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Sermon for the week of Easter
Luke 24:13-35
The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus on Easter Sunday afternoon is one that every Christian should know, just as well as you know the story of the empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning. Let’s walk through it again this evening and have its lessons more deeply engraved on our hearts.
Early in the morning, the women who had seen the empty tomb, and Jesus Himself, had told the disciples in Jerusalem the good news. The eleven apostles were there, but so were some of that group of 120 or so believers in Jerusalem who were still counted among His disciples. Two of those men, one of them named Cleopas, had to leave Jerusalem that afternoon, to walk to the nearby village called Emmaus, about seven miles away, like walking from here to downtown Las Cruces. They were sad. They were confused. They were talking about everything that had happened with Jesus over the past week.
Suddenly, Jesus walks up beside them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not recognize Him. Did Jesus look different after His resurrection? Maybe a little, but not so much so that people wouldn’t recognize Him. When He met those women in the morning, they didn’t say, “Who on earth are You?” No, they rejoiced at seeing the Lord. So did the apostles later than day. This “restraining of the eyes” was a supernatural restraining; God wanted to convince them first through their ears, their minds, and their hearts that the Christ was supposed to suffer and die and rise from the dead.
And so Jesus didn’t reveal Himself to them immediately. He asked them what they were talking about, and why they were sad. They were surprised He seemed not to have heard about what happened to Jesus. Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem who has not heard about the things which happened there in these days?
What things? Jesus asked, like a teacher patiently guiding his students to the truth through questions and answers. So they told Him: The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. You can hear the grave, grave disappointment in their words. We thought Jesus was going to redeem Israel, but we must have been wrong, because instead of redeeming Israel, He was condemned and crucified by the leaders of Israel. How can a dead Messiah redeem anyone, from anything?
They were right to be disappointed, if, indeed, Jesus was still dead. A dead Messiah couldn’t help them, couldn’t deliver them from any enemies, couldn’t redeem them.
But they weren’t only confused by the death of the One whom they thought was the Redeemer. They were just as confused by the accounts of His resurrection. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but Him they did not see. They knew about the empty tomb. They knew about the women’s report. But that knowledge didn’t make them joyful, or hopeful. It just left them confused. And their confusion makes sense, in a way, because, if they didn’t understand why the Christ had to die in the first place, what were they to make of the reports of His resurrection? They were missing the “why” of it all, so they also struggled to process the “what” of Christ’s resurrection.
Using the Old Testament Scriptures, Jesus guided them through both the “what” and the “why” of His death and resurrection. O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Remember, the Old Testament is pointing to Jesus, and not just pointing to Him as a great Prophet, but also as Priest, and King, as the Son of God, the only Redeemer of the world, who would suffer and die for mankind’s sins, and then be raised to life to carry out our redemption in the fullest sense, to save us, through faith in His name, from sin, death, and the power of the devil, first spiritually, during this New Testament era, and then bodily, when He raises us up at the Last Day and destroys all our enemies. All of that was not only there in the Old Testament, but was the theme of the Old Testament.
As they arrived at Emmaus, the two disciples pleaded with this man who had joined them on their journey, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. So He went in with them, sat down at the supper table with them, took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight. Who knows when these men had broken bread with Jesus before? Maybe they had been in the crowd of 5,000 or in the crowd of 4,000, when Jesus also took bread, blessed and broke it, and handed it out? Maybe they had eaten with Him on another occasion. Regardless, this is when God opened their eyes so that they recognized Jesus. And then He just vanished. Now that He’s risen from the dead, Jesus no longer subjects Himself to the laws of nature. As the God and Creator of nature, He does as He pleases with nature.
And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” Finally! Finally they understood God’s plan of redemption! They had known Jesus as a Prophet and as a miracle-worker. But until now they had not known Him as the Redeemer from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Until now they had not understood their own Scriptures, which they had known all their life, but which had only then been finally opened to them, so that they saw the Scriptures pointing to that very Man whom they had been following, to that Man who had been crucified two days earlier, to that Man who had been talking with them and walking with them along the road, and who had finally revealed Himself to them in the breaking of the bread. Finally they understood what redemption was all about. And they rejoiced in it!
The same Jesus who appeared to those two disciples, alive, remains today exactly as they saw Him then, still alive, still eager to guide His people through the Scriptures, so that we may know Him there first, before we know Him in person. Christ, our Redeemer, lives, and walks along the road of this life with us, too, having redeemed us by His blood, and also about to redeem us from this world so full of trouble. Find joy in Christ and in His redemption, which flows from His resurrection! Amen.
