Transforming – ‘Were not our
hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road’.
Duccio (c. 1255 – c. 1318) draws
upon the austere tradition of icon figures to depict the story of the two
disciples who meet the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus. Approaching the end of the day’s journey,
they invite Jesus, dressed in pilgrim’s garb, to stay with them. While one
disciple glances mournfully up at the stranger, the other gestures confidently
towards the building where they will have their meal. Although full of human
expectation, they are unaware of how special the unfolding situation will
become. Jesus’s expression is different: thoughtful, profoundly calm, perhaps
even a bit tentative: there is no sense of triumphalism here. Someone said that
the city of God is not made or conquered, but reached in pilgrimage. Jesus, with
hat tied around his shoulders and staff in hand, the fellow pilgrim on the
road, joins the disciples, but will continue on his way, because this pilgrim
is the Way.
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