Resurrection Sunday, 2016-On the Road to Emmaus – Luke 24:13-35

Good resurrection morning. As I look at, here we have a listing of the appearances of Christ. Now this is the appearances, this doesn't list those who saw the open tomb and that sort of thing. But as I look at this, I just kind of chuckle. The Lord's sense of humor and things.

The Jewish culture of the New Testament era placed no confidence in the word of women. Women were not permitted to give testimony in a court. Their word was completely discounted. And yet, who first came to the empty tomb? It was the women, and we'll be taking a look at that in more detail. The very first one to see Christ resurrected was Mary Magdalene. And so God chose women. And then the second ones to see Him were the women returning from the tomb, Matthew 28, 9 and 10. And then to Peter, who had not too long before denied that he ever knew Him, right?

So I see the Lord's humor in these things, and we find here to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and that's what we'll be taking a look at here after some preliminary looks at other things. We have then the subsequent appearances over a period of 40 days, and so we'll look at this one at the road to Emmaus, the two disciples there, and even that I find humorous in the way the Lord carried it out. To think about it, this is kind of the calendar of the Lord's resurrection appearances.

So Sunday would be the first day. Sunday as we call it. They didn't use those Day of the Week names in biblical times. So the first day of the week. So here would be Sunday would be the first day, and then you'd have the count of 40 days until Christ ascended.

So it would be over that period of time. And it wasn't necessarily evenly spread, and it wasn't necessarily every single day. Sometimes, as we see this first day, there are multiple appearances within one day. And other times, days would go by before the next appearance. So, at any rate, just to kind of get some perspective on it, on what that looked like.

Also to get a perspective on the week before Christ was crucified, this is... kind of the picture of what took place at each place, and this is a traditional chronology. This isn't accepted, I think, by just tradition. There are those who argue, for example, for a Thursday crucifixion and even a Wednesday crucifixion I've looked at. I think after looking at it real carefully, the traditional chronology that Christ was crucified on what we would call a Friday is correct. And so you have the Friday before Christ was crucified.

That was where he met Zacchaeus in Jericho and had a meal with him on that day. And then on Saturday was when Lazarus was resurrected. And by the way, Christ knew that Lazarus was going to die, right? And he held back and then went. Why? so that he could show his resurrection power. Then there was the triumphal entry, the week before he was resurrected, on a Sunday. And then Monday, drove out the money changers. Of course, that got everybody all excited, right? So he drove out the money changers, and this was not the first time he'd driven out money changers. So this was at least the second time, possibly more.

Tuesday is what's called the Olivet Discourse. It's the discourse given in chapters 24 and 25 of the book of Matthew and recorded similarly elsewhere. This is where Jesus talks about the coming tribulation period and he talks about the judgments in chapter 25 at the end of that tribulation period. On Wednesday he goes to the temple in Jerusalem And then on Thursday is what we call the Last Supper. That evening He sends the disciples ahead to look for a man carrying water. Well, in that culture, men didn't carry water, right? So you find a guy, you know, standing out. So that was the evening of the Last Supper. Of course, he had hours left.

It was that evening that he said what is recorded in John chapter 14, and then 15, as we looked at last Sunday, and then chapter 16. You have then the Garden of Gethsemane, where they headed off at the end of chapter 14. Jesus said, come, let's go from here. So they headed off towards the Garden of Gethsemane there. And then Friday is the crucifixion and burial before sundown.

Interestingly enough, Jesus was given a poor man's criminal death, but buried like a king, only to be buried and then resurrected a couple days later. So we have then in the grave, in the grave is when the Jews went to the Romans, went to Pilate and said, hey, we're afraid somebody's going to do something with this body here. They talked about Jesus coming up on the third day and things like that. So set a guard, a custodia is what they had, 12 to 16 soldiers taking shifts, three or four at a time. and standing in front of this gravestone, it was said it was a large one, in a newly carved grave, and then taking shifts and keeping anyone from disturbing the body. Well, that didn't keep the grave closed or keep Jesus from coming out, because the resurrection was Sunday, and the guards failed.

And then they had a story to tell, right? So now, we have Luke 24, 13 and 14, and it says, Behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things which had taken place. So this name Emmaus means warm springs.

Nine different locations have been proposed for which village that was. Some of it gets dropped out because seven the mile distance eliminates some of those from consideration that are either closer or farther away. So it's not a problem that we don't, we can't find a biblical Emmaus. The problem is there are too many candidates. And so anyway, possibilities. Here is Israel in New Testament times, and they would have gone from Jerusalem there toward Emmaus, and then looking at it, probably somewhere in this area, as is identified there on the map, an approximate location, with different candidates.

Now, the other thing, looking at this, on the day that Christ was raised from the dead, Jewish families had just celebrated Passover, And this was a Thursday night celebration, but actually Passover continued on till the next day, right? Then the next day would have been called the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which would go on for a week. And then right after that would be the first fruits. So that would be the sequence that they would carry this out. So you have it on your handout there. The first day would be Passover. The Passover lamb is slain. What they celebrated when they celebrated Passover was on the evening before, right? Thursday night. So this would be Friday.

Christ is crucified and buried. We call that the first day of the three days. The evidence is lining up more and more that this was April 3rd, 33 AD. That's the precise date. even to the point of a geologist determining that there was an earthquake on April 3rd, 33 AD. So that particular date.

They would have buried Christ before sundown, according to Jewish tradition. You get that done. Get the bodies off the crosses and then bury Christ before sundown. A hundred pounds of aloes and spices. That's why I said it's a king's burial. Ordinarily it would be some fraction of that.

So then the next day would be the day that the Roman soldiers would come up there. They'd have a Roman official come up and put the seal of Rome on the large stone that's there. This was at the edge of a quarry, more towards the middle of the quarry is where Golgotha was located. And so the Roman soldiers were set guard there.

Of course, they weren't expecting angels to come. And you can imagine, you sort of think, all right, here's Roman guards. These angels come. Maybe they even tried to stab them and slice them and nothing happened. I don't know. But they eventually gave up. So here is this second day. And other than setting a guard there, nothing is happening yet.

So here it is on the Day of Firstfruits. That's what the Jews were celebrating, the Day of Firstfruits. And on that day, Christ is raised. It would be the third day, April 5, 33 AD. Again, that's lining up more and more like that is the specific day. And so that would be the Firstfruits, and that's why the Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 15, refers to Christ as the Firstfruits. of those who are asleep, right? That's the day when after the women come and say, hey, the tomb is empty. Now, nobody's seen Jesus, right? The tomb is empty. And so the women come and say, hey, you know, there's no body there. There's nothing there. The tomb is open.

And the soldiers are gone. And so John and Peter go running And they look, and the tomb is empty. And guess what happens? Do they then go run back to everybody? You know what they do after they see the empty tomb? They go home. Isn't that weird? They go home. What a strange reaction. I mean, wouldn't you go... No, they just went home.

Okay, so here we are at the road to Emmaus, okay? Here we are at this point with these guys, and we see that they're just starting off on the journey back to the village of Emmaus from Jerusalem. They've just been with the disciples, and everybody's confused, just feeling horrible, feeling like, what just happened? Here they are on the road to Emmaus, and we begin seeing that. Here's Luke 24, 15 through 17, and while they were talking and discussing, so here's two, right? Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them.

This is where I look at it, and I think, well, certainly this is a serious event, but there's also a certain sense of humor in it too, right? Jesus doesn't come up and say, hey, I'm Jesus! I resurrected this morning! Right? Instead, He comes up and it says that their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. Very interesting.

And he said to them, what are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking? And they stood still. So what happens, they were walking along, and as soon as he said, what are these words, they go, oh, and they just completely They lost any even thought of walking. Now, realize these are probably men, and they can't walk and think at the same time. Anyway, but they stood still, looking sad. So he comes alongside them.

So the two disciples' great disappointment was so severe, they literally stopped walking for a moment and took on gloomy and deeply saddened appearance. So here they are, and, you know, what are you talking about? The tires, all four, just went flat, right? Alright. The two disciples' great disappointment was so severe, they stopped walking for a minute. took on a gloomy and saddened appearance.

They were just in shock. So, you might be wondering after reading this account, why Jesus didn't come up to these two disciples and say, hey, I'm Jesus, right? And I just got resurrected. So why didn't He just do that? Well, one thing you've got to remember, We're told a number of times in all four Gospels, multiple times, that the disciples did not get the death and resurrection of Christ.

He told them they didn't get it. Matthew lists multiple times. Mark lists multiple times. Luke lists multiple times, even to the point of saying the same thing, and they didn't get it, and they didn't understand, and basically we'll put it this way, they hadn't a clue, right? And even John lists they didn't get it. So all four Gospels multiple times say the disciples didn't get it. Even Matthew and John who were disciples said we didn't get it, right? That's a Vern joke, okay.

Alright. So, why didn't the disciples understand? Nancy's even shaking her head. Okay. Why didn't the disciples understand? I mean, because you see there, multiple times, all four Gospels saying they don't understand. So why didn't they get it? Alright. So let's take a look at that. Why didn't Jesus just tell them plainly, right? And then they'd get it, right? Let's sit down and explain it, okay?

He had, in fact, told them repeatedly before what would happen, and they just didn't seem to get it. And there are two reasons, primarily, why they didn't understand. They had teachings and expectations that were in the way of their understanding. They had teachings and expectations that were in the way of their understanding. We'll talk about that in a minute here.

So those teachings and expectations that they'd been brought up with kept them from hearing and understanding what was about to take place. Secondly, they were not yet given the Holy Spirit who would lead them into the truth. So they didn't have the Holy Spirit's ministry leading them into the truth and revealing things to them and bringing, as Jesus said, bringing to remembrance all the things that He said. So they just didn't have that ministry of the Holy Spirit either. So between their background, everything they'd been taught was true, and the lack of the Holy Spirit, they just didn't get it.

So here is Luke 24.18.

One of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to him, Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days? Right? What? Yeah, this guy is like, wow, incredulous. And of course, does Christ know what's been going on? Yes, he went through it, right?

Okay, so according to Christian tradition, and this was only one tradition, Cleopas was Jesus' uncle and Joseph's brother. He might have been the husband of Mary, the wife of Clopas. might have been, a variant spelling of the same name who was present at Jesus' crucifixion. So, relatives, possibly. This identification is not certain, however, so it's not something we should count on, but it could be the case. So here's Luke 24, 19 and 21, and he said to them, wink, wink, wink, what things? All right.

And they said to him, the things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet, mighty indeed in word and the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened. leads us to conclude this is what we call Sunday, the first day of the week. So, what they said here was quite revealing in how they couched it. What they said tells us that they thought Jesus was Jesus the Nazarene who was a prophet. Mighty indeed. Was he a prophet? Yeah. Was he only a prophet?

No. And so it was very revealing about what they thought was going on there. Also, they said it was the third day since these things happened, so that gives us a good time clock there. It very likely means Jesus was resurrected earlier that very same day. I mean, that would fit the facts here. So you get the perspective. So to them, it's just been a couple of days since Jesus was crucified, which was just stunning and shocking to them. Verse 24 also seems to confirm that this event took place the very day Christ was raised.

Now, what about this redeem Israel? What does that mean? Here's Exodus 6, 6 and 7. It says, Say therefore to the sons of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. So redeeming Israel is getting Israel out of trouble. That's what they were looking at there. In verse 7, it says, Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

And so what's God going to do miraculous things, including parting the sea and then putting it back to where it was as the Egyptians get down into this place of the parting of the sea. He's going to have the cloud by day and the fire by night. He's going to provide manna. He's going to do miraculous things. All those plagues upon Egypt, He's going to do miraculous things to redeem Israel, to get Israel out of the trouble that it's in.

In 2 Samuel 7.23, here's what it means to redeem Israel. "...What one nation on the earth is like your people Israel, whom God went to redeem for Himself as a people, and to make a name for Himself, and to do a great thing for you, and awesome things for your land, before your people whom you have redeemed for yourself from Egypt, from nations and their gods." They get Israel out of the trouble it's in.

Gideon was called by God to redeem Israel. Matter of fact, we tried to visit the place where Gideon was, where he did that drinking test. That's when Courtney showed his tremendous knowledge of Hebrew. But Gideon was the one that God called and said, hey, I'm going to have you redeem Israel.

And he pointed back to God getting the Israelites out of Egypt. He pointed back to that. And I'm going to have you redeem Israel to get Israel out of the trouble that it's in. Psalm 25, 22, redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles. So that's telling you what redeem Israel means. So, now, this is very revealing. We were hoping. Now, it's very, very revealing. All of our joys and our disappointments do flow from our hopes and our expectations. Got that? Our hopes and expectations determine our joys and our disappointments.

Oh, this didn't happen. And so this whole thing of Jesus dying on the cross, being buried, terribly confusing. And no expectation that he's going to be resurrected. None. Notice that these disciples expressed their hope in the past tense. We were hoping. If these disciples had been around, and of course, especially if they're actually relatives, They'd been hoping for several years now that Christ would be the one who would redeem Israel. We were hoping. They were hoping that Jesus would be the one to free the people of Israel from Roman rule.

And that's a biggie. Imagine under Roman rule you have these, and they would say these filthy pig-eating Romans, right? They eat wrong, they dress wrong, they talk wrong, they do everything wrong, right? And these guys are running the show here. And you've got guys from the Jews that are acting as tax collectors for these filthy pig-eating Romans.

And they were sick, they were desperate, and under Herod, and Herod's descendants, they were paying huge taxes, huge taxes. When they finally shut down the upgrade at the temple under Herod, they laid off 18,000 men. Now, to have that many in a small country like Israel, you've got to be paying a lot of taxes. So they paid heavy, heavy taxes.

They thought their hope was ended at the cross, but in fact, hope only begins there. See that? Their hope was reversed. It was upside down. They thought that hope was ended. There's the one that we had all our hopes in, to redeem Israel, and now He's up on the cross, and He's going to die. And we saw Him die, and they put Him in the to Him and it was terrible. Our hopes have been dashed. Now it's not going to happen. He's not going to redeem Israel. This is horrible, awful news.

You can imagine their mindset. The reality is, hope begins at the cross. Everything that has to happen at the cross, starting with paying for our sins, but everything that has to happen at the cross is how hope begins at the cross, not ends. They just didn't realize it. They had no idea.

One of the things to understand is how the Jews taught two Messiahs. In looking at Isaiah 52 and 53, So many centuries ago, the rabbis viewed the Old Testament as teaching that there would be two messiahs. Messiah ben Joseph, that's the suffering, and by the way, Messiah ben Joseph is named after Joseph, the son of Jacob, who went through a lot of suffering before he was given a position as a ruler, who would suffer and die, and that was Isaiah 52.13 to 53.12. That was the suffering Messiah, Messiah Ben-Joseph. The other was Messiah Ben-David, the son of David, who would reign. So they saw Him as two separate Messiahs, and Messiah Ben-David was by far the more publicly taught and anticipated, and especially if you want the Romans off your back. Right? So we'll talk about that because that's the one we really need, the other one we don't quite understand. Among the Jews, the popular thought was put all your focus on Messiah ben David. And who is he? And I sure hope he's coming now. Right?

Messiah ben Joseph was seen as being in this Isaiah 52, 13 to 53, 12. Here's how they thought. They thought that Messiah Ben David would come and resurrect Messiah Ben Joseph. Two separate messiahs. So they had those mixed up. So when Jesus was crucified, it just made no sense to them at all because they saw him as two separate people. So it was the Pharisees who saw in the Old Testament the two messiahs with Messiah Ben David raising Messiah Ben Joseph from the dead as two in sequence and not one person.

Are you the Messiah? And of course, everybody's focused on, I want the Messiah that's going to kick the Romans out of here. Right? That's the one. But if there's any consciousness about Messiah ben Joseph, well, Messiah ben David is going to resurrect him anyway. Since the Pharisees were the champions of the two Messiahs' teaching, they were expecting Messiahs who would be very supportive of them. Of course the Messiah is going to love us, right? That was their mentality.

And so since Jesus didn't seem to embrace everything, but in fact seemed to rebuke them, that was all the more reason for them to say, oh, well, you can't possibly be the Messiah. Jesus was not supportive. They didn't see a good fit. And the more He rebuked them for different things, like telling parables where they went to hell, They didn't like that. And they think, you can't possibly be the Messiah.

Here's Luke 24, 22-24, But also some women among us amazed us. And when they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. But they're women. Verse 24, Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just exactly as the woman also had said, but him they didn't see. Here are the women as reported by each of the four Gospels who came to the tomb. The one that we have in common across all four Gospels is Mary Magdalene. Magdalene meaning she was from Magdala, the town of Magdala.

Matthew 28.1 says also the other Mary was present.

Mark 16.1 says, marry the mother of James, as did Luke 24.10.

And then we have additionally from Mark, Solome, and then Joanna, and then in fact in Luke 24.10 and others. So a number of women, at the core of which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James, and then these others.

So, Salome possibly was the mother of Zebedee's sons. This is the one who would have come to Jesus and said, hey, can my sons rule in the kingdom, one on the right and one on the left? You pick, just one of them, right? You pick which one goes on the left, which one goes on the right, we'll let you do that, but we'd like you to give them those special honors. And this would be the sister of Mary, Jesus' mother.

So Joanna was likely the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, a court steward, and one of those who had been financially supporting Jesus and his disciples. Jesus, of course, did something different from any of the rabbis, and he would teach women as disciples. The rest of the rabbis thought that that was irresponsible behavior. About one in five women in Israel, about 20%, were named Mary, so the Gospels clarify which one. You know, this Mary, that Mary, the other Mary, right? So you get that kind of clarification frequently because one in five women were named Mary.

But him they did not see. Here they're telling Jesus face to face that though the tomb is empty, nobody has seen Jesus. I think that's hilarious. Him they didn't see, and I guess we don't see him either, right? But what this also tells us is that this account was among the very earliest of Christ's resurrection appearances. They didn't have the testimony of many others coming back to them anyway. So these disciples were not rejoicing at the resurrection of Christ quite yet. The empty tomb was just a very troubling disappointment.

Imagine this. Jesus is crucified, and we look at that, and we call it Good Friday, right? They look at it, and they think, this is the worst Friday I've ever had in my life. The next day, Jesus is there in the tomb, and you've got these Roman soldiers guarding the thing.

Boy, nothing's happening now. Nobody's touching anything. You mess with those Roman soldiers, and they'll just kill you. So He just sat there. And the next morning, when the women come, That's when they're rather stunned. Will the guards let us in? Will the big stone be out of the way? How are we going to move it?

Then they saw it open and empty. But not a clue that there was a resurrection yet. These guys, not a clue that they were talking to the resurrected Christ. All they had was troubling disappointment. We were hoping. Him they didn't see. And I guess we don't either, right?

They'd also seen a vision of the angels that said that He was alive. So here's angels appearing and saying He's alive, and they still don't believe it. Isn't that amazing? Even a miraculous appearance of angels saying that Christ was alive did not bring them to believe that Christ was resurrected or to understand. How many of you would believe something if an angel came and told you? I mean, might you think, hey, you know, this is an angel. He's telling me something. He's sent from God. You know, you might think, well, yeah, that's worthy of at least considering, right?

For three years, people had not believed, even after seeing miracles with their own eyes. Imagine, a week before, Lazarus gets resurrected. Multiple people see this resurrection, and they're very close, just over the Mount of Olives on the backside. They're very close to Jerusalem. The Jewish leaders hear the news.

Do they go, Oh! He must be the Messiah! No. They say, let's kill him. Right? Isn't that unbelievable? It's astounding. Even people eating food that was produced by a miracle. I'm eating miracle food, right? I'm eating miracle food and I'm not so sure about this.

I sure like free though. That works good for me. Free is good. But I don't know about this. even Christ's predictions of His resurrection. And they're going, duh. Not getting it. It really is astounding. So here's Luke 24, 25-27, He said to them, O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all the prophets have spoken.

So how do you think they're taking this? Do you know they still don't get it after this? Lazarus was raised only eight days before, and everybody knew it. But Jesus being raised? Nah. It wasn't a matter of disbelief. It didn't even enter their minds. Verses 26 and 27, was it not necessary for the Christ, the Messiah, to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?

Then, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. And you know, that's a lot. That's a lot of Scriptures. Here they are, going along the road, You're not sure quite how far away they are from Emmaus, but here they are going along the road. And he's explaining not just here and there, he's going through them all. This passage, and this passage, and this passage, and this passage.

Now in this point in time here, there wasn't a New Testament, right? So scriptures would have meant the Old Testament, what the Jews actually called the Tanakh, So here's the Old Testament, as we call it. So many times Christ pointed the Jews away from their traditions and back to a full understanding of Scripture, and this time was no exception. It was a lot of these traditions that kept them from seeing what those passages were talking about.

So your handout on page 4 includes the chart of some of the Old Testament prophecies. And by the way, this is some of the Old Testament prophecies. And it only covers some, not all, from His sufferings there on the cross and just before to His ascension.

That's it. There are a great many more. I was looking at one listing of other prophecies and someone had listed 355 prophecies that Christ fulfilled in His first coming. Okay? 355. So this is just some of them, the ones between His sufferings and His ascension. So why did Christ explain the Scriptures first instead of coming up and saying, Hi, I'm Jesus! I've been resurrected! Right? Rather than just show up and reveal Himself as the resurrected Christ, Christ had to first present and then to explain.

Here's the passage. and then explain what each of those meant as they went along. But actually, think about it, we often learn by a similar pattern. We too have to first come to understand God's word clearly, get it in our minds, have an understanding, then we can believe it and place our faith in the revealed facts. So we too have a similar process. First, the Lord doesn't come up and just say, here, get living, get busy. He instead goes and lays it out. Here's my Word.

And then asks us to walk in it by faith. So we walk by faith, not by sight. That means we walk by faith in God's Word. To put it the way we've done it with the illustration, The train in the tracks is like the faith in the facts, and like the caboose, the feelings follow. So here are the facts, which is represented by the tracks. What God has revealed in His Word are the facts. Here is us going along on the tracks that is putting our faith in the revealed facts. And just like the caboose, the feelings follow.

Our culture has been telling us since about the end of World War II, trust your feelings, right? Luke, right? And how can it be wrong if it feels so right? That was 1977, a banner year for faith in your feelings, right? Faith in your feelings determines what's factual. Faith in your feelings determines what's right and wrong according to the world. And in fact, whole sections of Christianity have followed after that same guideline. Your feelings and experiences. Here's how I know if it's right. If I feel blessed, it must be God's doing. But faith in the facts, and not faith in the feelings, is what God's Word teaches.

So here's Luke 24, 28, and 29. And they approached the village where they were going, and he acted as though he were going further. Do they know it's Jesus yet? No. Has He explained all the Scriptures and everything and laid that all out? Yep. He's gone through all the Scriptures and explained everything. They still don't know it's Jesus. So they urged Him, saying, Stay with us, for it's getting toward evening, and the day is now nearly over. So He went in to stay with them.

So the disciples would have asked the stranger to stay with them as a matter of Jewish custom. You were required to show hospitality, by the custom, towards a fellow Jew. And certainly Jesus, who was, you know, one who would talk with them and walk with them, and they'd spend a little time, it would be, according to custom, rude for them not to ask him in. And so, that would be one thing.

But one gets the impression they also sensed something very special about this stranger, but didn't know quite why yet. He had more to tell them than they had to tell Him. See, at first, the way it was, was the strangers were telling Him, here's the things that happened. And now Jesus spends the rest of the time telling Him, here's who it is it happened to, and here's why it happened. And He spends the rest of the time walking after they've broken the news to Him, what all this is about, and who all this is about. all these things that have you disappointed and distressed.

So Luke 24, 30-31, when He had reclined at table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him, and He vanished from their sight. Remember back Luke 24, 16, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.

At this point in time, Their eyes were open. Now, by the way, does that mean that they're going along like this? No. It's spiritual eyes, isn't it? Spiritual eyes, not just physical eyes. And so then the Lord said, hey, it would be great to stick around with you guys and you can see Me resurrected and all that stuff. Is that what He did?

No, as soon as they recognized Him, He goes, and He's gone. He didn't walk out. He vanished. Why did he vanish? I don't have a slide on that, by the way. Why did he vanish? Why didn't he stick around for a while? For one reason, he had more appearances for the rest of that day. And he needed to get to them. So he vanished from their sight.

The disciples were given sufficient explanation by Christ from God's Word in order to come to a true understanding of Scripture. And then they finally realized, ding, the lights go on. This is Jesus that we've been talking to. This is Jesus that we've been talking to. Their eyes were open, they saw Christ just long enough to finally realize who this stranger was that they've been talking to and serving as hosts. Here's Luke 24, 32 through 35, and they said to one another, were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us on the road, while he was explaining the scriptures to us?

And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them, and saying, The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon. They began to relate their experiences on the road and how he was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread." You can imagine, it must be a certain mannerism, you know, the way he breaks the bread, right?

Anyway. So they're telling him, He's resurrected. The tomb is empty. They're talking about it together. We walked along and He explained the Scriptures to us. We now understand. And He appeared to us and ate with us. And as soon as we realized, this is Jesus, He vanished. Now, one of the questions that we've got to ask here. These guys had quite an experience, didn't they?

So the question we ask is, does God want us to have spiritual heartburn? Is that what God's looking for, for you? We come to church, and the responsibility of burn is to make sure that you have an experience where you get the spiritual heartburn, right? Is that the way it's supposed to be? So, verse 32 brings up a very important and relevant issue.

What place do our subjective feelings have in our lives as Christians? And unless I have those subjective feelings, do I get disappointed by not having them, or feel like I haven't arrived yet? Oh, but he had these feelings, why can't I have those too? Are feelings the ultimate gauge? So these two disciples expressed truthfully what they both felt subjectively.

Didn't your heart burn? Didn't my heart burn? Right? But note what Christ was seeking for them to have faith in first, and that's the facts. Christ didn't spend all of His time saying, hey, have a feeling. He spent His time walking along with them, explaining the Scriptures. That was primary. Their feelings were supplemental, not primary. They were real. It doesn't mean we don't have them, but faith in the facts, understanding the scripture and us putting our faith in there is first. That's what Jesus wanted them to do and that's why he walked along the road with them and presented the scripture and explained it.

So these two disciples had changed from going home that night to heading back to Jerusalem. It's getting late in the day, so we invite Jesus to come stay with us. And now that it's late in the day, we're going to go back right now. Why? Because this is a phenomenal insight that they've just had. And I don't care about sleep or tired or food or anything else. We've got to go talk about this with the disciples.

So they also sought out the eleven disciples, those with them, back to Jerusalem. all except Judas. So first the eleven disciples said that the Lord had really risen and he had also appeared to Simon. So what had happened here is these two had seen Jesus and the appearance to Simon and to the other disciples without Thomas at this point. Then the two from Emmaus shared their experiences and realizations. So each of them had had some amazing realizations that day. Imagine how the day started. Can you imagine the difference, the change during the course of the day?

Oh, Jesus has been killed. And we were so hoping He would redeem Israel. And we'd have no idea what this is all about. to the end of the day, Jesus is resurrected. What an amazing day that was for them, huh? To realize, oh, we've seen Jesus. He is resurrected. Now we've just got to figure out what's going on, right? What was this all about? So that's why when Jesus is ready to ascend, they say, well, is now the time when God's going to restore the kingdom of Israel? And Jesus says, no, not now. OK, so here's Luke 24, 44 through 49 explains the disciples part of this interaction.

Now he said to them, these are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things that are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and he said to them, thus it is written that the Christ, the Messiah, would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending forth the promise of my father upon you, and you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high."

Well, how about us? These guys went through quite a day. God intends that spiritual realization of Christ's resurrection changes us radically, too. Today, God intends to be a radical day in our lives. As we behold our risen Lord, how? Through His Word. It's God's design and intent, this is what He had in mind from the very beginning, that we be transformed into the image of His Son as we behold the Lord through His Word. Radical transformation. radical transformation, and that His life is lived through each one of us.

You see, that resurrection wasn't just a historical event. It happened there back in Jerusalem. But His very life is directed into each one of us who believe here today. That's the application of the resurrection. It's not just, yay, He's not dead anymore. But that very resurrection life is focused upon us. In Ephesians chapter 1, it says that that resurrection life is into each of us.

As a result of the resurrection of Christ and our union with Him, you see that that tomb had lots and lots and lots of people in it, at least spiritually speaking. Every single one of us who believe today were there in that tomb. And every single one of us who believe today came out of the tomb when Jesus did. Because we were identified with him in his death, his burial, and his resurrection. You and I were there. So sometimes I'll sing, were you there when they crucified my Lord? Yep. Were you there when He rose up from the grave? Yep. We were there.

In our union with Him in that resurrection, we have a blessed hope. The Apostle Paul wrote to Titus, we have a blessed hope. One day, He'll take us to be with him forever. I hope it's today. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this just amazing account. Points of humor, points of amazement, but also, Lord, just what astounding realizations those two disciples had on the road to Emmaus and on the way back into Jerusalem. And we just pray in our own hearts and lives, Lord, that you would bring about these astounding revelations to us as well, as we would discover and recognize what you're doing in our hearts and lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.