Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Luke 24:13-35: Are You Walking with Jesus?
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever been excited by great hopes and
then been terribly disappointed?
Life was exciting and good and great success
was just around the corner, when suddenly all your hopes turned to ashes. Your
heart was broken.
This story is about such an event.
I. Here is the story. It was afternoon of Resurrection
Day:
A. That
very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles
from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had
happened. 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 which you are holding with each
other as you walk?”
And
they stood still, looking sad.
Then
one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to
Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”
And
he said to them, “What things?”
And
they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in
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 had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this,
it is now the third day since this happened.
“Moreover,
some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning
and did not find his body; and 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 the women had said; but him they did not
see” (Luke 24:13-24).
B. These two friends of Jesus had followed
Jesus and learned to love him.
They had heard the teaching of the Sermon on
the Mount. They had seen his miracles. They had heard his parables.
Cleopas and his companion were not among the
12 disciples Jesus had especially chosen.
But they were two of many other disciples
besides the 12 who had given up everything to follow Jesus. You know Jesus had
many disciples—men and women—who didn’t belong to the 12 who are named in the
gospels.
Perhaps they had been among the 70 disciples
that Jesus had sent out on a mission trip.
They had been among those who welcomed Jesus
on Palm Sunday, waving their palm branches as he rode on the donkey into
Jerusalem amid the Hosannas of the people.
They saw in him the promised Messiah who
would bring peace and justice into the world.
They were convinced that in Jesus all their
hopes and dreams would come true.
(I want to put in here that—along with many
scholars—I am satisfied that the second disciple was Cleopas’s wife, whose name
was Mary. They note that a Mary Clopas was with Mary Magdalene and Mary, our Lord's mother at the foot of the cross, according to John 19:25. But whether her name was Mary or not, they lived in the same house in Emmaus, so they must have been man and wife.)
C. Cleopas and Mary remembered the prophecies
about the Messiah, such as this one in Isaiah (Isaiah 32:1-2, 16-17):
Behold,
a king will reign in righteousness,
and
princes will rule in justice.
Each
will be like a hiding place from the wind,
a
covert from the tempest,
like
streams of water in a dry place,
like the shade of a great rock in a weary land…
Then
justice will dwell in the wilderness,
and
righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
And
the effect of righteousness will be peace,
and
the result of righteousness,
quietness
and trust for ever.
They had been convinced that Jesus was the
Messiah, and he had fulfilled these prophecies.
But they had been proved wrong!
The one they had trusted and followed was
taken and killed—not only killed but condemned as a criminal, and put to the
most shameful, disgraceful death imaginable.
They had read in their Bible: “A hanged man is cursed by God”
(Deuteronomy 21:23).
That contradicted everything they had ever
believed about the Messiah.
It was inconceivable that the Messiah could
die! And Jesus had not only died but he had died under a curse.
They were trying to come to terms with the
greatest tragedy they could imagine.
And that’s why they were so sad—so perplexed.
That’s why they were deep in conversation.
They were trying to make sense of something that made no sense.
D. One would suppose that they would have
been thrilled by the report of the women that they had seen Jesus alive. But
this tale seemed to actually increase their confusion.
What had the women seen? A ghost? A vision?
They had heard of ghosts and visions.
But they couldn’t conceive of a dead Messiah
come back to life.
And the angel? Had the women really seen an
angel? And if Jesus was alive, where was he?
II. We continue the story:
A. And
Jesus said to them “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 the
prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning
himself (Luke 24:25-27).
B. We don’t know all the scriptures Jesus
quoted for them. But we know one of them for sure. It was in the book of the
prophet Isaiah, the place where Isaiah speaks most directly about the Messiah
as the Suffering Servant.
We read some of these words in our Call to
Worship:
He
was wounded for our transgressions,
he
was bruised for our iniquities
upon
him was the chastisement that made us whole,
and
with his stripes we are healed.
The Stranger explained to Cleopas and Mary how
all the books of the Hebrew Bible testified to Jesus, the Messiah.
He showed them from their Bible that Jesus
was the descendant of Abraham in whom all the nations would be blessed.
He told how offerings their priests offered
at their Temple pointed to Christ’s death.
He told them how the psalmists spoke of
Christ when they said things like “The
Lord is my Shepherd.”
He told them that Jesus was the one Isaiah
spoke of when he said, “Behold to us a
child is born…and his name shall be called Immanuel, which means “God with us.”
He told them how Jesus had fulfilled the
mission of Israel, to be a “light for
the nations.”
He showed them how Daniel pointed to Christ
when he said that to him was to be given dominion and glory and a kingdom that
would never pass away.
III. Now to finish the story:
A. So
they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going
further, but they constrained him saying, saying, “Abide with us, for it is
toward evening and the day is now far spent.”
So
he went in to stay with them.
When
he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and
gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he
vanished out of their sight.
They
said to teach other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us
on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?”
And
they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven
gathered together and those who were with them, who said, “The Lord has risen
indeed, and has appeared to Simon!”
Then
they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the
breaking of the bread (Luke
24:28-35).
B. Luke is famous for his references to
dinners that Jesus ate with his friends.
Luke tells of 12 times when Jesus sat down
with his disciples or friends or others for dinner.
And that doesn’t count the feeding of the
5000 and the Last Supper and two dinners Jesus told about in his parables.
At this dinner in Emmaus, Jesus took the part
of master of the feast. He lifted up the bread and blessed God. They suddenly
recognized their guest as Jesus, and he vanished out of their sight.
We don’t know why they hadn’t recognized him
before. It only says, “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”
Perhaps as he raised the bread say the
blessing they saw the nail prints in his hands.
Perhaps it was his special way of saying the
blessing that revealed who he was.
We don’t read whether they finished their
dinner or not after they recognized Jesus and he disappeared. But as soon as
they could, they walked as fast as they could the 7 miles back to Jerusalem to
tell their story to the apostles.
APPLICATION
Jesus did not rise from the dead to sit in
heaven and wait for us to join him there.
Jesus rose from the dead so that he could
walk with us through life, so that he could be our companion and friend.
As we go on our journey through life, Jesus
wants to accompany us.
As we walk with him through the ups and downs
of life, he opens our hearts to understand the scriptures.
As we read our Bibles, as we pray, as we worship
in church, as we enjoy the companionship of other believers—Jesus speaks to us,
down deep in our hearts.
He joins us in our joys…and in our sorrows…He
keeps telling us he loves us and everything is going to be all right.
He shows us our way…He teaches us how to
live…
He promises us a glorious future with him in
his Father’s House.
Reflecting on their experience, Cleopas and his
wife 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?”
I can hear Cleopas telling Mary: “Didn’t it
make your heart glow the way he opened to us the scriptures to us?”
And Mary said, “It was exciting to hear the
Bible come alive like that. I never realized that our entire Bible was about
Jesus.”
CONCLUSION
In an article in The Christian Century, April 7, 1999, Pastor Susan Andrews tells
the story of Michael, a young Jew who was a faithful participant in the Bible
studies at her church.
Although not yet a Christian, Michael had a
deep interest in God and an understanding of theology.
Michael’s wife was a Christian, and when
their baby daughter was born, they had a decision to make. Would they have
their baby baptized?
After much soul searching, they decided that
yes they should, and Michael stood up with his wife and child and made promises
for their little daughter.
Michael continued to hunger for the Word, and
one day he asked to be baptized also. He was ready to follow Jesus.
The pastor explains what happened this way:
Because he had studied the gospels, his heart had begun to burn. In powerful
ways, the Jesus described in the Bible had begun to get up off the pages and
walk out into the world with him. Jesus had become Michael’s traveling
companion in the journey of his daily life.
Michael had been on the Emmaus journey with
the risen Jesus. His heart was set on fire as he came to know Jesus as his
Companion and Guide.
The walk to Emmaus is an historical event,
but it is also a parable.
As we study and meditate on the stories of
Jesus, we meet our Savior.
Our hearts begin to burn …
And as we give ourselves to Jesus, he gets up
off of the pages of the Holy Book and walks with us—all the way to the end—even
through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and beyond into a glorious eternity
with Jesus our Friend.
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