Oh Lord God, we do bow before You, we do recognize your glory
and Your majesty and it is a joy for us to be here.
Remind us again of your blessings as we praise you this
day. We ask in your sons name, Amen.
Please be seated and if you would, grab your Bibles and turn
to Luke chapter 24. Luke chapter 24.
Before we get started today, I want to make a comment just to
express how encouraged I was over this past week in the
aftermath of the storm at how I saw many opportunities and many
people taking the opportunity to express themselves as part of
the community of God. It was wonderful to experience
that. Now I realize that we could do
better. There are perhaps people here
that did not feel touched necessarily by God's people
during that time during the struggles that followed the
storm that blew through here. But I know that so many people
have, and it's been a great blessing to be a part of a
community that has sought to draw one another together.
There is something unique about the church.
We're going to look at this in times to come.
The church is a community of grace.
Now, there's lots of communities in this world.
There's lots of neighborhoods. There's lots of reasons why
people are stuck together, but only the church is a community
of grace. Other places can be communities
of kindness and of gentleness, etcetera, etcetera.
But grace is that gift that comes from the Lord.
Grace is that which is connected to the God Himself and only this
body can be the community of grace.
And it's been a joy for me over the past week to see that
community of grace fulfilling its calling to be gracious
towards one another. I hope that you experienced
that. I hope that you had people
praying for you or that you were able to offer that assistance to
help other people during this time.
It's been a joy again to be a part of this community and see
that. I've been very grateful for
that. We are moving into a series now
on the post resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ.
Now the reason why we do that is that we have spent lots of time
and we appropriately spend lots of time talking about the life
and the teachings of Jesus. How can we possibly be a
community of of God and not speak about the teachings in the
life of Jesus? And we, very appropriately, as
the Scriptures itself do, focus a lot of our attention upon the
cross of Jesus Christ, upon his sacrifice and death there, as we
should. And of course, the story is not
complete until we talk about the resurrection.
And so we focus upon the resurrection.
That's not the end of the story, the story continues.
Jesus appearing over a period of 40 days to his disciples and
communicating some incredibly important things, basically
taking the lessons of his life, his death and his resurrection
and applying them into their lives in a really powerful and
meaningful way. What we're going to be doing is
we're going to over the next couple weeks, we're looking
specifically at those resurrect post resurrection appearances.
How did Christ appear to his disciples following the
resurrection? What did he communicate and how
does that shape and guide our faith?
Today's text out of Luke chapter 24 is perhaps one of the most
prominent or popular of those passages.
The how Jesus appears to the disciples on the road to Emmaus.
We're going to look through that today and we're going to
basically be answering the question that I think is posed
by the by the text a numerous different times.
And we're going to try to answer that question that I think is
also relevant to every person in this room.
And that's the question of how, how do we recognize Jesus?
How do we see Jesus as he truly is?
Not as we want to imagine him not, not as it's easy to
envision, not in the manner in which we imagine Jesus
comforting us or or the the nature of Jesus in our minds,
But rather, how do we see Jesus as he truly is?
How do we recognize him as he appears?
Now, if you've been a part of this fellowship for some time,
you hear us talk about things like loving Jesus, being
intimate with Jesus, walking with Jesus, drawing near to
Jesus. Now obviously these words are
metaphorical in some cases, or the imagery trying to capture is
somewhat metaphorical, but it's also real.
No less real for being metaphorical, but what does it
mean? How do we do those kind of
things? I remember very much so.
This was even before I was a Christian being very jealous for
the people who lived during Jesus's time, like why did they
get the chance to see him really and be able to tangibly touch
him and all those kind of things.
And I thought about following him around and the disciples
that would hear him speak and those kind of things and and was
jealous of them without realizing that they Jesus that
they were experiencing pre resurrection is not the Jesus
that we experienced today post resurrection.
We experienced the Lord post resurrection and a great passage
to see how this is played out and to challenge our own
understanding, to challenge our own abilities to be able to
answer that question. Do we recognize Jesus as He
really is? Do I see him as I really is, as
he really is? Or do we just worship an idea in
our own minds? We want to see the Lord as He
truly is. How can we do so?
The text begins in Luke chapter 24, verses 13 through 35.
There are 32 and we're going to look, work our way through this
text here together. Hear the word of the Lord for us
this morning in Luke chapter 24 that very day.
Now this is Sunday morning here. This is Sunday afternoon, I
guess. And so that very day here, this
references, if you have your Bibles, you can see the
immediate story before this details of resurrection.
The Sunday morning of seeing the tomb is empty.
So that very day we're shifted now a couple of hours into the
early afternoon that very day, two of them, the two of them
being the disciple, 2 disciples. They're not named here.
A little bit later on when you realize the name of one of them
is Cleopas, the other disciple is not never named, which is LED
rise given rise to the speculation that perhaps this is
Cleopas's wife that is with him. I'm somewhat sympathetic to that
perspective or speculation. But in any case, you've got 2
disciples and they're so identified earlier in the text
as followers of Jesus Christ. So we have to think of them as
those two people who have walked with Jesus Christ, who have
heard him speaking, have witnessed the sacrifice and the
death upon the cross. Two of them, we're going to a
village named Emmaus, about 7 miles from Jerusalem.
There's a number of different villages that kind of fit this
bill. They're not sure exactly which
one Jesus would have been or the text here is referencing.
But so the picture is you got 2 disciples.
This is Sunday morning. So during the Sabbath they were
not able or they were not moving around.
But now these two disciples have some business or something that
they have to get to a nearby community for.
And so they're on the road to Emmaus.
If they're moving fast, they're looking at about a two hour
walk. If you're not moving fast, they
could drag out to 3 or 4 hours, something along those lines,
kind of a trip. So they're on the way to Emmaus,
about 7 miles from Jerusalem, verse 14.
And they were talking with each other about all these things
that had happened. While they were talking and
discussing them, Jesus himself drew near and went with them,
but their eyes were kept from recognizing Him.
All right, so picture this for a second.
You've got 2 disciples that are very focused on what just took
place. That's the attention that is
upon them. They are obsessed with what has
just taken place. Their Lord and Savior remember
all the anticipation that they built up about Jesus and they
were expectant to follow Him all the way to His throne.
And so along the way, they are walking along with Jesus, or
they're walking along and Jesus comes and walks along beside
them. And the text here says that they
were kept from recognizing him. They were kept from recognizing
him. Now, what kept them or who kept
them from recognizing him? Now immediately some options
bubble into your mind. The first option being, of
course, the Satan kept them from recognizing him, as we know that
it was part of Satan's understanding of his function
and role in this world is to keep us, to prevent us from
coming to know the Lord and coming to see the Lord.
And so very clearly, it's possible that Satan is the one
that kept the disciples here from recognizing the Lord.
That's possible theoretically, etcetera.
But the text doesn't lead necessarily to understand that.
Most of the time when it's phrased along this line, this is
a passive voice. When it's phrased like this,
it's usually not Satan. And when Satan is active in the
scriptures, it you always identifies him as the source of
action. So if not Satan, what's the
other alternative? Well, God himself kept the
disciples from recognizing Jesus for God's purposes, for the
revelatory nature of what takes place later in the text.
If you know, with the storyline where we're headed, you can kind
of anticipate this. Perhaps it was God himself that
kept the disciples from recognizing him.
That's possible. I think it's also possible that
it's simply their own sin. All of us know what it's like to
be so jaded and so distorted in our vision and our hearts that
we can't see things correctly. Now.
It's hard to imagine that they are walking alongside their Lord
after walking with Him for three years or more and seeing Him
crucified, etcetera, that they can't recognize Him.
But that's the power of our unbelief.
That's the power of sin in our lives to actually do something
along those lines. So I think one of the latter 2
illustrations, either God himself, which I suspect is
probably more the way to understand it, or their own sin
has prevented them from recognizing Him.
Verse 17. And Jesus said to them, what is
this conversation that you were holding with each other as you
walk? And they stood still looking
sad. Then one of them named Cleopas
answered him and said, are you the only visitor to Jerusalem
who does not know the things that have happened here these
days? It's interesting that Cleopas,
the irony here of this is that Cleopas is the one whose eyes
are blind and yet he's accusing Jesus.
He says, do you not know what's going on here?
Can't you tell what's happening here?
And so notice what's happening. You got a picture this.
So the two disciples are talking about with each other.
They're concerned about everything that is taking place.
This third guy kind of joins them, and after a few steps, the
third guy kind of says, hey, what?
What are you guys talking about? And the two disciples, notice
what it says here in verse 17. Verse.
Is that something? Yeah, the end of verse 17.
And they stood still looking sad.
Their eyes were downcast is the way that it's articulated.
Their eyes are downcast. Once again, this imagery of what
their eyes, what your eyes are seeing.
Their eyes are downcast. They can't even look at the
third person, but they stand still when they do this.
And then Cleopas then says, are you the only guy that doesn't
know what's going on? Are you really this blind to
you? Can you not tell what's
happening here? And then Cleopas, Jesus says to
them in verse 19 what things and they said to him concerning
Jesus of Nazareth. Now, I want you to listen to
this. This is the gospel according to
Cleopas. And the gospel according to
Cleopas is a great gospel. It's a gospel message that my
guests will resonate with many people in this room.
It's a gospel message that I think a lot of people outside
this room throughout our world would recognize as the gospel,
the good news of Cleopas. What's the good news of Cleopas?
Listen carefully to it, but remember this, his eyes are
downcast, he's sad. He's got this gospel message
that he's about to proclaim and yet he's sad.
Gospel message according to Cleopas from verse 19 and
following concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a
prophet, mighty and deed and word before God and all the
people, and how our chief priests and rollers delivered
him up to be condemned to death and crucified him.
But we had hoped that he was the one who would redeem Israel.
Yes. And besides all this, it is now
the third day since these things happened.
Moreover, some of the women of our 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 a vision of angels who said that he was alive.
Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it,
just as a woman said had said, but him they did not see.
Do you hear the gospel there? Do you hear the good news?
Maybe not. What do you hear verse 19
concerning Jesus of Nazareth? The focus of Cleopas's gospel is
upon Jesus of Nazareth. What focus?
The focus that he was a prophet. Indeed.
He came from God. He is mighty indeed.
Mighty indeed is code in biblical language for the
miracles and for the life in which he lived.
He lived this great miracle life.
He was mighty and word of God before the Lord.
He was mighty before all the people.
In other words, this is the man that is well respected.
He is in awe there. There's great reason to respect
him and to look up to him, to appreciate his teachings, to
appreciate his lifestyle, even to appreciate his his miracles
that he took place, to acknowledge these kind of
things, to realize that this was a man of God.
This is Cleopus's gospel. Not only that, but he also
recognized, recognizes the oppression that took that Jesus
suffered through the opposition that he had and the fact that he
was speaking to power and how power came and crashed down upon
him, even leading to his own death.
Plus they recognize that his body is missing.
Clipa says, look, the women went to the term tomb.
They couldn't find his body. It was missing.
The tomb is not filled right now.
There's this, there's this gap that we don't know what took
place to Jesus and this gospel message talking about this
wonderful teaching, this wonderful, glorious, amazing man
that did all these glorious and wonderful things, this honorable
person that everybody would respect, nevertheless leaves
Cleopas and his partner downcast and crushed.
That's not good news at all. What are they missing?
Clearly I've set it up hopefully enough that you know the answer
to that question. Clearly, there's no faith in the
resurrection. There's no faith in the
resurrection. Cleopas understands that this is
a good man, understands that this is a good teacher,
understand that this is somebody special from God and understands
all the marvelous things, even the suffering that he went
through, the sacrifice of his own life.
He understands all of those. But separated from the
resurrection, you get a gospel that is no gospel at all.
It is not good news. It leaves you downcast.
Why? Because it leaves you in your
sin. What the resurrection is is that
vindication of the sacrifice of our Lord, that God has accepted
from Christ the punishment for our sins so that we are not to
be held accountable for our sin. But rather than that, guilt has
been transferred onto Jesus Christ.
Apart from the resurrection, there's no assurance of that.
There's no comfort of that. There's no nothing for us.
And so you have a world out here and we have many people in here
that are comfortable thinking of Jesus as a good teacher, as a
wonderful life that I want to emulate, as a model that I want
to follow. They're they're happy with all
of that. But the resurrection is just one
miracle too far because we've never seen such a thing.
And consequently we have a gospel that in the end is no
gospel at all. Separate the gospel from Jesus
Christ and Cleopas's gospel is simply not good news.
Mark continues, then says this. Then Jesus says to them in verse
25, O foolish ones and slow of heart, to believe all that the
prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the
Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?
And beginning with Moses and all of the prophets, he interpreted
to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself,
Jesus says to the disciples. So they're walking along.
This third guy suddenly says, You foolish ones.
Now there's some question in scholars minds about how harsh
of a rebuke this is. Is this a you foolish ones?
If I call you foolish, the chances are I'm rebuking you
pretty strongly. OK, Even if I like you, I
probably am not going to call you a fool unless I really mean
it that way. And indeed, in Jesus time, to be
a fool was not to be intellectually deficient.
It was not to be immature. To be a fool was to be was to
embrace unbelief. To embrace unbelief, that's what
it means to be a fool. And that's exactly what Jesus is
accusing these two disciples of doing.
They're embracing unbelief. You can see it laid out very
clearly in the very next or in the end of that verse.
Oh, foolish ones, slow of heart. Look at verse 25.
Slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
Slow of heart to believe what? Not to believe in the
resurrection. That's not what he accuses of
them. He doesn't accuse them of being
slow of heart to believe the words of Jesus.
What does he say? Slow of heart to believe the
Word of God Scripture. That's what Jesus is frustrated
with their foolishness for disregarding the scriptures, not
for being overcome by the nature of the resurrection or anything
like that, but simply by virtue of the fact that they did not
understand the scriptures. What did they not understand
about the scriptures? How do we now who here says that
we can understand the scriptures?
I mean, the Scriptures are tough.
Well, listen to how Jesus describes it, verse 26.
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these
things and enter into his glory? That's Jesus's shorthand for the
Scripture. All the Old Testament, all the
New Testament is summarized in that statement.
It's necessary for Christ to suffer and to enter into His
glory. And if you read the Scriptures
and understand the Scriptures that way, then you've ceased to
be foolish. You are a man or woman of
belief. That's what Jesus is
articulating here. And then beginning with Moses
and all of the prophets, Jesus interpreted to them all the
scriptures, the things concerning himself.
Can you imagine this Bible study?
This is a great Kelly mocks me occasionally because when I get
home from driving around, I listen to lectures or books or
something like that in my car. And so I sit in the garage for,
you know, short periods of time and listen to the end of a
lecture. I just sit in the car and listen
to the lecture go. I never want I don't want it to
end. This Bible study.
Can you imagine? Looking through all of the
scriptures and seeing how it all concerns himself.
The heel that stomped on Satan's head, that was Jesus's.
The lamb that is caught in the thicket, that is Jesus.
The ark that save Noah and the family, that is Jesus.
The priests who offer the sacrifices, that is Jesus.
The great high priest that stands and offers himself, that
is Jesus. The prophet that is coming, that
is Jesus. The suffering servant in Isaiah,
that is Jesus. The wisdom of God, that is
Jesus. The kings who roll over
Jerusalem, that is Jesus. The sacrifice of their own life,
or the offer of sacrifice from Moses and of David and of
Deborah and the other leaders of Israel, that is the conquering
of Jerusalem and the conquering of Canaan land as a whole, that
is Jesus. The whole Scriptures all point
to one thing, Jesus Christ. And what about him that he would
suffer and that he would be raised into glory.
This is the scriptures. Can you imagine this Bible study
that that the that these two disciples are getting along
their way in verse 18, Sorry, verse 28, verse 28.
And so they drew near to the village where they were going.
And again, I can just imagine them really we're getting close
and this Bible study is so great.
Let's walk a little slower here, you know, as a because they
don't want it to end. They never want it to end here.
They're getting the greatest insight in which they can possum
when they drew near to the Jesus acted as if he was going
further. Jesus acted like he was going to
continue on. Now why is that?
Nobody's really quite sure why Jesus did this.
I tend to think it was so that he could provide the disciples
with an opportunity to act in faith, step out and do something
in faith because of all this and what you've been hearing.
They urged him strongly. The words are that, you know,
they laid hands on him almost just short of that.
You know, they urged him strongly, urged him strongly,
saying stay with us, for it is towards the evening and the day
is now spent. So Jesus went in to stay with
them. So Jesus, you know that they
like, please don't stop talking. Come in with us, sit with us.
You don't want to continue on in your wherever you're going, stay
here with us. So they stay there with us.
Verse 30, when Jesus was at the table with them.
Jesus is the guest. It is highly rude for the guest.
OK, here's the thing. I'm a preacher.
And so at every meal, guess who prays?
You know, I, I, I pray. But you know what?
When I go to your house, when you invite me to your house, go
ahead and do that someday and provide a meal for me.
Go ahead and do that someday. And I am not going to say, hey,
I'm going to go ahead and pray. Now.
I'm never going to do that. You know what I'm going to wait
for? I'm going to wait for you to
pray, which means we're going to wait a long time.
Or rather, what I'm going to wait for is for you to say to
me, Henry, would you pray? OK, Because why?
Because I'm your guest, and as the guest, I'm waiting for you
to take the initiative. And if you ask me to pray, I'll
do that. But I'm just as happy because
I'm the guest. I'm not the host here.
What does Jesus do in verse 30? When he came to the table with
them, Jesus took the bread. Jesus broke it, blessed it and
broke it, and he gave it to them.
And everybody's mind is ringing, of course, because this is
exactly what Cleopas and his partner experienced at the Last
Supper. Jesus is modeling the very Last
Supper for us. Now, what I want you to do is to
take an imaginary loaf of bread in your hands.
And I can see if you're doing this or not.
So take imaginary loaf of bread in your hands.
Thank you. OK, now break it.
Some of you still aren't doing it.
Break it and give it to the person next to you.
Give it to the person next to you.
Look at the person next to you. What?
What do you see when you look at the person next to you?
OK, stop playing now. OK, just look at me.
All right. Now if I break the bread and I
give it to you, what are you looking at?
What do you see when you take the bread?
You see the hands, you see the wrists, What do you see?
You see the crucified body of Jesus Christ.
What did the disciples see when Jesus broke the bread and he
gave it to them? They see the crucified Lord
standing before them. And So what are we told?
Verse 31? Then their eyes were opened and
they recognized Him. Their eyes were opened and they
recognized Him, and then he vanished from their sight.
And 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, did our hearts not
burn within us? How do you see Jesus as He truly
is? How do you recognize Him for who
He really is? Not your figment of your own
imagination, not your wish fulfillment, but for Jesus as He
truly is. There are two things that the
Lord has granted to us that are played out right here that need
to dominate your life. The Word and sacrament.
While they're walking along the
road, Jesus is portraying the Word, showing how everything
points to Him, and they are swept up in it.
Their hearts are burning. How?
Have you ever been in a Bible study?
Have you ever listened to somebody else's sermons and felt
that burning in your heart about what's going on here?
That's what happens when you open yourself to the Word now,
not to memorize facts or to but to see Christ crucified and to
see him glorified. That's the point of Scripture.
That's what he says about it, that it all focuses upon Him to
see his glory and his suffering. That's the text.
That's the point of the text. The Word burns within us.
And the sacrament. What is the sacrament?
OK, the word supper. We're about to experience it
here in a few seconds, but it is a physical, tangible way of
experiencing the grace of God. A physical, tangible way of
experiencing the grace of God. In other words, it is not just
the Word of God. It is the Word of God and the
love of God that come together in your life to come together in
your witness to everybody else that come together as we express
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is the Scriptures. It is God's love and it is not
sufficient to give one without the other.
It is not sufficient to give one without the other.
There are some of you that are desperately trying to win your
family members or your neighbors to Christ by loving them.
Please. You can't do it without that,
but you can't do it without the word of God.
There's a great story of a missionary.
Do I have time for this? No, but I'm going to anyway.
There's a great story of a missionary who worked in a tribe
that was that. That was vegans.
They were all vegans. What's the word vegetarian?
Thank you. They were all vegetarians.
And he says, I am not going to share.
I am not going to verbalize the gospel until somebody asked me
about it. I'm going to love these people
into the Lord. I'm going to love them so much
that they're all going to come to me and say, why do you love
us so much? And I'm going to be able to
share the Jesus Christ with them.
Seven years later, nobody has ever come to him.
Finally somebody comes to him and says, I've really got a
question for you about your life.
And he thinks to himself, finally, years of loving these
people, I'm going to be able to share the gospel message.
And they say to him, are you a vegan?
You vegetarian? Because they've misunderstood
the love that they've poured out because it has not been tied to
the scriptures. But you just can't give them the
Scriptures. The scriptures need the tangible
expression of the Word of God. Their hearts were burning within
them and they still didn't recognize them.
Their hearts were burning within them until they see the nail
hands, the nail holes in the hands, until they see the love
of God that is tangibly expressed to them.
This is what God does for everyone of you every day.
He expresses. He gives you that opportunity to
have your heartburn within you because you're reading the
scriptures well and He has placed you within a community
and He's placed you in a world where you have the opportunities
to demonstrate and to receive the love of God so you see Him
so that your eyes may be opened. Lord, may our eyes be opened.
May we see you as you truly are. May our hearts burn within us
when we are exposed to the Scriptures.
May we experience your presence at the sacrament.
May we be taken by the love that you demonstrate for us each and
every day. Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
we pray. Amen.