And if you would open your Bibles to Luke chapter 24 and to
pray for us, and we'll dig in, Father God, as we come together
in the name of your son to read a story about your son on the
day of his resurrection. We pray that you would do for us
what you, what Christ, did for Cleopas and the unnamed disciple
that was with him, or that you would open our eyes.
That we wouldn't be merely surrounded by the things of God
without understanding, but that you would open our eyes so that
when we see what you have done, we would not only see it, but
also understand it and to take in its meaning.
And so, Holy Spirit, would you come and would you, would you
open our eyes? Would you give us understanding
of the illumination of Your Word so that we could treasure it, so
that we could respond and worship, so that we could obey,
so that we could be edified and be glad in Christ?
So would you do that among us today, Lord, for the sake of
Your name among all nations, we ask it.
Amen. So we have in our family a
series of questions that will ask one another to try and just
determine what kind of soul each of us have.
What is your Patronus? What is your?
If you could, if you could pick any superpower, what would it
be? 1 of the great questions that we
ask each other on the regular is if you maybe not on the regular,
but in times past, if you had a time machine and you could go
anywhere at any time and see anything, where would you go?
You have one shot. It's like 1 wish but to go and
to see absolutely anything and there's a bunch of things that
you would doubtless a bunch of answers that we would give
depending on what we love and what parts of the Scripture
really excite our interest. There's a million places I would
want to go, but if God told me I could only go one place, this
would be it. I would go right here and walk
with Christ and listen to him for seven miles to give the
seven mile sermon. It's not to put too much weight
on this sermon, but we are looking at you're not going to
hear this morning, but we are looking at this morning the
greatest sermon that's ever been preached.
This is Christ. There is in Christ who's going
to come to his people and he's going to exposite.
He's going to take the meaning of the entirety of the Old
Testament and show it to them and the meaning is Christ
himself. So we get to walk through this
together. The first thing I want to show
you is the Mary masquerade. I look look in verse, look in
verse 13, Luke says that very that very day for the life of
me, I don't know why the the Bible translators never include
there's a there's a word here. The word is it do it's a it's a
Greek word that means behold, watch, look at this like I'm
about to blow your mind with what I'm about to show you.
It's calling attention. It's the preacher leaning
forward and saying, listen to me.
This is important, Luke. That's that's the that's at the
very start of this whole text. He says, behold, listen, watch.
The very day that Christ was risen from the dead, in the
morning he reveals himself to the women.
In the afternoon he walks with these two nameless disciples.
It's wild. What do you do on the day of
your greatest triumph, right when you just defeated sin,
Satan, death, hell, fulfilled all of God's promises, what do
you do? Well, Jesus planned a surprise
for these two disciples. He said these things, these
things I've spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and that
your joy may be full. This is John 1511.
And so our risen Christ intends for us to be glad in his
triumph. The way that this text reads,
it's really fascinating and I'll show you as we get, as we get
into it. But you, you can just imagine a
dad who's planning a great surprise for his kids.
That's Christ. He's concealing himself so that
he can blow their minds. So that very day, two of them
were going to a village named Emmaus, about 7 miles from
Jerusalem. You need to have in your mind
there's probably millions, at least a million, probably
millions plural, that have come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the
Passover. Sabbath is now ended.
And so the first day of the week, they're going back out.
There's still some. There's like an ebb and a flow
to Jerusalem at this point. So you have all of these people
coming from the diaspora up to worship, but the the city
doesn't have the infrastructure. And so you come up to worship,
you worship, and then you go back out to the surrounding
villages, spend the night so that you can come back the next
day. They're going to Emmaus, which
is a 7/7 mile journey from Jerusalem and they were talking
with one another about all these things.
And if you write in your Bible, put that in brackets.
It's something that Luke repeats again and again and again.
These things, the the things concerning the Passion week of
Christ, they're talking about these things that had happened
in verse 15. While they were talking and
discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with
them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him and he said
to them, what is this conversation that you are
holding with each other as you walk?
Sometimes the the so we're told that their eyes were kept from
recognizing him. He he draws near and doesn't
say, hey, here I am. I've been risen from the dead.
He asks them about what do you what is this conversation?
And Luke tells us something fascinating.
He doesn't give just the answer. He gives the the pause to the
answer to show us kind of the gravity of what these men are
dealing with. It says they stood still looking
sad. They don't give their answer
right away. They just have you ever, have
you ever been there where somebody asked you a question
And it's like it, it goes to the very soul of your being and you
can't give an answer right away. I heard a UFC fighter this week
being interviewed by a podcaster and this guy was just asking
about why he got into fighting. And this guy started telling a
story about growing up in a family where his his mom was
unfaithful to his dad. His dad was extremely violent
and he said I would, I would sneak into my parents room and
sleep under the bed thinking my dad was going to kill my mom at
any moment. And so I was there to protect.
And as he's talking about these things, this, this podcaster
asked him a, a question, a follow up question to it.
And you just hear this like pause and you hear this like
gutter roll, soul shattering, like, like a a soul that is
wounded and broken. He can't answer.
And there's just this dead silence.
And the podcaster said something awesome.
He was like, it's OK, buddy. I'll just I'll just sit and give
you a moment and and just sit here with you as this as this
man who could break all of us in a line just weeping about his
childhood. Have you ever been there where
somebody asks you a question and it goes to the to the deepest
brokenness that you've ever dealt with and you just can't
answer right away. Luke tells us that Clay Opus and
this guy that he's with. What are the things that you're
talking about? And they stood there looking
sad. And then one of them named
Cleopas answered him. Are you And I watched the irony
here as as the as the one who is a very God, a very God is veiled
in human flesh and also risen from the dead and re veiled to
them so that they don't recognize that it's Christ.
Watch the irony, they say. Are you the only visitor to
Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened that
if these things that have happened there in these days,
are you, are you the only one who hasn't heard the news?
The irony is they're talking to the only one that actually knows
everything that's happened. He's the one that these things
happened to and he's the one that overcame all of these
things. And watch what Jesus does again.
He asks a follow up question in verse 19.
What things? What things?
Tell me what? What?
What things are you talking about?
Yeah, Maybe I'm the only one I haven't heard.
Behold your risen Christ playing the hand of his sacred surprise
like a master that he is. He is veiled from their eyes.
They're meditating on his passion week, and they're
devastated. Their soul is shattered because
they had they had hoped that he was the one to redeem them, and
he died. And they're so all of their hope
is over and he sort of sucks out their sadness like poison.
Now it's very interesting because the, the gospel, if you
were to ask what is the gospel? There's, there's sort of a
Cliffs Notes of the gospel. That is the person and the work
of Christ. It's who Jesus is very God of
very God who incarnated, born of the Virgin Mary, lived a perfect
life, that that's that's his essential identity.
He is God and his man. It's the person and the work of
Christ. What did Christ do when he
incarnated? What did he accomplish?
So you've got his person and you've got his work.
And what's wild is you've got the person of Christ standing
there talking with Cleopas and this unnamed disciple, and they
know the work of Christ. They just don't know what it
means. This is the very first time
where the gospel is the the facts of the gospel are
communicated by anybody other than Christ.
This is the very first time. And I want you to, I want you to
listen to how much they know about what happens to Christ.
Meanwhile, they, they still don't know the meaning after he
says what things they said to him concerning Jesus of
Nazareth, the man who was a prophet, mighty and deed and
word before God and all the people, and how our chief
priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and
crucified him. But we noticed the tents here.
We had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel.
Have you ever hoped desperately for something and it just comes
up empty? Most devastating thing ever.
We had hoped he was the one we've we've all been waiting for
since Genesis 3. We thought this was the serpent
crusher. Yes.
And beside all this, so they even know about the
resurrection. Beside all this, it is now the
third day. Luke highlights this.
The third day since these things had happened.
Moreover, some of the women of our company amazed us.
They were at the tomb early in the morning and when they did
not find his body, they came back saying that they had even
seen visions of angels and that he was alive.
Now it's, it's very interesting because in this time, neither in
the Jewish culture nor the Roman culture could a woman testify in
Israel on the on the evidence of two or more witnesses is a fact
confirmed. You could have 1000 women who
testified to the same thing and in court, it doesn't matter
because they're just, they were seen as a class that that
couldn't vote, that that couldn't bear witness.
They're just, they're, they're not in the class of witness
bearers. And God, in his glorious wisdom,
decided that it would be women who were the first to testify to
the resurrection of Christ. And a lot of a lot of people are
ashamed about that. It's something we should boast
in. This is what God has done is
that the IT was the women watch this now the the entire
testimony of the church, the spread of the gospel is built on
the witness of the apostles who saw him.
But you need to understand that the women who the women were the
first ones to bear witness to the apostles.
They're the ones that came to the apostles and said we've seen
him. He's he's risen from the dead.
And so the the foundation of the witness bearers is among the
women. This is very interesting, right?
It's a biblical mega theme that Eve was told in the very
beginning that her seed would come and crush the the serpent.
And so not that she would come and crush the serpent, but that
she would give that that through the woman light would come into
the world. And so throughout history,
there's always been this glorious feminine responsibility
to be the light bringers that that they're not going to be the
warriors. They are forbidden to be the
warriors, but they are supposed to give birth to the warriors
and raise them up to be that way.
And so when the real final Savior comes, it is also women
not only who bring him into the world through the the Virgin
Mary, but also women who are the 1st to see the evidence of the
new world that Christ has been raised from the dead.
And they bear witness to the apostles.
And so these guys say, look, our, our women said the women of
our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in
the morning when they did not find his body.
They came back saying they'd seen visions of angels who said
that he was alive. Some of them who were with us
went to the tomb and found it, just as the women had said.
But him they did not see. So this is the first time that
somebody other than Christ preaches the facts of the
gospel. Paul says it this way in First
Corinthians 15. Now I would remind you,
brothers, of the gospel I preach to you.
Watch this which you received, in which you stand and by which
you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word, I
preach to you unless you believed in vain.
What he's saying is this whole notion that has kind of plagued
our culture for a while of like you hear the gospel, you walk an
aisle, pray a prayer, fill out a prayer card, and then you just
live your life as before, waiting for Jesus to save you on
the last day is not it's not a biblical it's not a biblical
response to the gospel. Paul says three things.
This is a gospel which Once Upon a time you received and you were
born again in which right now you are standing.
So don't don't talk to me about like, well, one time I walked in
now prayed a prayer, signed a card.
And so I'm I'm good. No, it's the gospel in which you
stand today or not like are you standing in the person and work
of Christ which he's going to detail out in a few moments, but
he says this is the gospel you received in which you stand by
which you are being safe. It's continually saving you if
you hold fast to the word. I preach to you and he and he
goes on to say for I delivered to you as of first importance of
what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance
with the Scriptures. OK notice in accordance with the
Scriptures. This is the plan all along, that
he was buried and then he was raised on the third day in
accordance with the Scriptures. That this was a biblical
fulfillment, that Christ was crucified and raised on the
third day. It was in accordance with the
Scriptures. So I just want you to see this,
brother. Sister, the facts of the gospel
are all here, but their eyes are as blind to the meaning as they
are to the man who is asking them about their troubles.
They can't recognize Christ and they can't recognize the meaning
of the gospel. They know all the facts, they
just don't know what it means. The facts of the gospel.
Think about this, right? It's the very facts of the
gospel that we boast in. Christ crucified for us,
rejected by the Jewish leaders, risen from the dead.
That's your boast. That's my boast.
That's their devastation. They don't understand it.
We're it's, it's caused them great fear, anxiety, because
they don't know the meaning. This is a great metaphor for
unbelievers and believers alike. You can make the case that all
of our troubles talking about believers, all of our troubles,
all of our fears, doubts, anxieties, they're all rooted in
the fact that we are unable to see God as he is in light of the
gospel. Or we are unable to see
ourselves as we are in light of the gospel or we are unable to
see the world as it is in light of the gospel.
So anytime we have fear, anxiety, stress, anger, like
those things that are, that are fruits of the flesh, not fruits
of the Spirit. All of those things are rooted
in the fact that we have not yet learned to see all things
through the lens of Jesus Christ crucified and raised for Sinner.
Who is God in light of the gospel?
Who, who is he in light of the gospel?
Well, if we didn't know the gospel, we would typically
offload what we received from our fathers on to God that he's
either non existent, never met him or he's he's there.
And I know he has like a a kindness or an affection towards
me, but he's but he's distant. He's never around.
I never get to see him. And so I would never call him to
ask for help because you know, he's, he's like out there or
he's abusive and violent and vengeful and I'm afraid of him.
But when we come to the gospel and we see God as the the Father
of lights in whom every good gift comes from him and whom
there's no variation or shadows due to change, that he is the
fountain head of all goodness and blessing toward us.
This is who God is in the gospel.
He is our Father. Who are you in light of the
gospel? If without the gospel, who are
you? You are a grain and a sand, one
among million just sad people walking around with no purpose
and no future. That's it.
And you can, you can medicate that and numb that, but
ultimately without the gospel, you are just a cosmic nobody.
And so am I. But in the light of the gospel,
who are you? You're the beloved of Christ.
You are one for whom Christ died.
And so is the person sitting next to you.
What is the world in light of the gospel?
It's it's chaos. The, the evil men are in charge
and they're ruining everything and they're ruining everything.
And, and if that's all we can see and we, we fail to see that
the world as it is, is the, is the canvas upon which Christ is
going to paint his sovereign mercy, his sovereign grace.
So all of our anxiety is rooted right here that we look at God's
self for the world without Christ and we live therefore in
despair. But to look at anything, all
three of those things through the lens of Christ crucified and
raised for sinners is joy unmeasured.
Now so, so they have all of the facts of the gospel, but they
have no meaning. Now.
Watch what Jesus does for them. In verse 25, He says this
gracious but firm rebuke. He said to them, oh, foolish
ones and slow of heart to believe, I love that he gives
them that grace. It's not just that he calls them
like you, our guys are so dumb. He says you're slow of heart to
believe that the book of Exodus describes Israel in their
bondage, that Moses comes and he says, I've been sent my God to
redeem you. I'm I'm going to rescue you.
God is going to rescue you. He's heard your troubles and
he's going to rescue and. They've been enslaved for 400
years and the text says that they had they were unable to
believe the word of Moses because of their long slavery.
They just been beat down and crushed in spirit.
They could not muster the joy to to hear the promises of God and
hold the promises of God and rejoice in them.
Jesus says these guys are the same way, oh foolish ones.
And slow of heart to believe. Now watch what they're slow of
heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
Was it not necessary? Circle that word that the Christ
circle that word should suffer circle that word these things
and enter into glory. Circle the word glory necessary
Christ suffer glory. So just to think about this with
me, if we could read all of the Scriptures imaginatively, like
with a with a lens, the way that the the way that the New
Testament writers read the Old Testament.
If we could read it imaginatively, we would know
that the overwhelming mega theme of God's people is this promise
first suffering next glory to follow.
OK, wise man once said that God's favorite shape is a check
mark, right? You start here, you go down, and
then you go up higher. I think God's favorite shape is
the square root. And I don't do math, but I just
know this, this, this symbol. So a square root, right?
If you're going to draw it with a pen, you start here, you go up
a little bit, then you go down really far, then you go up
really far, and then straight over.
So amending it never the horizontal, just the continued
vector into eternity. But you start here, go down, up.
You go a little bit down, way up, super down, way high.
That's the square root. That's God's favorite shape.
And that's the purpose of or the, the the picture of the
whole Old Testament. And so think about this.
We're told that Christ begins with Moses and all the prophets.
He interpreted that in to them in all the scriptures, the
things concerning himself. He's just going through.
It's the greatest sermon ever preached.
He's going through the beginning to the end of the Old Testament
and he's saying these are the things concerning myself.
So you think about Adam, he's a perfect man in a in a garden.
And he's given a future Commission, right?
A future oriented Commission. But the problem is we're told
that he's not good alone. So he's so he's a perfect man in
a garden. He's given a command that that
goes up a little bit, but then we're told it's not good that
you're alone. And so God in a picture kills
him, breaks him, wounds his side, takes from his side a rib
that he fashions into a bride. And then he's risen from the
dead. And he's so much higher than he
was before. He's so much more now.
He has power, he has ability to be fruitful, multiply, fill the
earth, and so he receives back his self, which is his second
self, and he's better off than he ever was.
Adam and Eve, perfect in a garden, naked, unashamed,
blessed by God. So they're, so they're there.
They receive blessing from God and they become the prototype of
marriage in the picture of Christ in this church.
And then when they believe Satan, they fall out of favor,
they are expelled from the garden and they go down, down,
down, down, down until Christ takes their ultimate punishment,
their death. And then he rises from the dead
and all humanity with him. And so the human arc is is up
really far down, really far up, and then forever.
That way you think about Abraham, he receives a promise.
Abraham, Earl of the Chaldeans, right?
He receives a promise from God in Genesis 12.
God calls him out of nowhere. He goes, He gets this like
little blip of upward command of God.
I promise you, I'll bless you. I'll give you land seed
blessing. I'll make of you a great nation,
a great name in all the earth and in you all the nations of
the earth will be blessed. So he goes, he gets this promise
and then he goes so far down because in 20 years of
barrenness, this exalted father Abraham, exalted father is, is
what his name means. He has 20 years of barrenness in
the land of promise where he never acquires a square inch of
land until his wife dies and then he has to buy it.
So it's this, it's this promise first, subjection later.
And then he rises up with his with his offspring to inherit,
to inherit the, the land. So you have, you have Isaac,
right? God had promised Isaac Abraham's
20 years barren. And then he has a son of the
flesh, which is a really good thing.
Ishmael, it's a, it's a Ishmael is a blessing.
But God says, no, my covenant is not going to be through Ishmael.
It's going to be through a son from you and from Sarah.
You're going to have a son of the promise.
And so Isaac is born and God says it's not going to be my
covenant is not going to go through Ishmael.
It's going to go through Isaac. And so finally Abraham is
holding in his hand that the the, the person through whom God
is going to bless and inherit and bring about the covenant
promises. And then God says, now I want
you to take that son and I want you to go to a place called
Mount Moriah. More on that in a moment.
But I want you to go there and I want you to take your son and I
want you to take the wood of his offering and lay it on his back.
And I want you, exalted Father, to take the your son, your only
son, the son whom you love, Isaac.
And I want you to put the wood of the sacrifice on his
shoulders. And I want you to go up on Mount
Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering.
And so, and so the text tells us not New Testament, but Old
Testament texts says that they were three days journeying.
So in the mind of Abraham, the author of Hebrews tells us that
in the mind of Abraham, Isaac was as good as dead for three
days. And his conclusion was Isaac is
the son of the promise, but I've got to kill him.
And so God is going to have to raise him from the dead.
That was his faith. That's the reasoning of faith is
that Abraham said, I'm going to, I'm going to offer him up and
God is going to raise him up from the dead.
And so when they go up on to Mount Moriah, they find the
substitute. And it's not, listen to me, it's
not a lamb, it's not a baby lamb.
It's a ram caught by his horns. The text tells us the horns are
always a symbol for Kingdom, for authority, for kingship.
Think about the book of Daniel. This ram is caught in his horns
in a Bush of thorns on Mount Moriah, and and the lamb dies in
Isaac's stead, and Abraham receives Isaac back in
resurrection. So you have this, you have this
up, you have this down really far.
He thinks he's going to die. And then God raises him from the
dead. Jacob promised in the womb to
rule his brothers, to rule his brother.
The older shall serve the younger.
Jacob receives Esau's birthright and his blessing, assuring that
he would be Lord of the earth. And then he spends 21 years.
Think about this, he's promised you are going to be the covenant
son, but then he has to leave home fleeing from a fratricidic
brother. Esau was going to kill him.
So he spends 21 years in Laban's house being cheated, lied to,
humiliated and abused by his father-in-law, right?
Not exactly how you would expect the one to inherit the nations
to be treated, but he spends 21 years suffering that way and
then the end of his story, the end of Jacob's story is he's in
Egypt. His son has saved the world and
Pharaoh comes to Jacob and asks for a blessing and fulfillment
of the Abrahamic covenant that Abraham, as it were his blessing
the nation's you have Joseph given 2 dreams and of domination
when he was 17 that the fruit of his hands and the and the
essential character like his, his name, his his Kingdom is
going to be exalted above that of his brothers and his
father's. And then he spends the next 13
years enslaved, slandered in prison, forgotten, impoverished
cap. The capstone of that is he
slandered and he's thrown into the prison and he's there for a
number of for a number of years until he interprets the dreams
of two men who are who are escape from prison, one to
death, 1 to exaltation. And they forget about him not
for three, not for three days, but the text says they forget
about him for two measures of time.
For two years they forgot about him, which means on the third
year Joseph is rised up, not released from prison.
That would be awesome. Congratulations, you're now free
to go. No, we're, we're taking you out
of prison to put you on the throne and you're going to rule
the world. You're going to save the world.
So again, you have this guy who go, he gets a promise.
He goes down into the pit and he's exalted to glory.
You have David anointed as a young man, anointed as king.
He was so young. The text tells us he was
identified in the tent of his mother.
Think about this. Samuel comes to Jesse's house
and he says, call all of your sons.
So imagine if you came to my house and said, I want you to
call your sons. And I say, Eli, come here.
And I I don't even mention Judah.
It's a pretty wild thing. Like, yeah, well, he's just a
kid. He doesn't really matter.
The idea is David is identified in the tent of his mother, but
he's anointed king. And then the next story that we
read about him is he goes to battle Goliath on on the
battlefield. And when he shows up there
having been anointed king, his brother slander him.
They say that he's shirking work, that he's that he's a hot
head. David comes out onto the
battlefield. You know the story and you and
you should be able to guess it. David is identified with the
tint of his mother. Goliath is identified again and
again and again with bronze armor, bronze Nahosh, serpent,
Nahoshet. There, there he is.
If you, if we spoke Hebrew, the description of Goliath, we would
read serpent, serpent, serpent, serpent, serpent, serpent.
He's a, he's a Serpentine man, a giant.
So you have the seed of the woman, this little boy, he's
been anointed king. And you have the seed of the
serpent. And they're going to do battle.
And we, if we recognize or, or knew our Genesis 3, we would
know what's going to happen. The serpent's head is going to
be crushed. Exactly what happens.
David crushes his head, cuts his head off, but the story ends
marvelously. David takes Goliath's head and
he makes his way to Jerusalem of all places, to the very place
where Abraham brought Isaac and Isaac was substituted and his
life was spared. And David takes Goliath's head,
Goliath of Gath, which becomes through usage Galgotha, the
place of the skull, and he buries Goliath's skull in
Jerusalem. It's not that the place looked
like a skull, it was that David buried the head of Goliath there
and that's the very place where our Christ was crucified for our
sin. Christ, right?
All of these again exalt exaltation, supreme suffering
and then further exaltation to glory.
Jesus was called in the womb before he entered the womb, the
son of David, the Son of God. He was, he was called at two
years after his birth. The wise men show up and say
where is he who has been born King of the Jews.
He was declared to be the Son of God at his baptism, and then he
spends the next three years of his life in the outskirts of
Israel, only to be rejected by the Jewish leader, sold out by a
close friend, abandoned by his closest disciples and friends,
and nailed to a tree like a common thief and
insurrectionist. Think about this, the most
dignified part of the death of Christ.
If I were to ask you, what is the one thing in the death of
Christ where he where he was uncommonly dignified?
And it would be his tomb that he wasn't thrown out on the refuse
heap in Gehenna, that he was put in the tomb of a wealthy man, a
new tomb that had been cut for a wealthy man.
That's the most dignified part of his humiliation.
But then he rose up three days later to eternal dominion.
And so the question I would ask you is, why does God do it this
way? If we were writing the story,
and Paul tells us that we are, we are being transformed from 1°
of glory to the next, just like triumphalism.
I don't ever want to take a step back.
If I'm telling the story, there's no set back, there's no
loss, 1° of glory to the next. Well, two things.
Because God, by God's decree, the fundamental gesture of the
universe is death and resurrection.
That's the fundamental gesture of the story that God is telling
is death and resurrection is comedy.
It's comedy. That's what God loves to tell.
If if if we had a family movie night and I gave you three
options. You can, you can go watch Gone
with the Wind, which is sort of epic.
You can watch Of Mice and Men where where Lenny gets shot in
the back of the head tragedy. Or you can watch Nacho Libre,
Gone with the Wind, Anybody. No.
Of Mice and Men, Anybody. No.
Maybe, maybe some. No.
We would choose Nacho Libre. We would choose where this
lovable loser right kills Ramses and gets incarnation incarnacion
where he where he kills the dragon, he gets the girl, he
rescues all the orphans of the world.
Listen, there's a reason we like comedy best of all.
Comedy always ends with a wedding.
It always ends with with the lovable loser conquering the the
foe that cannot be defeated and then he gets married.
That's because we're Christians and God has seen to it that the
world is comedic. He promises that the world is
comedy. Listen to me, brothers and
sisters, the world ends well. The world ends in the defeat of
evil and in the marriage covenant of the Lord.
The second reason is because our God would not have us lose heart
even in the worst of circumstances.
This life is the closest thing to hell that a believer will
ever face. Some of us are going through
really rough times. Some of us are neutral, some of
us are in great times. But when it's at its worst, this
life is the closest thing to hell that you'll ever face.
It only gets better. It only gets better.
Sadly, the reverse is true for those outside of Christ, This
life, it's an unthinkable devastating truth.
But this life is the closest thing to heaven that they will
ever know. But but for the believer, like
as as bad as it can get, God is going to raise it up to much
greater glory. So give me please 5 more minutes
to show you something magic. So Christ is interpreting the
things concerning himself in the Scripture.
In verse 28, the text says they drew near to the village to
which they were going. So 7 miles, leisurely walk while
they're talking. We're talking about a number of
hours. And so as I beg you for five
more minutes, just be grateful that I'm not preaching for four
hours in light of the sermon that they got, that they got
theirs was much better. So they drew near to the village
in which they were going and he acted so.
So he's still playing this mystery.
He's still teasing them. He acted as if he were going
farther, but they urged him strongly, saying stay with us
for the afraid of stored evening and the day is now far spent.
And so he went in to stay with them.
And when he was at table with them, he took bread and he
blessed and broke it and gave it to them.
And their eyes were open and they recognized him.
Now this could be that as he's, this could be just the physical
act of he's been walking. They haven't noticed what's
going on, but now he grabs the bread and he lifts it up and his
sleeves fall and they see the scars and they say it's, it's
him, it's the Lord. It could be just physical.
It could also be the, the spiritual blindness that that
was put on them, that they could not recognize him.
But the text stresses and emphasizes this, that it was
when he took bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to
them. Their eyes were open and they
recognized and they recognized him in the breaking of bread, in
the feeding of his people. And then unthinkably, he
vanishes from their sight. Now just pause for a moment.
You've, you've been, you've been taught the entirety of the Old
Testament. You've seen now the meaning of
all the sacred Scripture, and the meaning is Christ who was to
be rejected, suffered, and exalted to glory.
You've seen all of that, and now you see the resurrected Christ
and he vanishes. What's the first words in your
mouth? Where did he go?
Run outside, Call him back. Where are you going?
Watch what they do in verse 32. They said to each other.
Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the
road, while he opened to us? The Scriptures they are.
They are so overwhelmed by the meaning of Scripture that they
can't even lament that Christ has gone from their presence and
watch what they do in verse 33, they rose that same hour
returned to Jerusalem. How do you like that?
That's like my friend will over here in the corner that jogs to
Taco Tuesday and then jogs home. Like who walks 7 miles just gets
there and says we, we got to go back right And so they turn and
they go back to Jerusalem same day.
They found the 11 and those who are with them gathered together
saying the Lord has risen indeed and he appeared to Simon verse
35 and then they were told what had happened on the road and how
he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Something about the breaking of the bread that causes Christ to
be known to them. So they say, did not our hearts
burn within us while he talked to us on the road when he opened
to us the scriptures? 2 things I I just learned this
week digging into this and, and I've it's the smartest human
I've ever learned from. His name is Doctor Warren Gage.
He was he's a he's a theologian. He was a practicing lawyer, like
super, super, big time Dallas mega lawyer firm.
He's really phenomenal. And he was saying that they were
taught in court. You put your when you're
building a case, you put your strongest arguments first so
that by the end you don't lose your audience.
So you put you, you start off with your strongest argument.
And so I want you to, I want you to see these these disciples are
devastated because they think that Christ is not alive.
They think that he's gone. They think that their hope is
perished. And he has at his disposal at
any moment the trump card of like, look at the scars, put
your hand here. But he doesn't do that because
that's not as good proof as the testimony of the Old Testament.
The scriptures of the Old Testament are more sure
testimony to us than the scars on his hands.
And so he takes the time to teach them the entirety of the
Old Testament. Secondly, that he leaves them,
which sounds heartbreaking until you realize that he leaves them
to ponder the scriptures that he had just taught them.
So he gives them everything they need to be fed on his, on his
rejection, on his crucifixion, and on His exaltation by leaving
them with the Scripture. So Jesus is risen.
We cannot see him. The good news is that he is
still made known to us in his word and in his sacrament.
He still reveals himself to us in the breaking of bread.
Why do we break the bread? Why do we come to the Lord's
Table every Sunday? Because and I quote.
He was made known to them in the breaking of bread, and it's
still the same way. Christ is still the living Lord
who feeds His people, and who surprises us with hope made new,
and who reveals Himself in the tending of His flock.
We are His body. He gave Himself up for us that
He might sanctify us, having cleansed us and washed us with
the water of the Word, so that He can present us back to
Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, so
that for the rest of all time Christ can nourish and cherish
us, because we are His body and we are his bride.
So can I just invite you, brother, sister, look here at
the table. See the normal bread that brings
with it, by God's grace, God's Holy Spirit, a real
participation in the body of Christ.
See the wine that by God's Holy Spirit is a real participation
in the forgiveness of sins every Lord's day of our lives.
And in the breaking of this bread and the pouring out of
this wine, we see Christ who suffered for us, that he might
rise up and enter into his glory, and that he might bring
us with him. There is no greater joy
available to man than Christ himself who has offered to you
here and now and succumb and welcome to Jesus Christ.
And we pray for us, Lord Jesus, we confess we are just like
Cleopas and the unnamed disciple that we we lose sight of and and
have not fully understood the meaning and the accomplishment
of your rejection, your crucifixion, your resurrection,
and your ascension. These are things we need help.
We need help recognizing who you are as the resurrected Lord of
the earth. And so, Lord, we ask you this
morning once again that you would reveal yourself in the
breaking of bread, that you would show yourself to us as we
come to this table together, eating the bread, drinking the
wine, remembering the broken body in the shed blood of our
Savior. So would you draw near to us?
Would you minister to us at the table?
Lord, we ask him in Jesus name, Amen.