Jewish Thoughts and Aspirations

Now you see the reason for their eyes being holden until this moment. Had they recognized Him, and accepted Him previously, it would have been a kind of substantiating of all the Jewish thoughts and aspirations which were so alive in their souls. They are to know Him as the One who died, the One who passed through death. And so it was that until now their eyes were holden. Now would come the overthrow of everything that was merely egotistical in Judaism, and it was this very thing that ruled in their breasts at that time. They must now know Him as the One that died and rose again, as the One alive out of death. He broke the bread before their eyes as the risen One, and immediately their eyes were opened. But the moment He, by this symbol, conveyed Himself as the risen One really before their eyes, He vanished out of their sight.
How blessed and how wonderful to think of it! What they had been looking for, what had moved in their souls before, was expressed in their words, "we trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel." v. 21. What had shattered all their living hopes was the fact of His death. It was the death of the heir to them, and their hopes, which centered in earth, were all broken up and scattered to the winds by His death. But now Christ, in His wonderful grace and love, has led them step by step to this point. There He was Himself before them in His death (in symbol), yet as the risen One; their opened eyes rested on Him thus for an instant, and then the Savior vanished out of their sight.