Sightings, Part 2

Do you remember the handful of people who followed Jesus to the very foot of the cross? Let’s look once more at that passage: Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. ~John 19:25 I briefly touched upon the fact that there are church traditions which support the idea that Cleophas was Joseph’s brother thus making his wife, Mary, a sister-in-law of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Got all that?

The name Mary is ubiquitous in the Gospel accounts therefore making the readings quite a challenge. But records going as far back as Eusebius (263-339 AD) make this point. And Eusebius was no slouch. He is considered the “Father of Christian History” and produced the Ecclesiastical History, On the Life of Pamphilus, The Chronicle and On the Martyrs. His access to oral traditions and other extant records take us tantalizingly close to the time of the Apostles.

So yesterday we saw two people walking on the road to Emmaus and chatting away. They are joined in both their walk and their conversation by Jesus. Luke gives us the name of just one of the travellers: One of them, named Cleopas…Luke 24:18. I would suggest that this is the same fellow mentioned in John’s account as the husband of Mary. You may have noticed that the spellings are different between the account in John and the account in Luke. Moreover, some translations of the account in John have it as Clopas. A simple explanation is that there were three languages and many dialects flying about at the time of the Gospel writings and it would be easy, during a transliteration, to insert an alternate spelling. In fact, we would expect it to be so. It still happens today. (e.g Katy, Katie, Kadee, Catie all sound alike and depending on the transcriber, could choose from any of the above).
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Is it possible that Jesus has dropped in on his aunt and his uncle as they were heading home? That prospect is strengthened if we back up just a few verses in Luke: When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Luke24:9-11 The third Mary is identified as Mary, the mother of James. Church history identifies her as the mother of “James the Lesser” AND the wife of Cleophas!

Now back to the Emmaus Road. Jesus asks them why they are sad. Cleophas was astonished that this stranger hadn’t heard all of the news boiling out of Jerusalem so he gets right to the point: “…some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.” Luke 24:23-24  Mary, the wife of Cleophas, was one of those women. And I believe she is the silent companion who is standing next to her animated husband as he catches Jesus up on the news. What they didn’t yet realize was that they were standing in the presence of their nephew and their soon to be Savior.