Okay, Anne's going to come and read for us from Luke's Gospel.
Luke chapter 24, verse 13.
What is this conversation that you're 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,
a man 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 these things happened.
Moreover, some women 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 the women had said,
but him they did not see.
And he 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.
So they drew near to the village to which they were going.
He acted as if he were going further,
but they urged him strongly, saying,
Stay with us, for it is towards 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 from their sight.
They said to each other,
Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on this road,
while he opened to us the scriptures?
And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem.
And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together,
saying, The Lord is 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.
Amen.
Well, the writer Luke that we've just read from in Luke 24,
he is a master storyteller in his gospel.
And I think the two most moving stories in all the gospels
are when Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15,
and then this story, The Road to Emmaus,
where Jesus approaches these two minor characters
that really have played no role up until this point.
And in the first, the prodigal son,
the very famous prodigal son story, Luke 15,
Luke gives you the, Jesus gives you the heart of the father,
that the father longs to pursue prodigal sons and daughters
and bring them home.
And he wants to throw a feast for them.
He wants to give you a banquet.
In the other, I think, most moving story, Luke 24,
we have a mirror of the normal Christian disciple here.
And it's so ordinary.
It's so normal.
It's showing us our own lives.
Jesus meets us on the road.
And then where does that road take you to?
It takes you to the table.
At the very end, he takes them all the way to Emmaus,
and he lays out for them a feast.
There's bread broken.
And in the same way, the two most moving moments,
I think, in the gospels, perhaps,
are when we see that God wants to pursue you
and bring you all the way to the table.
And that's exactly what we have here
in the road to Emmaus story.
In the ancient world, kings would win great victories.
Julius Caesar won many great victories.
And when he would, he would go out
and he would parade through the streets of Rome.
Pomp and circumstance, crowds would gather.
That's the classic work of the ancient king.
Now, this is Resurrection Sunday.
The greatest victory that there's ever been has taken place.
Death has been defeated.
That's a big one.
That's a big win.
And there's no pomp and circumstance.
There's no parade.
Instead, where is Jesus?
On Resurrection Sunday,
he is doing something disconcertingly ordinary,
extraordinarily ordinary.
He's on the dusty road with two minor characters
going to a no-name village, Emmaus.
We don't even know where it is.
We saw that in week one.
And what we're being shown here is that Jesus,
like the rest of the gospels,
continues to show up in ordinary people's lives.
He wanted to go to the fishermen and the tax collector
and the prostitute and the person who was out
of the center of the social order.
And here, he's doing the exact same thing.
He's showing us the paradigm of the Christian life.
That's why Luke calls Christianity the way.
It's the same Greek word that gets used here in Luke 24
for the road,
that Jesus continues to show up on ordinary roads
to ordinary people like us.
And eventually, you realize that it's not just that
he's come to walk with you on your road,
but that you're now walking on his road.
And he is the journeyman.
He's the one that has already gone before you.
He's already paved the way for you.
And he is bringing you all the way to the table,
all the way to the table.
And so what we read about here is the end of the normal road
of the Christian life is to finally arrive at Emmaus
in verse 28 and to sit down with Jesus Christ at the table
and then to see him, to wake up.
And so if there's one verb in the passage
that really becomes the paradigm structure
of the whole story, it's all about sight.
So their eyes are closed.
They're kept from seeing him in verse 16.
And then you can see in verse 31 and 45,
first, he opens their eyes by opening scripture.
He explains the Old Testament,
how the cross was necessary from the Torah,
the first five books of Moses and the prophets
from Joshua all the way through to Ezekiel and Jeremiah,
then to the writings, the Psalms and further.
And the language Luke uses, it says,
when he opened the Bible
and he showed them Jesus in the Old Testament,
he opened their eyes to see, he opened their minds.
The second way he gives sight to the spiritually blind
in this passage is he brings them to the table.
And so in verse 32, when they sat down,
he broke the bread, we're told they could see him.
One commentator I found this week
gives a really helpful summary.
This is week, if you're visiting today,
this is week three, looking at the same passage,
the road to Emmaus.
And so I just summarized the past two weeks.
And I found a commentator this week
that I thought summarized what we've said so far,
really hopefully.
And so this is what he writes.
It is both a wonderful, unique, spellbinding tale
and a model.
And Luke surely knew this
for a great deal of what being a Christian is
from that day to this day
is the very thing we see in Luke 24.
The slow, sad dismay at the failure of human hopes,
the turning to someone
who might or might not be able to help,
the discovery that in scripture,
though unexpected,
there lay keys which might unlock the central mystery
and enable us to find the truth.
Then the sudden realization of Jesus himself
warming our hearts with his truth
as the bread is broken at the table.
So today we come to the table,
the bread being broken at the table from verse 28.
Jesus is in the business of giving human beings sight
from their blindness.
He does so with the word last week
and with the table this week.
And so let me give you this morning two realities,
two realities that the table of Emmaus teaches us
that we were made for,
two things that you were made for
that the table of Emmaus shows you.
And then just one thing you can do with that today.
Okay, so first the two realities.
The first is this,
we shall be like him.
And the way the New Testament works
is the writers of the epistles,
they draw on the wonderful works of God
throughout the history of redemption
and they take from God's wonderful works,
truths, statements, we call that doctrine.
And you've got this great moment
in one of John's letters, 1 John,
where he gives you, I think, two statements of doctrine
that are basically just the unfolding
of the Emmaus table.
And here they are.
This is what John says in 1 John 3, 2.
We know that when Jesus appears one day,
number one, we shall be like him.
And then number two,
because we shall see him as he is.
So there's the two realities that we were made for.
These are just the doctrinal statements
of the road to Emmaus.
And the first is,
one day you shall be like him.
Now, we talked in week one
about how Jesus shows up on the road
to these two travelers
and they can't see him.
They're spiritually blind,
but also they're physically blind in that moment.
The physical blindness stands in
for spiritual blindness.
And they can't see him
because of spiritual blindness.
They thought he was gonna redeem Israel from Rome.
They wanted circumstantial salvation,
not salvation from their sins.
But there's another reason they can't see him.
And the other reason they can't see him
is because Jesus' body was different.
They can't tell it's him
because he did look different.
And so we see that in John 20.
Mary Magdalene is there.
She's in the garden with Jesus.
She thinks he's the gardener.
And she can't see that it's Jesus.
He's different.
And then in John 21,
the disciples are fishing
and they look out
and they think it might be him.
Even when they're on the beach with him,
John says,
they thought it was him,
but they dared not ask.
Jesus looks different.
You know that if you've seen somebody,
you know somebody,
a beloved who's died.
Early degradation of a human body
causes a person to look different.
And boy,
what must that difference be
in a resurrected, glorified body?
If death causes us to look different,
how does,
what could resurrection possibly do
to the human self?
And here,
one of the reasons they can't see him
is because Jesus is not the same anymore.
He looks different than he wants to.
So this is what the theologians say.
They say this,
the very same body of Jesus
that hung on the cross,
that died,
the very same body
that died on the cross
now operates under a new condition,
a new set of physical laws.
Now, what we have here
is the very same body
of Jesus Christ,
yet they can't tell
because he's changed.
And just later on in this passage,
Luke 24, 39,
he goes,
he shows up with the 11
and he says,
look at my hands,
look at my feet,
see the scars.
What is he saying?
He's saying,
it really is me.
This is my body.
So it's very important to see
that Jesus is saying there
in that moment,
the body that died on the cross
is the body
that is standing before you.
Look at the scars.
Look at my hands and my feet.
After that,
he picks up a piece of cooked fish
and eats it.
He's not a ghost.
Ghosts don't digest fish.
But Jesus' resurrected body
died just a fish.
He breaks bread.
He eats the meal with them.
He digests the bread.
He's a real physical body.
It is the body that he died with,
that he is raised with.
But at the same time,
it's different.
And so in this moment
at the Emmaus table,
he eats with them
though he vanishes.
Later on,
he shows up to the 11.
The door is locked
though he appears in the room
without going through the door.
And what we're seeing
in this moment
is that there is something the same
and something new.
Sometimes people will talk about
the resurrection body
as if it's like a caterpillar
going into the cocoon
and becoming a butterfly.
And that is not a good metaphor
for the resurrection.
Jesus is not like a caterpillar
that went into the cocoon
and became a butterfly.
No, because he's not transforming
from something that he once was,
a mere caterpillar,
into this gorgeous butterfly.
No, he is him.
This is him.
It's his body.
Yet, what we're seeing
is an image,
a reality
of what it's like
to have an Edenic body
in the midst of
a corrupted space-time.
We've got here
a body that belongs in Eden
existing within
the corrupted world.
And you're just getting
a slight,
very mysterious,
to be sure,
glimpse
of what that kind of body
behaves like.
And the promise
of the road
to Emmaus,
of the table,
is that as they sit
across him,
it's implied,
they shall be like him.
And John comes later
and says it
in 1 John 3.
He says,
you will be like him.
Your physical body
will be just like his.
You will eat fish.
You will break bread
and digest.
You will be a physical body,
but you,
at the same time,
will be transformed.
He,
Paul says,
in 1 Corinthians 15,
he said,
the metaphor you need
is that his body
was sown into the ground
like a seed
and that it's raised up
imperishable.
The perishable goes down,
but the imperishable comes up
and that the imperishable
is now,
quote,
Paul says this,
a spiritual body.
Now,
that sounds almost like
he's saying,
you will become
a great spirit,
but that's not
what he means.
Spiritual body
in 1 Corinthians 15,
what does it mean?
It means,
your body will be transformed
by the Holy Spirit.
You will be a Holy Spirit
transformed body,
physical body,
just like Jesus Christ here
before he went into heaven.
Look,
when you,
I'll move on,
let me say this,
when you stand next to your grave,
the next time you do,
know that what you are really looking at
at that grave side,
for a believer,
somebody who has walked
the Emmaus road with Christ
by faith,
you are looking at a person,
you are there,
remembering a person,
who has been sown
into the ground
as a seed
that will come up again
as an imperishable body.
And if you come today
by faith,
walking the road,
Jesus has met you on the road
and you're walking the road
by faith,
your body will be sown.
Somebody will stand
at your graveside
and they will say,
they are a seed now
and they will be raised
an imperishable body.
How about it?
Do you want that?
You will be like him.
The gospel does not offer you
an escape from your body.
It offers you a healed body,
a resurrected body.
You will be whole.
You'll be you.
Jesus Christ's body
really was broken at the cross
like bread
so that you one day
can have a healed body,
a physical body
that is whole again.
He didn't come
to make you float
on the clouds.
He came to redeem
your whole being.
And that's what the first thing
the table promises you,
the future.
You will be like him.
Your body will be like his.
Secondly,
the last promise here,
1 John 3, 2,
what does it say?
Not only you shall be like him,
but you will see him
as he is.
Now,
verse 28,
it's the end of the day.
They've been traveling
down the road to Emmaus
all afternoon,
experiencing the greatest
Bible study there ever was.
And they're tired.
It's probably getting dark.
And here it says that
he acted as if
he were going farther than them.
So Jesus,
when they finally get
to where they were going,
Emmaus,
he acts as though
he's going to carry on.
Why?
He wants them
to want him.
He wants them
to invite him
into their home.
And so,
they respond.
It says,
they strongly urged him
to stay.
So it's,
I mean,
there's this sense
in that Greek verb there
that they sort of
kind of almost yank his arm
into the room
and say,
you're not going anywhere.
You know,
that was a very good
Bible study.
Please do not leave.
We want more.
And so they pull him in.
Now,
they're probably staying
at either
one of the travelers' homes,
Cleopas' house.
Seems like they're from Emmaus.
Or,
they're renting an inn.
And so,
Cleopas or the other guy,
the other person
is paying for it.
Whatever way it works,
it's definitely clear
that the text,
Luke wants us to see
that Cleopas
and the traveler
are the hosts.
They're bringing Jesus
into their home.
And they're going
to feed him.
They're going to pay
for whatever it costs
to have him.
And then that's where
the passage,
as it turns towards
the table,
begins this great reversal.
Because it's their house.
They're the hosts.
They're supposed to be
paying for everything.
And in verse 30,
when the bread is brought out,
it says that he took it,
he blessed it,
he broke it,
and he gave it to them.
Now,
these are the same four verbs
as the feeding
of the 5,000.
Three of the four verbs
show up
in the institution
of the Lord's Supper
the night before Jesus died
in Luke's Gospel.
Three of the four.
And at a first century
Jewish table,
the host,
the owner of the home,
the man in the family,
he has the job
to break the bread.
And so the way
you would start
a first century meal
showing hospitality
to somebody
is that the man
of the house
who owns the home
would begin the meal
by the breaking of bread.
They are the host.
They're meant
to be hospitable to him.
As soon as they sit down
at the table,
it's Jesus
that takes the bread
off the table
and breaks it.
And immediately,
there's a great reversal
happening.
They begin to realize
what Luke wants you to see
and that's that
he is the host.
He has become
the host of the meal.
This is his house.
He's the one in charge.
And when it says
he kept going,
he acted as if
he were going to go further
the whole time
you learn that
Jesus was actually
the one that was
showing hospitality
to them.
Now,
it is
very common
in Christian
evangelical
cultural idiom
to say things like
I invited Jesus
into my heart.
I asked Jesus
into my life
and that's how
I got saved.
And I understand
that language.
It's not bad.
There's so much
about it that's
so true, right?
But when we say
I became a Christian
because I invited
Jesus into my heart,
we're using language
that suggests
that we are
the master
of our own domain,
the master
of my heart.
I am the master
of my heart
and I very generously
opened the door
to Jesus
to let and said,
oh, you can come in now.
And when you come
to the Emmaus table,
what you find out
is that when you think
you're inviting Jesus
into your life,
he's actually the one
that's been showing
hospitality to you
the whole time.
You know,
when you think
that you are the host
of Jesus coming
into your heart,
it's actually that
Jesus has been the one
inviting you
into his home
the entire path.
You know,
he comes up
and shows up to you
on your road
and then eventually
you realize actually
this was his road.
And it's a simple truth,
a simple application,
but I think one of the things
the Emmaus table
says to us is that
you are not your own,
I am not my own,
that your life
doesn't belong to you.
You know,
it destroys the illusion
of control.
It breaks through
and tells you,
you don't,
it frees you
because you don't,
you don't have to be
in charge of your own life.
You don't have to make
your own meaning.
You can be liberated
by the fact that,
that God is actually
the one who's in control.
He's actually the one
that's showing you hospitality,
never you him.
And so every time
you invite him in,
it's only because
he's first invited you
into his life.
And so we've got
this wonderful
German catechism
from the 16th century.
Somehow I get
to a German reference,
50% of the Sundays
we have,
and here we are,
it's been a couple weeks.
And so the wonderful reference
from the Heidelberg catechism,
which says,
what is your only comfort
in life and death?
That I'm not my own,
but I belong
in body and in soul
and life and death
to the faithful savior,
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the host
of this meal.
He's invited us onto his road.
He's invited us to his table.
And when they realize that
in verse 30,
they're at the table,
he's broken the bread
and given it to them.
All of a sudden we read,
they could see him.
Their faith now becomes sight.
And you see,
he showed up on their,
on their road,
in their lives.
He brought them down the road
by opening to them
the scriptures.
He showed them himself
through the scriptures.
And then here,
you know,
they needed to see
that the cross
was in the Old Testament
all the time.
That the cross
had always been preached
from the Old Testament.
Then as they sat down
at the table,
they finally could see him.
He opens their sight.
Now,
what is that?
What's going on here?
This,
what we're reading about
is the destination
of every single Christian.
So if you're a believer
in this room today,
if you walk with him
in some measure
by faith today,
the destination
of every single believer
is to sit down at Jesus,
sit down with Jesus
at the table
and to see him.
And the theologians
call that the beatific vision.
This is the paradigm.
What we're reading about
in Emmaus
is the paradigm
of the ordinary Christian life.
And the ordinary Christian life
ends the moment
that you sit down
at the table
with him one day
and your eyes are open
to see Jesus Christ
in person.
It's called the beatific,
the blessed vision,
the visio dei,
the vision of God.
It is the reality
you were made for.
It is the hope
of every single human being.
Now today,
you might desire
all sorts of things
and our desires
are such a jumble
of messes,
aren't they?
But the truth is
the reason that we're
never satisfied
in this life
with anything,
the best things
that we get,
we still ultimately
are discontent.
It's because
the desire underneath
every single desire
is that you would come
and sit at the table
with God
and see him.
It is the very thing
you were made
to be like him
and you were made
to see him.
You will see him
as he is
and that's the promise.
The Emmaus road
is the normal pattern
of the Christian life
and at the end
of the Christian life,
you sit at the table
at the banquet feast
with Jesus Christ
and you get to see
God face to face.
Now this is
the tension
of the Old Testament
and it really is
the most persistent
ache, heartburn
of the Bible.
The movement
from Genesis 3 forward,
there is a persistent
burning, yearning,
aching all throughout
that's woven
all the way to this moment
of longing to see God.
So you remember Moses
when he is on
the mountain of Sinai,
Mount Sinai,
what does he say?
He says,
please Lord,
show me your glory,
let me see your face
and the response
that God gives
is one of both
mercy and terror
at the same time.
You know,
he says to Moses,
no rebellious sinful human
could possibly see
the face of God,
my face,
and live
and so
the response is terror
that you were made
to see God
but the tension
of the Old Testament
is that you cannot
see God
because of your sin
and your rebellion
and yet God
takes Moses
and he puts him
in the cleft
of the rock
and allows him
to see just a glimpse
of his glory
and God is saying
to Moses there,
you know,
Moses was the one person
in the Old Testament
that's called
the friend of God
who can see my face
and yet when it came
time to see his face,
Moses couldn't see his face
and that's the tension.
How can a rebellious
sinful human being
see the very sight
that you were made
to see
and the face
of God
and David,
remember David,
we sang about it
Psalm 27
just a moment ago,
David says
in Psalm 27,
I long to see
the beauty
of God's face
in the land
of the living.
1 John 3, 2,
you shall be like him
in the land
of the living,
you shall see him
as he is
and David said,
I want to see
the beauty
of the face
of the Lord
in the land
of the living
and you see
all the tension
that's built up
in the Old Testament
of how are you
going to get
what you are made for
is found
when you come
to the New Testament
and Paul's words,
in Christ,
the veil is removed.
We all
with unveiled faces,
we will behold
the glory of the Lord
and we shall see him
as he is
and the great tension
that is the great problem
of being human
and yet sinful
is all culminating
to this moment
when you're being shown
in the Emmaus Road
that the very path
of the ordinary
Christian life
by faith
is that if you will
walk the road
by faith,
one day you will have sight.
You will have the very thing
you were made for.
Every desire
that has been unmet
in this life,
everything that you have chased
and has been just meh,
will one day find
its utter fulfillment.
It's great fulfillment.
Fulfillment in a way
you can't possibly understand today.
I can't possibly understand today
in seeing the beauty
of his face
at the table,
at the banquet feast
and just listen
to the language.
You know,
it shows up all across
the New Testament.
We read it
in our call to work,
I'm sorry,
Old Testament.
We read it
in the call to worship today
from Genesis chapter 3
where we long
for the condescension
of God
into the Garden of Eden
all the way
to Revelation 19,
the marriage supper
of the Lamb.
Isaiah 25 says,
at the banquet feast,
he will swallow up death forever.
Isaiah 55,
come every one of you
who thirst to see him.
Come without money.
You don't need money.
Come without price.
You can come
to the banquet table
of the king.
It's been promised
all throughout the lineage
of the Old Testament
and this is the moment
where you're simply being told
this is not for
the all-stars
of the Bible.
This is not for
the heavyweights
of the Bible.
This is not just for Moses.
Moses was one
of the heavyweights.
David,
you know,
Mary,
this is,
what does it make you think?
This is for ordinary people.
People that don't even
have names,
minor characters
that are going,
that living in small towns
and places
that don't matter
that much.
I wonder if you could say
today,
would the psalmist
in Psalm 42,
as the deer pants
for flowing streams,
so my soul longs
for God.
As a deer comes
thirsting for water,
so my soul longs
to see God.
Whether or not
you feel that today
or not,
that is what you
were made for.
And what we're being
told here,
let me put it
in the words
of Augustine.
Augustine,
at the end
of the city of God,
that massive tome
he wrote about
the fall of Rome,
he uses these verbs
to describe this moment
and he says,
in that day
at the banquet,
we shall rest
and see,
see and love,
love and praise,
and that shall be
for us
the eternal Sabbath.
This isn't,
I think the reason
that this is
in the Road to a Man story
is because this isn't
the hope for the
Christian elite.
This is for anybody
who comes and follows
Jesus on the way,
who comes by faith.
God is,
God is keeping a seat
at the table for you.
So let me finish
with this.
One thing you can do
with this today
as we close
and it's simple,
come to worship tonight
because we're going
to celebrate
the Lord's Supper.
So I know it would be
wholly appropriate
for us to celebrate
the Lord's Supper
this morning,
but we are celebrating
the Lord's Supper tonight.
And the reason
that's the invitation,
the application
is because in verse 30
when Jesus breaks the bread
and he blesses it
and he gives it,
there are so many commentators
that for some reason
say,
kind of go out of their way
to get ahead of this
and say,
this is not the Lord's Supper.
And that is my very favorite,
by the way,
my very favorite commentator
on the whole Bible
goes out of his way
to say,
this is not the Lord's Supper.
However,
it's half true.
It's half right.
Why?
Well,
remember,
remember your Westminster
Shorter Catechism.
Okay.
Question 92.
Let's all say it together.
No,
I can't say it either.
Don't worry.
I definitely cannot say it.
I had to look it up.
I wrote it down.
In fact,
question 92,
what is a sacrament?
And here's the answer.
A sacrament is a holy ordinance
instituted by Christ
wherein,
and here's the key,
by sensible signs,
physical signs,
bread,
wine,
water,
Christ and the benefits
of the new covenant
are represented,
sealed,
and applied to us.
Here's the key word.
I know that's hard to listen to.
When in the sacraments,
we have sensible signs,
physical signs,
bread,
wine,
water,
that represent to us
the benefits
of Jesus Christ
in the new covenant.
That's the key word,
right?
Represent.
This isn't the sacrament
of the Lord's Supper.
No,
it certainly isn't.
Because in the sacrament
of the Lord's Supper,
when the bread is broken,
when the wine is poured,
you have a representation
of the most real thing.
But when the risen Lord Jesus
is sitting at the table with you,
you don't need the sacraments.
Are you at the Lord's Supper?
Well,
boy,
you are.
Every time you eat
with the risen Jesus,
you're sitting at the Lord's Supper.
This is the Lord's Supper.
It's not the sacrament,
but tonight we celebrate
the sacrament that points us
to this moment.
And see,
that's got to create in us
the question,
am I approaching the table
in the right posture?
And I don't mean that
in a way to say
that you've got to be
in the right condition
in order to come to the table.
Not at all.
You know,
there are a couple problems
I think that we have
as we come to the Lord's table
quite often.
One is,
we come to the table
routine
and just thinking about it
as mere memorial.
Only looking backwards
to the death of Jesus
and absolutely we should.
But what we're being told
about here
is that every time
you come to the Lord's table,
it is there
to create a stirring
in your heart
for the moment
that you will sit across
from the table
with Jesus Christ
and you will see him
as he is
and you will be like him
and you will stare
at the beauty
of God's holy face
at the banquet feast.
That's what the Lord's Supper
is there to do.
Not just a funeral,
not a mere memorial.
Jesus isn't dead.
He's pointing you forward
to this,
it's the end
of the road to him.
It's the end
of the Christian life
to banquet
with Jesus Christ himself.
The other problem
we have
when we come
to the table
is we often say,
you know,
do I really deserve
to sit at the table
with Jesus?
Have I repented enough?
Have I made myself
worthy enough?
And the answer
is of course not.
Of course you haven't.
Of course you've not
repented enough.
Of course you're not worthy.
And the promise
of the table,
the invitation
of the Lord's table
is that you do not come
on the basis
of your merits.
Don't treat repentance
as a merit.
No, you come
on the basis
of his merit.
You come
not because you have
strong faith
and great repentance.
You come
because you are weak
coming to a strong
redeemer.
And, you know,
the night that he was
betrayed,
he broke the bread
and he gave thanks
and he blessed it
and he gave it to them
just like he does
on the Emmaus table.
And in the ordinary
Passover meal,
there is lamb.
That's the main dish.
There's lamb on the table.
But that night
before he was betrayed,
there was no lamb there.
Not on the table.
There was no lamb
on the table
the night he instituted
the Lord's Supper.
Why?
Because the lamb
that was to be broken
was standing
at the head of the table.
The lamb of God
whose body was broken
to take away
the sins of the world
was the one
hosting that feast.
And here is
the resurrected lamb
at Emmaus
hosting this feast
and saying to you,
this is the promise
for you.
You,
you will sit
at a table one day
where Jesus Christ
will stand at the head
and he will break bread
and he will hand it to you
and you will see him
as he is
and you will be like him.
And that is the eternal Sabbath
and that is the everlasting hope.
I will close with this.
You know,
if you,
if you go out,
it is hard to do this
in Scottish summer,
but if you go out
in Scottish winter
in the highlands
in the middle of the night,
middle of the day maybe,
I don't know,
but middle of the night
and you try to walk
on a path
through the Monroe's,
you know,
it is pitch,
let us say it is pitch black.
Maybe you are in a forested area,
it is pitch black
and you get out your torch,
your flashlight
and you shine your light.
But when the sun rises
the next day,
when it is noontime
the next day,
do you keep your flashlight on,
your torch on?
No.
The sacraments
are your torch
in the middle of the darkness.
But when the sun rises,
when the feast actually comes,
when Jesus Christ returns,
you don't keep the torch on,
you don't need it anymore, right?
The sacraments are here
to give you strength
for the journey
in the darkness,
the road,
the road to Emmaus
until you actually get to Emmaus,
until you get to the celestial city,
until you get to the banquet table
and Jesus Christ himself,
the realest thing is there
physically with you
and that is the hope
of every human being,
not just for the Christian,
that is the hope of every human.
It is the only way
to be truly satisfied.
John Owen says,
no person shall ever behold
the glory of Christ
by sight
in the life hereafter,
who does not
in some measure
behold him
today
here
by faith.
And so that's the invitation.
You've got to walk
the road to Emmaus
by faith
if you want to
one day see him
by sight.
And so
come to the table
tonight,
come to the hymn
this morning
by faith.
Have you ever been to a,
you've been to a wedding reception
and they,
the feast,
they put the little placards
with your name on them
wherever you're supposed
to sit.
Jesus Christ has your name,
Christian,
at a place,
at his table
in the life
that is to come.
You got to walk
that road by faith now
and one day
it will be sight.
Let's pray.
Father,
cultivate our desires
to see Jesus.
Give us a vision
for the beauty
of the face of God
in the land of the living.
We pray in Christ's name.
Amen.