One of the most perplexing phrases for me may be “opening the scriptures” because I think we all think we get the point. We just aren’t going to agree on what it looks like in practice.
Some people think Jesus had a really good Bible study with two of his disciples. Others think he waved his hands and people magically comprehended it all for the first time. And still others think his presence brought new revelation to what they already knew.
What it means to “open the scriptures” is about revelation, isn’t it? About understanding and knowing what is there. How is always the rub. And it is what gets some people really heated.
The power in the passage, however, is not in the particular. It is in the fact of it — that the disciples came to understand what they thought they understood before. And this is an essential message for every generation. That we know things.
AND that we may know things more in the future.
We may be right enough for today and wrong tomorrow. Both are true. And that there will be renewed faith and devotion when we experience Christ, breathing new life into old words.
This is beautiful and reassuring, actually. I meet a lot of Christians who are afraid to have scripture opened, to have it revealed, to have the uncertainty exposed. It would seem much easier to pretend we already get it all, that nothing changes, and that Jesus is just there, unchanging and unchanged.
Not easier for me or most of the people I know well, though. Not for the people learning that life itself causes them to relearn so many other things, that yes, the stability of church and scripture seems important for a time, I suppose. A season. Until they realize that it, too, requires revelation, change, transformation. As do we.
And then, what might we see? Love, hope, joy? The grace of God in our community? Can we see what is possible when we let go of certainty? Of our addiction to it? To have our eyes opened anew, with grace and true joy?