ON THE ROAD TO
EMMAUS
Someone once said the longest walk you’ll ever take is
the walk away from the grave of someone you loved. For some it is the feeling
that the world as they knew it has come to an end. They walk away and think
about what used to be, and what might have been. This walk is a lonely walk
that few can understand. Tears have been shed until there are no tears left,
just the pain. Words like discouragement, disappointment, disillusionment and
even depression come to mind. This is the longest walk.
Two
people were walking that walk out of Jerusalem. They were not alone in this
walk but had each other. Passover was completed, Sabbath laws no longer
binding, so they left the place of pain and loss. The travelers were not quiet
but contemplative, talking about what had happened, asking questions but
finding few answers.
“Why did
Jesus let them kill him like that? Where is Jesus when we need him so badly? We
thought he was the One we were waiting for to make life better? Now what do we
do? We need him more than ever. It’s not fair,” they may have said. They ask
the questions we would ask. Maybe we still ask them.
On the
road to Emmaus however, we will find an unexpected companion. In this story is
declared a living truth for all ages. In this story we will discover not only
that Jesus is alive but also how we can recognize him on our own lonely walks
down the Emmaus road.
1. An unexpected travel companion
No one today knows where the village of Emmaus was
situated. It has long disappeared from the face of the earth. We know that this
is where the two disciples of Jesus were going and it was only seven miles from
Jerusalem. It was likely a casual walk since the conversation was the focus.
Along
comes a stranger from behind. It is Jesus, “but they were kept from recognizing
him.” I find it extremely touching that Jesus should bother to find these two
men, one whose name we know, Cleopas, and the other nameless (certainly not of
the 12), and make a special effort for them. Jesus is the kind of person to
seek out the so-called nobodies.
Jesus
comes up behind them and asks, “So what are you guys talking about?” All
nonchalant, Jesus is, acting like he doesn’t know the biggest news to hit
Jerusalem.
Note the
reaction of the two: “They stood still,
their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, ‘Are you the only
one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in
these days?’” (17b-18). He stopped them in their tracks; he goaded them
into reacting; Jesus wanted them to spill their hearts out about the last three
days.
Notice
how they respond to his question, “What things?” They tell about Jesus of
Nazareth and say “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed…they crucified
him…we had hoped that he was the One…didn’t find his body…they did not see
Jesus.” What do you notice? Past tense. Jesus was a prophet; was, was was. What’s missing from Cleopas’ speech?
Why is it an unfinished creed? There is no resurrection! Jesus was dead. Evil
had conquered. God could not overcome it. There was no gospel in Cleopas’ words
because Jesus was killed and buried and gone…missing. This is Good Friday
without Easter. Without the resurrection, the cross is just a tragedy, an
unfinished story.
Dr.
Martin Lloyd-Jones tells another unfinished story that found its conclusion.
“I
remember preaching in Wales one Sunday in the early 1930s. I was preaching in a
country place at an afternoon and then an evening service. When I finished the
service in the afternoon and had come down from the pulpit, two ministers came
up to me. They had a request to make. They said, “We wonder whether you’ll do
us a kindness.” “If I can,” I said, “I’ll be happy to.” “Well,” they said, “we
think you can. There’s a tragic case. It’s the case of our local schoolmaster.
He’s a very fine man, and he was one of the best church workers in the
district. But he’s got into a very sad condition. He’s given up all his church
work. He just manages to keep going in his school. But as for church life and
activity, he’s become more or less useless.”
“What’s
the matter with him?” I asked. “Well,” they said, “he’s got into some kind of
depressed condition. Complains of headaches and pains in his stomach and so on.
Would you be good enough to see him?” I promised I would. So after I had had my
tea, this man, the schoolmaster, came to see me. I said to him, “You look
depressed.” He was like the men on the road to Emmaus. One glance at this man
told me all about him. I saw the typical face and attitude of a man who is
depressed and discouraged. I said, “Now tell me, what’s the trouble?” “Well,”
he said, “I get these headaches. I’m never free from them. I wake up with one
in the morning, and I can’t sleep too well either.” He added that he also
suffered from gastric pains and so on.
“Tell
me,” I said, “how long have you been like this?” “Oh,” he said, “it’s been
going on for years. As a matter of fact, it’s been going on since 1915.” “I’m
interested to hear this,” I said. “How did it begin?” He said, “Well, when the
war broke out in 1914, I volunteered very early on and went into the navy.
Eventually I was transferred to a submarine, which was sent to the
Mediterranean. Now the part of the navy I belonged to was involved in the
Gallipoli campaign. I was there in this submarine in the Mediterranean during
that campaign. One afternoon we were engaged in action. We were submerged in
the sea, and we were all engaged in our duties when suddenly there was a most
terrible thud and our submarine shook. We’d been hit by a mine, and down we sank
to the bottom of the Mediterranean. You know, since then I’ve never been the
same man.”
“Well,”
I said, “please tell me the rest of your story.” “But,” he said, “there’s
really nothing more to say. I’m just telling you that’s how I’ve been ever
since that happened to me in the Mediterranean.” “But, my dear friend,” I said,
“I really would be interested to know the remainder of the story.” “But I’ve
told you the whole story.” This went on for some considerable time. It was a
part of my treatment. I said again, “Now I really would like to know the whole
story. Start at the beginning again.” And he told me how he had volunteered,
joined the navy, was posted to a submarine that went to the Mediterranean, and
everything was all right until the afternoon they were engaged in the action,
the sudden thud and the shaking. “Down we went to the bottom of the
Mediterranean. And I have been like this ever since.”
Again I
said, “Tell me the rest of the story.” And I took him over it step by step. We
came to that dramatic afternoon—the thud, the shaking of the submarine. “Down
we went to the bottom of the Mediterranean.” “Go on!” I said. He said, “There’s
nothing more to be said.” I said, “Are you still at the bottom of the
Mediterranean?” You see, physically he was not, but mentally he was. He had
remained at the bottom of the Mediterranean ever since. So I went on to say to
him, “That’s your whole trouble. All your troubles are due to the fact that in
your own mind you are still at the bottom of the Mediterranean. Why didn’t you
tell me that somehow or another you came up to the surface, that someone on
another ship saw you, got hold of you and got you on board his ship, that you
were treated there and eventually brought you back to Wales and put into a
hospital?” Then I got all the facts out of him. I said, “Why didn’t you tell me
all that? You stopped down at the bottom of the Mediterranean.” It was because
this man was dammed up in his mind that he had suffered from this terrible
depression during all those years. I am happy to be able to tell you that as
the result of this explanation that man was perfectly restored.”
2. What the Prophets said about Jesus
When the two men finished telling their sad story with
its poor ending, Jesus replied, “How
foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have
spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his
glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them
what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself,” (25-27).
The
rebuke is strong but loving. It is foolish to be confronted with such a
situation and respond with a dull mindedness. This is a laziness where we fail
to apply our understanding of scripture to life. Everything we know about the
Bible is forgotten in the face of a crisis.
Jesus
said they were “slow of heart” too. More than affections, the heart is
representative of one’s spiritual condition. The heart is a muscle in this
sense and one that needs to be exercised to remain healthy. Slowness of heart
is a spiritual disease whereby the mind grows dull. We read our Bibles and our
minds wander after a few verses; we try to pray but our imagination travels all
over the place. Lethargy about the Christian walk creeps over you; a deadness
in these things arises that you cannot blame on the church. It is a slowness of
heart.
For
these two disciples, the foolishness and slowness of heart kept them from
discerning the scriptures concerning Jesus. They rejected the suffering of
Jesus as being stumbling block to the plan. His death, to them, was a disaster.
But the prophets accepted God’s word as it was revealed, even though they did
not understand how a suffering Messiah could save them. The prophets could see
a Triumphant King and a Suffering Servant.
Peter
testified later, “Concerning this
salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you,
searched intently and the greatest care, trying to find out the time and
circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he
predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow,” (1
Peter 1:10-11).
Since
the two men didn’t have a clue as to why Jesus had to die, Jesus took them
through the prophets and showed them. He showed them that his death was not a
wrench in the plan but was the plan itself. Jesus did not have his life taken
from him, he had the power to lay it down and take it up again. He showed them
how his suffering was foretold in Genesis 3 and 22, in 2 Samuel 7, Psalms 16,
22, 69, 110 and 118, in Isaiah 7, 9, and 53, and in Zechariah 12-14. He showed
them the whole story from Genesis to Malachi. He showed them how a loving God
had to take his own Son and make him suffer for the sins of humankind for all
ages.
The
whole Bible testifies to Jesus. Every page is full of him, including the OT. As
Geoff Thomas said, “He is the true theme of the OT – by type, by teaching, by
sacrifice and by prophecy. He is the prophet greater than Moses. He is the
priest greater than Aaron. He is the king greater than David. He is the captain
greater than Joshua. He is the seed of the woman, the fulfillment of the brass
serpent, the goal of all the sacrifices, and the true meaning of the
tabernacle. He is the Kinsman Redeemer, the Scapegoat and the Lamb that takes away
the sin of the world. He is the great high priest who lives forever to
intercede for us. He is the lion of the tribe of Judah and the good shepherd
who lays down his life for his sheep. He is the Judge who will pass judgment on
all mankind in the latter day.”[i] If
you want to find Jesus just open your Bible.
3. “Then their eyes were opened”
Why did Jesus not just tell them who he was from the
start? Why play this prank and then get all serious about the OT?
What
Luke reveals to us in these two men is a desperate need for the Word of God. We
all need it. We need the divine revelation to understand the suffering and
death of Jesus on the cross. God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts and so
he revealed his thoughts to us in His Word. The reason these two men despaired
is because they did not see this event from God’s perspective.
Luke
wrote about this earlier when he retold Jesus’ parable of the rich man and
Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). The rich man requested that Lazarus be sent to his
father’s house, to his five brothers, so that they can be warned (27-28). Jesus
replied that they had Moses and the Prophets (29), to which the man protested
that a warning from one who had risen from the grave would be more forceful,
more convincing. To which Jesus replied, “If they do not listen to Moses and
the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead,”
(31).
So the
principle here is this: “THOSE WHO REJECT THE WORD OF GOD WILL NOT BE CONVINCED
BY HIS WORKS.”[ii]
Luke
plainly connects the Word of God to understanding the resurrection. When the
women go to the tomb on the first day of the week they are met by angels who
say to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he
has risen!” (24:5-6). Luke records, “Then they remembered his words,” (24:8).
Later
when Jesus appears to the disciples behind locked doors they thought he was a
ghost. But he presents himself to them as a flesh and bones man who clearly
bore the scars of crucifixion. Jesus said, “Everything must be fulfilled that
is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms,” (24:44).
Luke then narrates, “Then he opened their minds so they could understand the
Scriptures,” (24:45).
So here
too in our text when Cleopas and his friend are sitting down to a meal with
Jesus and Jesus breaks the bread, something else breaks. Luke uses the same
expression in these other two incidents: “Then their eyes were opened and they
recognized him,” (24:31). In each case it was following a revelation of the
Word of the Lord that the light went on. In the Word of God we find the
understanding we need to see Jesus.
When we
open the Word to find Jesus and, like Cleopas and his friend, invite Jesus to
stay with us and share this moment, then we will recognize Jesus as the
crucified and resurrected Lord. Apart from the Bible we cannot recognize him.
This is not some feel-good story written to gladden our
hearts. Luke is telling us something very important. Jesus comes seeking for
us. Just like he went out of the city to look for two obscure disciples who we
know nothing about but whom Jesus obviously cared very much about, he comes
looking for you. He wants to show you something about himself in his Word. Then
he wants you to recognize that he is Jesus, your Savior and your Lord.
Jesus is
not here physically, but he is here.
You need his personal presence in your life. In the darkest moments of your
lonely walk, you need Jesus to come alongside and ask, “What are you thinking
about?” And he does. He went to sit at the right hand of God so that he could
send his Spirit to do exactly that. To be with you. To walk with you. To fill
you with the recognition of Jesus Christ.
In those
moments when we sit down with Jesus and His Word we set aside time for Him to
show us. Those times are so good we apt to say, “Lord, it would be wonderful if
you stayed longer.” Jesus replies, “I will never leave you.”
Jesus is
alive! Jesus is risen! And he is with us!
AMEN
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