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Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Dear Saints, a few words about this text, The Road to Emmaus, and then a few, maybe really one reflection on what Jesus is doing for us here in the text. The text takes us back to the very first Easter Sunday. The women had gone to the tomb, heard from the angels, and come into Jerusalem and reported to some of the disciples where Cleopas was and his friend, and that the tomb was empty. Peter and John had run and seen the empty tomb and come back and reported the same. And so they left town, left Jerusalem, to go to Emmaus, a little village about 7 miles north and west from Jerusalem. A beautiful little village on top of the hill.
And as they leave town, wondering about these things, Jesus joins them. Now, we want to notice that this is an important apologetic point as we consider the resurrection of Jesus, is that even though Jesus at least three times told them that he had to die and then he would be raised on the third day, and even though they had heard those words and remembered those words, and even though they had seen the empty tomb and the body of Jesus gone, and even though some of them had seen an angel reporting that Jesus has risen from the dead, they still are doubting. They still are confused. They still don’t know what’s happening. They still said that we had hoped that He was the one who was going to rescue us and deliver us. We had hoped, but their hope is gone. So Jesus comes and finds them in this despondent state.
And, as Jesus want to be, so playful after his own resurrection, he hides himself or he closes their eyes so that they don’t recognize who he is. It makes this incredible scene where they’re so sad and despondent and troubled, and Jesus is so innocent in a way. He says, “Why are you so sad?” And they say, “Are you the only person who doesn’t know the things that have happened here? Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem that wasn’t paying attention to this?” There was this Jesus. We had hoped that he was the one, the Messiah, the one who would deliver us, the one that God had promised for so long. We had hoped that he was the one, but he was handed over to the rulers, he was tried, he was handed over to Pilate, he was crucified, dead, and buried. And our hope was buried with him. Our confidence was buried with him.
So Jesus rebukes them, “O foolish ones,” he says, “and so slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” And he went as they walked, and he opened up, the text says, the scriptures to them. The books of Moses, the prophets, the Psalms. Beginning from Moses and going through all the prophets, he said, he opened the scriptures to show them this one thing, that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer first and then to enter into his glory.
And then as they came to Emmaus, Jesus acted as if he would keep going, and they compelled him, “Abide with us, the fast falls the even tide,” and so Jesus comes into the room with them, and he’s sitting at the head of the table. He takes the bread, offers the blessing, and suddenly they recognize who it was, and then he’s gone, disappears from their sight, back to Jerusalem to appear to Peter as they’re running back to report these things so that when they get back, they say, “Yes, Jesus had appeared to Peter already,” and then Jesus appears to them again in the upper room. Just incredible text.
But there’s an important, important point to this text, and we start to see a theme that’s developing not only in this text, but in our text from last week, from John chapter 20. Not only the appearing to the disciples and the appearing to Thomas, but also when Jesus appeared at the tomb to Mary Magdalene. And he said, “Don’t cling to me.” Jesus is teaching his disciples, and he’s teaching us that he will dwell with us in a different way, that he will be with us in a different way, certainly than what the disciples were used to.
Now Jesus goes to great pains to demonstrate to the disciples that he is not some sort of ghost or phantasm or spirit. He says, “Put your hands on my side. Feel the wounds that I’ve got here.” He takes fish, always he’s eating fish, not only on Easter Sunday, but then in Galilee as well, showing them that he’s not a ghost, that he has flesh and blood, that he is truly risen, that the grave is empty, that it’s his true body and blood that is raised from the grave, that he’s not some sort of idea or abstraction, but flesh and blood Jesus.
But he then is going to say that he will be with them in a very different way. Not like he was before the crucifixion and before the resurrection. He won’t walk bodily with them, but rather he will be with them according to his resurrected glory, and that they will have him, and this is the key point, they will have him not according to his normal bodily presence, but that they’ll have him according to his word.
That’s why he hides himself from the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Instead of opening their eyes to see his body, to see his physical form, he opens their ears to hear the word. That’s why he says to Mary Magdalene, “Don’t cling to me like it is now.” That’s why he says to Thomas, “Blessed are those who believe and have not seen.”
In fact, it wonderfully reminds us of the account that Jesus told of Lazarus and the rich man who died. Remember this? Two men died, Lazarus who was poor and the rich man who’s rich, and Lazarus was a believer, goes to Abraham’s bosom, paradise, and the rich man goes to Hades, to hell, to suffer, and he sees Lazarus in glory, and he says, “Could Lazarus come and give me a little relief, a drop of water to cool my lips?” And the Lord says, “No, the gap between here and there can’t be crossed.” He says, “We’ll send Lazarus back from the dead so that my brothers will believe and they won’t come here.” And Abraham says to him from across the gulf, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them believe them. If they don’t believe them, they won’t even believe if one rises from the dead.”
So that we have the sure testimony of the holy scriptures. That’s what the Lord has left us. That’s what he wants us to have, the words of the prophets and the apostles, so that by these we would know that Jesus is God in the flesh, that Jesus is crucified for us and for our salvation, and that Jesus is truly risen from the dead, truly. The grave is empty and that he sits at the right hand of God the Father until the day coming soon when he returns for us.
And we have this confidence, the church has been trained up to have this confidence, by none other than the resurrected Jesus himself who opened the scriptures to these disciples on the road to Emmaus and who continues to open the scriptures also to us and confirm and strengthen our faith by them. So God be praised, we have today, we have everything that Jesus wants us to have. The absolute confidence that Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. Alleluia. And we know this because he has preached it to us in the words of the prophets and the apostles.
May this be our confidence, our comfort, our wisdom, and our peace. In the name of Jesus, Amen. And now may the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.