As I said at the beginning, we're going to read Luke chapter 24, verses 13 to 32.
If you've got a church Bible, it's on page 885.
That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.
And they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened.
While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them.
But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
And he said to them, What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?
And they stood still, looking sad.
Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him,
Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?
And he said to them, What things?
And they said to him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, 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 the 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 has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon.
Then they told what had happened on the road
and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Amen.
We're starting a month-long series today on the road to Emmaus.
And we've got some time for some depth
because we'll read the same passage four weeks in a row that we just read.
And we'll look at biblical interpretation and the Lord's Supper
and how Jesus sets the mission of the church in this story.
But that's all in the weeks to come.
Today, we'll just look at the story itself
and the main movements of the story
and see what Luke wants us to see from this story.
So let's think about first, the road.
Secondly, the second traveler.
Third, the stranger.
And finally, eyes to see.
So first, the road.
Now, in verse 13, where we started the passage today,
Luke writes,
That very day two of them were going.
So what is—the first question he wants the reader to ask is,
What is the day?
What day is this?
And if you just cast your eyes just to the story above,
it's the day of Jesus' resurrection.
So this is Sunday morning even, maybe.
And you can see that back in verse 12,
if you have a Bible,
that Peter runs to the tomb on Sunday morning,
and he looks and he sees the linen cloths wrapped up,
and the tomb was empty.
And so this is resurrection Sunday morning.
And what's remarkable is that as a reader,
if you're reading this for the first time,
you want to say,
Where is Jesus on resurrection Sunday?
Because when Peter goes to the tomb,
the tomb is just empty.
He doesn't find Jesus there.
Now, Luke gives us three resurrection appearances.
We know from 1 Corinthians 15
that there were so many resurrection appearances
that Jesus appeared to James,
his biological brother, for example,
and to more than 500 people.
But Luke only chooses three to tell us.
And so he's very selective as a historian,
and he's a storyteller,
and he wants to pull us in
and to get us to ask why.
And just even the way Peter comes to the tomb,
Luke writes,
he marveled at what happened.
And so he's struck and saying,
you know,
what happened?
And then you as the reader says,
well,
what did happen?
What happened?
And then verse 13 says,
and that very day.
That's just the Greek word behold.
Behold.
So the next verse just says,
behold.
And so you say,
what are we to behold?
And I think it's something like this.
Imagine that you,
you were in charge of running the press release.
You were the media chair
of the announcement of the resurrection.
Okay.
And you,
you know,
you're in charge.
It's a big job.
And if you were to say,
where am I going to make sure Jesus is publicly seen
for the first moment of his resurrected body?
I,
if I'm the press secretary,
I'm going to put it in the Roman praetorium
where he was convicted.
I'm going to have him kicking the doors down
of the Roman praetorium
and going to Pilate and Caiaphas and saying,
you see me?
I'm,
I rose from the dead.
Or I'm going to have him going straight to,
to Rome or even to the Jerusalem temple
and going right through the door,
shining and white,
25 feet tall.
And what's so remarkable is that
this is resurrection Sunday
and Jesus is on a completely
no named ordinary dirt road
with two people that are effectively nobodies
in the story going to Emmaus,
which is nowhere.
We don't even know what Emmaus is.
It's been lost to history.
And so what's extraordinary here
is how ordinary the first resurrection appearance is.
Now, look, if this was a legend,
you just wouldn't use this as the first story.
Instead, you would have Jesus being five meters tall
going straight through the doors of the temple
announcing that he's risen from the dead
and there would be the biggest crowd
and everybody would see it.
We know this.
I think this is the way we think as modern people,
but this is also what people in the first century
would do too,
because if it was just a legend,
we have one in the second century.
There was a set of apocryphal texts
called Gospels written.
One of them is the Gospel of Peter.
And in the Gospel of Peter,
it's a second century text.
The story of the resurrection of Jesus
includes this moment where Jesus,
alongside two angels,
walks out of the tomb.
And there's two angels
and their heads are sticking into the clouds
in the Gospel of Peter.
And it says Jesus had hung above the cloud line.
You couldn't even see the top of his body.
So when he steps out of the tomb,
he's a giant and he's in heaven.
Now that's exactly what I would expect
if it were a legend.
But what you would expect,
what you would never write
is that he shows up to completely ordinary people
on a very ordinary road
going to effectively nowhere.
And that's the extraordinary ordinariness
of this moment.
Now, in this passage,
several times Luke uses the phrase
on the road.
So it's down in verse 32 and 35.
And it says that Jesus had drawn near on the road
and the disciples say,
we met him on the road.
And in the book of Acts that Luke also wrote,
Luke's the author of Luke and Acts,
that same word, exact Greek word,
is used six times to describe
the Christian movement.
The way.
So in this passage,
he shows up on the road
as the first resurrection appearance,
also called the way.
And in the gospel,
it's not the gospel,
pardon me,
the book of Acts,
the whole Christian movement
is called the way.
And why is this happening?
Why is Luke's trying to connect all that?
And what is he saying?
He's saying that this moment,
this ordinary moment
where Jesus shows up
right after he's risen from the dead
on the Emmaus road
is the paradigm
of the normal Christian life.
It's the paradigm of discipleship.
It's that Jesus Christ
does indeed just show up
alongside ordinary human beings
on the road,
the way,
and invite them
to walk the way with him,
to walk the path
of discipleship with him.
It's incredibly ordinary.
And we have this language
all throughout the Bible.
You have the Old Testament,
Isaiah,
the way of the Lord.
And if you come to the New Testament,
you think of that very famous moment
where Jesus Christ says,
I am the way.
And all of these are just pointing
to this normal path
that we all are walking
down a road,
a way,
a life.
And Jesus comes so near.
He might,
the disciples will come to this
in just a moment.
They're incredibly disappointed
when he meets them.
They're sad.
And Jesus Christ,
you might be disappointed
or sad today,
but Jesus Christ,
we're being told here,
may only be a foot away from you,
the light shining,
and in the midst of disappointment,
you can't see it.
You can't see how close
he actually is.
And that means that this passage
is paradigmatic
for the whole of the Christian life.
Now what?
Why does Luke tell us this story?
First resurrection appearance.
Number one,
because it happened.
Let me just give you
one more note on that.
And that's that
when they're talking to him
on this road in verse 18,
they say,
are you the only visitor
to Jerusalem
who doesn't know
what's happened?
And of course,
he's the only one
who does know truly,
deeply, right?
You're supposed to laugh at it.
It's supposed to be funny.
And you know what that indicates?
That indicates
everybody in Jerusalem
knew about the crucifixion.
Everybody in Jerusalem
knew that his body
was not in the tomb anymore.
They're saying,
are you the only one?
Everybody knows.
No matter what they believe,
they all knew.
And then at the end
of Luke's second volume,
the book of Acts,
in Acts chapter 26,
Paul is defending Christianity
before Festus and Agrippa,
King Agrippa.
Agrippa was a Jewish king,
Festus a Gentile pagan ruler.
And he tells them the story
and Festus turns to Paul
and says,
I think, Paul,
this whole stuff
about Jesus dying
and rising from the dead
has made you go insane.
You've studied too much.
You've read too many books.
And Paul turns
and what does he say?
He says to Festus,
I am not mad,
noble Festus.
What I'm saying
is both true
and reasonable.
And then he turns
to Agrippa,
the Jewish king.
Because he's a Jewish king,
he knows more
about what had happened.
And he said,
the king is familiar
with all these things.
I'm sure none of these
has escaped his notice
for these things
were not done
in a corner.
They weren't hidden.
Now,
when the disciples
are on the road
with Jesus,
they say,
are you the only person
who doesn't know
all that's taken place?
Because everybody did.
And then he goes
25 years later
to a king
on the other side
of the world
and says,
I know that you heard
because everybody did.
These things were not
done in a corner.
See,
why does he tell us this
first resurrection appearance
to two no-name people?
Because it happened.
That's why,
because it wasn't done
in a corner.
Everybody knew about it.
This is exactly
what happened.
It's not a legend.
The second reason,
as we said,
is because it's a paradigm
for us.
What he does for them
in this moment,
he does for us.
In the Pilgrim's Progress,
John Bunyan's great story,
the second most published
and sold book
in world history
beside the Bible,
the pilgrim
who becomes a Christian,
he's,
John tells this story,
he's walking
toward the celestial city,
the eternal city,
and the road
that he's walking down
has walls on both sides.
And Bunyan calls them
the walls of salvation.
So on either side
of this narrow way
towards the eternal city
is these walls of salvation.
They're really just
walls of grace.
The grace is keeping
the pilgrim on the way.
And the very first stop,
if you know the book,
he comes to
is the cross
and the empty tomb.
And this is what
Pilgrim says
when he arrives
at the cross
and the empty tomb.
He says,
must here
be the beginning
of all my bliss.
Must here
the burden
fall from my back.
And so at the very beginning
of the road,
when Jesus Christ
encounters you,
you come to the cross
and the empty tomb first.
And you say,
must not the burden
fall from my back
as I walk this road?
You see what that,
you see why
this resurrection appearance?
It's because Jesus Christ,
he is the road,
he is the way,
he is the journeyman
who has already
gone before you.
In other words,
he paved the road,
it's secured.
Easter has already happened.
So he's not coming
to them and saying,
if you get on this road
and you walk
the narrow path
and you obey me perfectly,
then I might get you
to the celestial city.
No, he's saying
the road has already
been paved
because Easter,
the victory
has already happened.
You see,
this is,
this is the,
Luke includes this
because this is just
the paradigm
of the normal Christian life.
Now secondly,
the second traveler.
Now we don't know
where Emmaus is,
it's been lost to us,
people guess,
but nobody knows.
And we only know
of one of the two travelers
in the story,
a man named Cleopas,
verse 18.
That's a Greek name
and it's a famous name,
it's the masculine form
of Cleopatra,
that famous name,
Queen Cleopatra.
He may be,
he may be Clopas,
the wife of one
of the Marys
that was at the cross,
probably part of
the extended family
of Jesus,
but we don't know
who he was.
But what's really striking
in this story
is that we're told
about a second traveler,
a second journeyman,
a person,
and there's no indication
of who they are at all.
So we don't really know Cleopas,
but we surely do not know
who the second traveler is.
Now why,
by the way,
in Mark 16,
the only other instance
of the road to Emmaus story,
both the travelers
are unnamed.
Now why the silence?
Why don't we,
most everybody else
at the end
of the crucifixion stories,
the resurrection stories,
get named,
but not the second traveler?
Why the silence?
And in the same way
that this is an incredibly ordinary,
extraordinarily ordinary moment,
a pattern for
just the average Christian life,
I think what Luke is doing
is trying to ask you
as the reader
to step in
and be the second traveler.
The second traveler
isn't named
because Luke's not only a historian,
he's not only a theologian,
but he's also a storyteller.
And this is both historically true
and also an invitation.
And it's an invitation
for you to say,
I am the second traveler.
The unnamed one is me.
You can put your name
in that second position.
And this point
has been recognized,
by the way,
by lots of the masters of art
throughout the centuries.
There are,
I discovered
just the past couple weeks,
there are so many
Road to Emmaus paintings
in world history,
especially in the Renaissance
and in the medieval era
and post-Reformation as well.
But there's one famous one
by a Spanish artist
named Diego Velasquez.
And he painted this,
not this scene exactly,
actually painted verse 30.
We'll come to it in a minute
when they arrive at dinner in Emmaus
and they sit down,
verse 30.
And Diego painted it.
So he titled it
The Road to Emmaus
or Dinner in Emmaus,
something like that.
But for centuries,
we had the painting.
It's in Dublin.
And what you see
is this young servant girl,
a maidservant in this household.
And she's in the kitchen
and she's holding a pitcher
of water or something
and she has her hand down
and she's stopped.
She's stopped and arrested
her attention
and her head's turned
just like this.
So it said The Road to Emmaus
or the Emmaus meal,
but it was confusing
because it's just a young girl
in a kitchen like this.
But then in 1933,
they cleaned the painting.
It had grime on it.
And in the upper corner,
in the background,
is just a little image
of Jesus and the two travelers
in the dining room
in the little corner at the top.
And what's happening there is,
of course,
it's the moment
where it says
their eyes were opened,
their hearts burned within them.
And her heart,
you see,
Diego wants you to say,
that's me.
I'm the servant girl.
Her head's turned.
Her attention's been arrested.
Her heart is burning within her
as she listens in
on the explanation
that he's giving to them
at the end of the road to Emmaus.
And you see that the master artist
saw the same point,
that you are meant
to put yourself in.
So let me invite you to do that.
The Lord Jesus,
the resurrected Lord,
is closer to you
than you think.
He's walking more near to you
than you think,
than we often think he is.
That's the invitation.
Now let's see how,
thirdly,
the stranger.
Now,
in verse 14,
they are talking,
the two travelers,
with each other,
about all that's taken place.
And then it says,
verse 15,
they were talking
and discussing together.
Now that sounds very repetitive,
but the second word,
discussing,
is a word for arguing.
So it says something more like,
they were talking
and getting in a dispute
with one another
about all that had taken place.
So there's some form of argument
going on between the two travelers here.
And then all of a sudden,
verse 15,
the stranger draws near.
We know it's Jesus.
Jesus,
they do not know it's Jesus.
Where does he come from?
From whence,
the King James might say.
From whence,
where does he come from?
And we don't know.
He just comes from,
from the side of the road
and starts walking with them.
I like to imagine,
maybe that,
as soon as Jesus walks out of the tomb
on the third day,
and everybody's wondering,
where is he?
He,
he made a beeline
straight for the road to Emmaus,
through the city.
Nobody noticed him.
He comes out
on this old dirt road.
There's nobody around,
and he just shows up.
He catches up to them.
And so something like that's
taking place here.
Now here's what they say to him.
They say,
down in verse 21,
we had hoped,
we're sad.
We had hoped that he was the one
to redeem Israel.
So that imperfect language,
we had hoped he was the one.
And so when Jesus encounters them,
this stranger,
their posture is,
we wished he was the redeemer.
We longed,
but he's not.
That's their position.
We had hoped that he was the one
to redeem Israel.
And so Luke,
there between their sadness
and some humor,
as we already pointed out,
verse 17,
18,
and 19,
they say to them,
him,
what's this,
he says to them,
I should say,
what is this conversation
you're holding with each other
as you walk?
They stood still,
they're sad.
And then Cleopas says,
are you the only one
in all of Jerusalem,
the only visitor
who doesn't know what's happened?
And then I think this is where
the humor really lands.
Verse 19,
Jesus says,
what things?
What happened?
As if he doesn't know.
And so he's playing with them
and a bit of humor.
And so in the midst,
Luke writes this story
of complex emotion
where it's both funny
and it's great,
and they're in despair
at the very same time.
They're incredibly sad.
Now why?
Why?
And here's what we're told.
The language in this passage is
they could not see him.
Verse 16.
So they're despairing
because they can't see him.
They were kept,
it's passive,
they were kept from seeing him.
Now anytime in the gospels
that physical sight is talked about,
it's never just physical sight,
it's also about the heart,
about spiritual sight,
about faith.
And so they can't see
with their physical eyes
and that's a testimony
that they cannot see
with their spiritual eyes.
They don't have faith.
And Jesus points that out
in verse 25.
He says,
Oh foolish one,
slow of heart to believe.
So the physical block they have,
the blindness physically,
is a representation
of the blindness
they have in their hearts.
Slow of heart to believe.
And so they've got disappointment,
they've got misunderstanding,
and it's all because
they can't see him.
Why?
The text gives you three reasons
that they can't see him.
Number one,
they believed
that there was no such thing
as the resurrection of the dead.
They're walking on this road
and they say,
we had hoped,
but he died.
He wasn't.
He wasn't what we thought.
You see,
they're in utter despair
because they believe
that there's no such thing
as life after death.
They believe that there's
no such thing
as any kind of resurrection
from the dead.
And if you come here today,
you live in this world,
and there will undoubtedly
be some in a room
this size that come today
where you believe
that you're exploring maybe,
but you believe that
this life is all there is,
and in so many years
you're going to die,
and your body's going to be
put in the grave,
and you're going to rot,
and you're going to feed the grass,
and that's it.
Then by definition,
you don't have hope.
And see,
they are walking down this road,
and it says that
they had hoped,
but they do no longer
because they thought
that death was the end of the road,
that there is no such thing
as the resurrection from the dead.
And we've,
of course,
we've got the same situation
in our modern moment,
but it's existed
for all the centuries.
The idea that
we came about
merely by chance,
that there is no eternity,
that there is nothing
to expect
in the afterlife,
that you simply die,
and you rot,
and you happened by chance.
There is no lawgiver.
There is no moral order
given from above
our mere opinions.
There is no meaning maker
from above our mere opinions.
And if you believe that today,
you have to say at least
that beyond my own view of myself,
I don't have any meaning,
and there is no moral order,
and I can't point to anything
beyond what I think
is right or wrong
according to my opinion.
And that simply means
that you're without hope
in the world.
And boy,
that,
I want to suggest to you
that that takes
such a leap of faith
actually to say,
I don't think any of us
really believes that,
that your life
doesn't have any meaning,
that you don't have any purpose,
that you actually
just come by chance,
that your vision
of your own personal value
is nothing but your own opinion.
I don't think anybody
actually thinks that.
We don't live that way.
And the good news here
in this passage is
while these disciples
on the road to Emmaus
are there in this moment,
boy,
it's a leap of faith
they don't have to make
because it's simply not true.
The Christ who did rise
from the dead
and is promising eternal life
is standing right next to them.
Now,
let's see a bit more about it.
Secondly,
what's blocking their eyes
from seeing?
They wanted,
the second thing is
they wanted the wrong
type of rescue.
So,
you see,
right after that,
back in verse 21 again,
we're told,
they had hoped
that he would redeem
Israel.
So,
they had hoped
he would redeem Israel.
So,
the word redemption there
is a reference
to being rescued,
redeemed.
It shows up in the Old Testament
and all over the New.
And the idea of being redeemed
is an idea of being rescued
from a prison
or pulled from slavery.
But what do they say?
What does it say?
We had hoped
he would redeem Israel.
And that means that
the reason they're
in such despair
and they're without hope
in this passage
is because
they expected
political deliverance.
Jesus Christ came
to deliver them
from their sins,
but instead
they wanted deliverance
from their circumstances.
And so,
they're in such despair
because they think
the one we thought
was going to finally
deliver us from Rome
died.
He's simply gone.
So,
they were,
these disciples
were willing
to read Isaiah
in a place like
Isaiah chapter 11
where it says,
the Messiah will strike
the earth
with the rod of his mouth
and with the breath
of his lips
he shall kill the wicked.
They were willing
to read that
and say,
the Messiah will come
and destroy the wicked
and apply that to Rome.
But they would not,
they were not able yet
to hear Isaiah 53
which says
that he,
the Messiah,
would be bruised
for our transgressions.
You see,
the thing,
they wanted salvation
from their circumstances.
They did not want
salvation from their sin.
They did not want,
you know,
it's so difficult
to walk,
the way of salvation
is so easy
because it's all grace,
the walls of grace
on the road
of the pilgrimage.
Yet,
at the same time,
it's so difficult
because what the gospel
requires of you
is to say that
my greatest problem
is my pride,
not my circumstances.
And we want to be saved
from our circumstances.
We want Jesus
to win the cultural war.
But we don't want
to come to him
and first say
my problem is me,
my problem is my sin.
And so they looked
for redemption
from Rome.
They weren't yet looking
for a redemption
from themselves.
And that means
that they had yet
to have a vision
for the power,
the truth,
the proclamation
of the body
and blood
of Christ broken.
They didn't know
what the cross was about.
They didn't see it.
They thought he was
going to redeem them
from Rome,
but they couldn't
understand why he died.
They could never imagine
a crucified Messiah.
That was the one thing
that they had
no category for.
And so they thought
that his mission
had utterly failed.
We want,
I think in the same way,
remember this is us,
we're the second traveler.
This is a paradigm
for the normal Christian life.
We want Jesus Christ
to be useful
most of the time
more than we want him
to be our redeemer
from our pride,
more than we want him
to break us
from the inside out
and remake us.
Now the third reason
that they couldn't see
is because of,
very simply,
is this divine passive.
What does it say
back in verse 16?
Their eyes,
quote,
were kept
from recognizing him.
Now this is
a mysterious reality.
It appears
all across the Bible
that the text
multiple times
clearly points us
to say something like this.
It's not just
that they were blinded
by their sin,
their inability to see,
but that something
is holding their eyes shut.
And that someone
who's doing that
is Jesus.
It's God.
It's what the theologians
call the divine passive.
They are being kept
from seeing
by the Lord.
Why is that?
There's so much mystery
in that.
Let me try to arrive
at something of an answer
in the final point.
So fourth and finally,
eyes to see,
which is really
the heartbeat
of the whole story.
So in verse 16,
lastly,
their eyes
are kept shut.
And then if you look
down at verse 31,
the great moment,
their eyes were opened.
So they've landed
at Emmaus
and it says
their eyes were opened.
And so here's
the bookends
of the passage
that help us understand
the story
of the disciples
on the way.
Their eyes were closed,
they couldn't see.
And then at the end,
when they sat at the table
with him,
their eyes were opened.
But if you notice,
what is it that really
opened their eyes?
And the text tells us
in verse 31,
it's when the scriptures
were opened up.
So in verse 31,
their eyes were opened
and they recognized him.
And that's following
a whole sequence
of him opening
the scriptures
so their eyes were opened.
And the two verbs
are connected.
He opened the Bible
so their eyes were opened.
Now there's a deep connection
in Luke's gospel
and the book of Acts
between when the Old Testament,
and that's all they had
in this moment
is the Old Testament.
The Old Testament scriptures
are opened and explained
and people's eyes are opened.
And this happens
in the book of Acts
with Lydia.
They explain the Bible to her
and it says
her heart was opened.
And so the eyes
and the heart
are the same thing really.
The physical sight
and spiritual sight
go together.
And so what does he say?
What does he say
about their blindness?
Verse 25,
you are so slow
to believe
what the prophets
had spoken.
So what does he attribute
to their weak faith?
He says it's because
you refuse to read
the prophets rightly
and see what the prophets
had spoken.
So he says it's an issue
of interpretation.
It's an issue
of Bible reading ultimately
is how he explains it.
Now Jesus could have appeared
as a 25 foot tall man,
a five meter tall man
or more.
He could have kicked
the door down
of the Roman praetorium
and shine with light
to Caiaphas and Pilate
and the emperor
and everybody else.
What he chooses to do
is to open the Bible
and have a Bible study
and change their lives
through that means.
It is striking
that on Resurrection Sunday,
the medium he uses
to change lives
is explaining the Bible.
and remember,
this is you.
It's extraordinarily ordinary
and in this passage
we've got just,
as I finish,
two extraordinarily ordinary
ways that God
transforms lives,
that Jesus encounters you.
And what does he say?
Here it is.
The first is that he gives us sight
by the word of the scriptures
and in verse 26,
he says,
was it not necessary
that these things take place?
Was it not necessary
that the Christ would suffer?
What does he mean?
He's pointing back
to the Old Testament
and then it says,
beginning with Moses
and all the prophets,
he interpreted to them
and all the scriptures
the things concerning himself.
Now,
this is next week's topic,
biblical interpretation
in the light of Luke 24.
So,
I won't get into it too much,
but today,
what does he say?
He says,
the whole Old Testament
is about me.
And that's what you need
to see to have your eyes opened
and to come to faith in Christ.
And notice at the end,
verse 32,
their hearts' desires
ran ahead of their faith.
So,
it says,
as he walked on the road with us,
as he explained the Bible to us,
did our hearts not burn within us?
So,
there was this conviction arising
in their hearts,
this desire for him,
even before they knew
what to think about him,
before what they knew
to believe about him.
And that very well
could be you today,
that there's conviction
and burning in your heart
before you yet know
exactly what to say about him,
of exactly what to think about him.
I don't know all the reasons
that Jesus thinks
it's important that you,
I don't know,
I don't know all the reasons for this.
But for whatever reason,
Jesus thinks it's very important
that we all hear him
before we see him.
So,
on Resurrection Sunday,
Jesus wanted these two men
to hear him
before they ever saw him.
And that is exactly
what the Christian life is like.
For whatever reason,
the Lord wants you
to hear him and believe
before you one day see him.
This is for next week,
but
I imagine that maybe
he opened up to them
Genesis 3.15
and he said to them,
look at Genesis 3.15,
how it says,
after the great curse
upon the world after sin,
that one day
the seed of the woman,
the child of Eve,
would crush the head
of the seed of the serpent.
That one day,
a baby born of the lineage of Eve,
born of the new Eve Mary,
would crush the head of a serpent
while that serpent bites his heel.
And if a serpent bites your heel,
that's poisonous,
you die from that.
But at the same time,
the little child
would crush the head of the serpent.
And they realized,
oh,
their heart started to burn.
And they said, whoa,
that's you.
That's Jesus.
And they woke up
and they had the eyes of faith.
And that's exactly what happens here.
It's incredibly ordinary.
And the last thing he uses
is the table.
So down in verse 30,
they've arrived at Emmaus
and we read in verse 30
that he
sat with them at the table
and he took bread
and he blessed it
and he broke it
and he gave it to them.
Now, some theologians
and scholars say
that this is not the Lord's Supper,
but I think that
that's a misunderstanding.
These are the four communion verbs.
He took it,
he blessed it,
he broke it,
he gave it.
And the slight misunderstanding there
is because
any time you sit down
to eat dinner
with the resurrected Lord,
that's the Lord's Supper.
He is the host.
You can't sit down with Jesus
and not eat the Lord's Supper.
He is the Lord,
after all.
So this is the Lord's Supper
with the resurrected Lord
and it says that
as soon as he broke the bread
and handed it to them,
their eyes were opened.
They believed
and he disappeared.
And that's just to say,
that's week three,
the Lord's Supper.
But today,
notice how
ordinary
the word
and the table.
and that's the paradigm
of our eyes being opened
in faith
in the Christian life.
Now,
I'll finish last word here.
This is not a scheme
imposed on this text.
It's the very shape
of Christian worship.
So,
by the second century,
AD 155,
you can open up a text
like Justin Martyr
who's writing out
early Christian liturgy.
And what does he say?
He says that someone
stood up and explained
the apostles' teaching
and then they ate
at a feast
and broke bread
and passed out wine.
So,
the word and the table,
exactly what we're doing today
is exactly
the order of worship
that has been done
to open the eyes of faith
since not just
the second century
but the road to Emmaus,
the first century.
And it's not just about
getting worship right
and all that.
It's about the heart.
John Wesley,
John Wesley in 1738,
the great revivalist
of the 18th century,
he went to a meeting
at Aldersgate Street
down in England
and he was listening
to someone read out
aloud Luther's preface
to the Romans
and then explain
the book of Romans.
And this is what he says,
in the evening,
I went very unwillingly
to a society
in Aldersgate Street
where one was reading
Luther's preface
to the epistle
of the Romans.
About a quarter before nine
while he was describing
the change
which God works
in the heart
through faith in Christ,
I felt my heart
strangely warmed.
I felt that
I did trust in Christ,
Christ alone
for salvation.
And an assurance
was given to me
in that moment
that he really
had taken away
my sins,
even my sins.
The divine passive
becomes the divine active.
The one who keeps
our eyes closed
then opens them.
And that very well
may happen
for you today.
And it may have happened
for some of you
in the past,
but today as we come
through the word
and to the table,
would you be open
to being the second traveler
and having your eyes
opened afresh
and your faith restored?
Because this actually happened.
This is real.
And it's the whole
of the Christian life.
So let's pray.
Father, we ask
that you would
open our eyes today
as we come to your table.
Thank you for your word.
We ask, Lord,
for the divine active
that you would be active
in our lives now.
So we pray
for the coming
of the Holy Spirit now
as we come to commune
with you.
And we pray that
in Christ's name.
Amen.