefinable glory, and that inexplicable look of a breathing human being who certainly has passed through death."

This description is by a celebrated French critic,[10] himself a painter, who knows whereof he speaks. He says that this picture alone is enough to establish the reputation of a man.

[10] Fromentin, in Old Masters of Belgium and Holland.