Lessons from the Omer Period

Well, thank you to the youth choir. To their maybe not so young assistants. We appreciate it very, very much. Beautiful words, beautiful music. It certainly is very much appreciated.

Brethren, as we mentioned during the announcements period, we're just a little over a week now away from the Day of Pentecost, which is the only holy day that we have as a part of our annual Sabbath that is not marked with a fixed date on the calendar.

Instead, God commands His people, count very specifically, to land on the day in which the Day of Pentecost was to be kept every year. Leviticus 23, verse 15, you can jot it down if you'd like. We won't turn there, but Leviticus 23, verse 15 tells us that we count from the day after the Sabbath, that Sunday that is inside of the days of Unleavened Bread, when the wave sheaf offering is offered, that we should count for ourselves seven Sabbaths, forty-nine days, and then the day after the seventh Sabbath, day fifty, is a Sunday, is the day of Pentecost.

Now in ancient Israel on this day, the priests were to take an omer of barley, they were to take a sheave, we would say, or a little amount of the first fruits of that barley harvest, and it was to be waved and to be accepted before God, signifying the beginning of that harvest season in Israel as those fields of barley were ripe and they were now ready to be taken in. I don't know how many of you noticed, you know, it's interesting when you look at John 4 and it talks about how the fields are white for harvest, you know, are ripe for harvest.

Driving in, we slowed down on the way in today significantly because they had somebody pulled over in the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 on the side there, and everyone in the southbound lanes needed to see what was going on, so we slowed down pretty significantly in that stretch. And as I'm looking at the roofs of the cars in the oncoming lanes of traffic, I'm looking above it, there's a field back in there that is just white. It's just beautiful, and that verse just stuck out to me. I don't know what it is.

I'm not a farmer. I don't know. Something. It's white. But it's beautiful. It's beautiful, you know. It's probably... it's not canola. Canola is yellow, right? Metaphone. Sounds like a grain of... no, I have no idea what it is, but it's certainly pretty.

Certainly beautiful. But you have that concept of those fields being ripe, and now at this point in time, once this wave sheaf was done, well, that barley could now begin being taken in, in earnest. But seven weeks later, 50 days later, God commanded instead an offering from the new grain to be given to him, this time from the now ripe heads of wheat in the land of Israel.

The time period between these two events, the time period between this wave sheaf and this day of Pentecost, were known in Israel as the Omer period. We're known as the days of counting the Omer, the Omer period. The counting of those 50 days to Pentecost. And our calendar this year, we're actually nearing the end of that seven-week period now. We just crossed the 40-day line this past week. As we now await the day of Pentecost, it's coming up here on the 28th of May this year.

It today has now been six Sabbaths since the wave sheaf offering took place. You know, we recognize that there's types, there's anitypes in Scripture. We recognize that there is significant spiritual fulfillment to this in that it means it's been six weeks since Jesus Christ was offered to and accepted by God the Father on our behalf, ascending into heaven as the spiritual fulfillment of this wave sheaf offering as what we would say the first of the firstfruits, or as it states in Romans 8 and verse 29, the firstborn among many brethren.

You know, it's always been interesting to me as I go back and I read these accounts. You know, we go through and we read these sections every spring. You know, we go through and we look at these things. We look at them as we go through the days of Unleavened Bread. We look at them as we go through the day of Pentecost. We look at them as we go through the Passover, the night of the events leading up into Christ's arrest and His crucifixion.

You know, we read about all these miraculous events that took place in ancient Israel. We read about their time in the wilderness. We read about the events of the disciples as they moved on after the days of Unleavened Bread in 31 A.D. You know, I think it's interesting. We can read those accounts and we can intellectually understand what we're reading, but there is a certain visceralness to those accounts that I think we struggle to fathom as we read them so many thousands of years later.

We can never lose sight of the fact that these events happened to them directly. They experienced the emotions. They experienced the feelings. They experienced the uncertainty and the doubt which took place as these events took place.

You know, there's a number of references to this period of time, this Omer period, in the New Testament, and I think there's a number of lessons that we can learn from the words of Jesus Christ to His disciples during this time. I'd like to take some time today and in the next message.

This is going to be a two-part message. I want to introduce the topic today. I want to explore one of the lessons with the intent to conclude the remaining lesson on the day of Pentecost. The title of the sermon today is Lessons from the Omer Period. Lessons from the Omer Period, and this is part one of this set of messages. The question that we'll seek to answer together over these two messages is what lessons Jesus Christ imparted to His disciples after His resurrection, and what we can ultimately learn from His words as we approach and as we celebrate this upcoming day of Pentecost.

Let's start today by turning over to the book of Acts. We'll begin in the book of Acts, kind of begin with the end, so to speak, in mind. Well, sort of the end in mind, not quite. Acts 1, we're going to pick it up in verse 1. We want to kind of get an idea here of what exactly was taking place during these intervening days. What was the purpose? What was taking place? Acts 1. Acts 1, and we'll pick it up in verse 1.

Acts 1 and verse 1 says, the former account that I made, O Theophilus, referencing the gospel of Luke. Keep in mind, one of the things that's interesting about the book of Acts is it's really kind of second Luke, in a way. You know, Luke wrote these as a pair of writings, both written to Theophilus to provide him with the understanding of what it was that took place so that his belief could be strong. But it says, the former account that I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up, after he, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandments to the apostles, whom he had chosen, to whom he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during 40 days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Again, Luke's primary goal of this book, as well as the book of Luke, was to provide an orderly account of the events of Christ ministry. An orderly account of the events of Christ ministry to a believer named Theophilus, so he could be certain of what he had been taught. Luke did this through eyewitness accounts, he did this through testimonies of individuals that were present during these events, and while much of the book of Luke itself deals with the identity and the gospel message of Jesus Christ, one of the things that Luke points out here in Acts 1 is that even after Christ's crucifixion, even after his death and his resurrection, Jesus Christ was speaking things pertaining to the kingdom of God. So what was he doing during this seven-week period? He was preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. He was continuing that process. Now we see from Scripture, during this Omer period, these days between him being offered and accepted as the wave sheaf, that he appeared multiple times. He appeared multiple times to a number of different people over a period of 40 days, preparing them for what was coming on the day of Pentecost, and during that time period, he continued to teach his disciples. He continued to teach all who would listen about the kingdom of God. There are some of these appearances that we know a lot about. There are some of these appearances that we know a lot about. There are long passages of Scripture in which Christ speaks, his words are recorded, the disciples' responses are recorded. You know, he kind of verbally smacks them around a little bit. I mean, there's a lot in some of these appearances, but there's other appearances that we only see referenced. We don't see any details, specifically as to what was even mentioned in those situations. For example, 1 Corinthians 15 talks about Christ appearing to Peter, appearing to James, appearing to 500 brethren at once, there is no real additional biblical accounting of these particular appearances, other than they happened. We see that in the book of Corinthians, and we see it in the Gospel accounts as well, that they happened. We have to accept there's some details, some things that were said that we are not privy to, that we just simply do not have details of as we go through these things.

And I think that lines up very much with what John wrote to conclude his Gospel. He said, and there are many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. We don't have all of it. We don't have all of it. We have a lot of it. We have enough of it. We don't have all of it. So there are things that took place that we don't have recorded for us, but what we do know is that in these appearances, in these times when he came to his disciples, we can conclude from the book of Acts, from what Luke recorded for us, that during this period he continued to expound on and he continued to speak the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. We also see that in that time he took time to steady his disciples. He took time to challenge them on their doubt, on their faith, on their fears, and on their worries. When we read the accounts that surround Christ's death, his resurrection, and the events of these seven weeks, one of the things that we're able to pull from these accounts is what kind of a very difficult headspace his disciples were in.

You know, as we piece these accounts together, we can get a better idea of exactly where they were.

Let's start by going to Luke 24. And again, as I mentioned when we started, sometimes it's really hard for us to put ourselves into this account. We can go back and we can read it thousands of years later with very analytical eyes. We might even be able to somehow empathize with what they were experiencing. We might be able to understand a little bit of what it was they dealt with, but we were not there. We were not there. We don't know what it felt like. We don't know what it sounded like. We don't know what... there's a lot of the aspects of this that we just don't have.

But when you look at these accounts and you look at them closely, you can see the headspace that they're in. You can see the visceralness. His disciples were in shock. His disciples were in shock. And when you go through, when you look at what it was they were dealing with and how they said these things, when you get it with a kind of a scrutinizing eye, you can see some incredible things. We see that they were grieving. We see they were wrapping their brains around the perceived end to this story that they had not expected. They did not expect the end of this story to happen in the way that it did. They had placed their hopes in the restoration of the kingdom to Israel in, we might say, kind of a Jewish reckoning of the Messiah in some ways. And now Jesus was gone.

And he was crucified like so many of those who had come before. They were struggling.

They were struggling with this. Some of them were asking the question, was he? Wasn't he?

Did we have it wrong? Did we have it wrong? Luke 24. Luke 24. I want you to see that in the word of your own Bible. Luke 24 verse 1, now in the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they and certain other women with them came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.

But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened as they were greatly perplexed about this.

Notice they were greatly perplexed about this. That behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then as they were afraid and they bowed their faces to earth, they said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead? Verse 6, he is not here, but is risen. Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and the third day rise again. Verse 8, and they remembered his words.

It hadn't dawned on them until that point. They remembered his words. So the women remembered what Christ had said to them in Galilee, that he would be delivered into the hands of men who would kill him by crucifixion. And then on the third day, he would ultimately rise again. So the women rushed, they hurried to go and tell the apostles what they had seen. Verse 9, they returned from the tomb and they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Okay, so the disciples, the apostles are gathered, those who were there. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles. Verse 11, their words seemed to them like idle tales and they did not believe them. Again, we lose the meaning of that in the Greek or in the English. What that means is their words seemed like nonsense to them.

The word is leros, and it's a very strong word that was used in Greek medical literature to describe the talk of someone who was suffering from delirium or hysteria. Not only did the apostles not believe the women who came and said his body is gone, they passed it off as an effect of the shock that they were hysterical, that they were delirious because they had lost someone who was close to them. And the apostles did not believe the words that they said. You know, it's amazing. The human body is capable of creating some incredible delusions when it's in shock.

It is capable of creating some incredible things when it's in shock. Hysteria can result in people hearing things that didn't happen, seeing things that aren't there. That's what the apostles are saying this is. That's what they're saying this is. Peter and John, actually John 20 verse 2, if you want to go ahead and turn over there, John 20 and verse 2, is the parallel account that kind of helps piece just a little more of this together. John 20 and verse 2, kind of, again, giving us an idea of the disciples' mindset at this time and the issues that they were dealing with.

John 20, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. John 20 and verse 1.

It says, now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. She then ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, here referring to John, and said to them, they have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.

Again, kind of a parallel account here to what we just looked at as they've come back. So they come and they tell the disciples this, the apostles this. They didn't believe him, but Peter and John went with her. They went back to the tomb. Peter therefore, verse 3, went out in the other disciple, and we're going to the tomb. So they're on their way now. They go running down to the tomb. They look into the tomb. They see the linen lying there. They see the handkerchief that was around his head folded in place by itself. Verse 8 of John 20 says, then the other disciple who came to the tomb first went in also, and he saw, and he believed. John, and presumably Peter as well, we just see John specifically referenced here, they saw it with their own eyes, and John records that they believed what Mary had said. Did they believe that he had risen? No. They believed that someone had taken the body. How do we know? Verse 9. Keep reading. Verse 9, for as yet they did not know the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. They didn't know at that point in time what was going on. They believed something was up. They believed something was up. They believed the body of Jesus Christ was not there, but they weren't up to speed yet on exactly what was taking place.

After this, we see Peter and John return to their home. Mary stays at the tomb. Mary stays at the tomb. Peter and John leave. You know, Mary, the woman whom Christ delivered from demonic possession, this woman who was present at the crucifixion watching from afar, present in so many stories in scripture. Dear, dear friend of the Lord, Christ appears to her first. She's the first one that he appears to. Verse 11. We continue on here in John 20. Verse 11. Mary stood outside by the tomb weeping, and as she wept she stooped down and looked into the tomb. On top of all of the events of this past week, now the Romans or the Jews have taken his body. He's gone. They can't even prepare their own friend, their own rabbi, for burial. And Mary just stoops down before the tomb and just sobs. I mean, just absolutely breaks down. She peers into the tomb, and what she sees in verse 12 is two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, were the body of Jesus at lane. They said to her, woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, because they've taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. Verse 14. Ultimately, when we see it says, now when she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there. She didn't know that it was him at that point in time. Verse 15 says, Jesus said to her, woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? She, supposing him to be the gardener, said to him, sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you've laid him, and I will take him away. She goes, it's fine. Just tell me where he is. All we want to do is go and bury him properly. That's it. That's all we want to do. If you've taken the body, tell me where you put him. We'll go get him. Verse 16, Jesus said to her, Mary, she turned and she said to him, Rabboni, which is to mean teacher. There had to have been something in the way that he said her name, something that sounded familiar, something that, you know, whatever it was, but she was able to recognize him at that point. She was able to recognize his voice. She recognized the voice of her shepherd. She turned to him and she said, Rabboni, which is to say, teacher. Jesus tells her at that point in time, verse 17, do not cling to me, for I've not yet ascended to my father, but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father and to my God and your God. Christ says, go back to the apostles and tell them what is taking place. Go and tell them these things. So, off Mary goes again, back to the apostles to tell them what was going on. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had spoken these things to her. So Mary goes back to tell him she's seen Christ, that he is ascending to the father, their father, and to his God and their God.

First time Mary showed up, she told him the tomb was empty and the body was gone and they said, it's nonsense. She's nuts. She's delirious. She's beside herself with grief.

Now she comes back and says, not only have I seen him, he's alive. He is alive. He spoke to me.

Not only was the tomb empty, it was empty because he was alive. They haven't just moved the body someplace. He's alive. Mark 16, if you want to turn over there, Mark 16 and verse 9, records their response. Mark 16 and verse 9 records their response.

Mark 16 and verse 9.

Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene. We just read that account, out of whom he had cast seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, notice what they were doing when she arrived, mourning and weeping, were three days out from the event itself. And they are mourning and they are still weeping, the loss of their friend, loss of their Lord. It says, verse 11, when they heard that he was alive and he had been seen by her, they did not believe. She comes back and she tells exactly what God told her to say.

She tells exactly what she saw. They said, uh-uh. So Mary arrives full of joy, full of excitement, to a room that is still in the throes of mourning. They are still tore up over this, mourning and weeping. And she arrives with this joyful exclamation, excitedly explaining what was taking place and that Christ was alive. He's here. And they didn't believe her. They didn't believe her. In some ways, actually, as you read through this account, it's kind of interesting.

They reverted back in some ways to the Jewish understanding of who and what Messiah was to be.

And there's evidence for that in some of these accounts that you see. And you have to think about it. You have to put it in a perspective. These men had read the Scripture their entire lives.

They knew the Scripture forward and backward. You know, Christ had expounded on. They taught that Scripture. He'd revealed to them the things that they'd only ever really understood intellectually.

But then, in some ways, everything came crashing down. They had the prophecies. They had the teachings of Christ. They had the writings. They had all of the Scripture that pointed forward to the coming of Messiah. Christ himself even told them that after three days and three nights in the grave that he would rise again as a sign of Jonah. He told him who he was and they believed.

At least they believed intellectually. But it kind of seems like when you go through these accounts, based on the way that it was recorded and how it was recorded, despite these things, they still didn't fully understand what any of it meant. Not at least right away. You know, we just looked at John 20 in verse 9. John 20 in verse 9. You can turn back there if you'd like.

But for three and a half years, the disciples followed Christ. They learned from Him directly.

They walked the same paths. They slept on the same hard ground. They watched Him perform miracle after miracle after miracle. They watched the dead come to life. I mean, they watched a couple of fish and some bread feed thousands of people, you know, when it's all said and done in a couple of different events. It's incredible what they saw, what they saw done. And therein lies some of the parallels that we see with the account with the Israelites as they went through this same period of time, as they saw miracle after miracle after miracle and yet still did not believe.

Now there's parallels between this time period in ancient Israel, this time period in the New Testament. John 20 and verse 9 says that Peter and John, two of the disciples that were in Christ's inner circle, two of the men that were present during the transfiguration who saw the transfiguration on that mountain, says they did not yet know the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.

Brethren, those words were written by John's own hand in his own gospel. John is telling us, I didn't get it. I didn't understand. I heard the things. I was there. I watched it all happen.

I saw the miracles. I heard the lessons. And I, John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, missed the point. I missed the point. We cannot forget that these disciples were human, too. They were human, too. And sometimes the things that we see, the things that we hear, the things that we learn, they conflict with our worldview. Psychology has a term for this called cognitive dissonance, where we hear something or we see something that conflicts with something else that we know or believe to be true. And in those situations, you're in a tough spot because your body wants to rectify one or the other of those things to be the thing which is true. Cognitive dissonance is defined when a person's behavior and beliefs don't complement one another or when they hold two contradictory beliefs. Christ is the Messiah, and they look on the other hand and say, yes, but he's dead. Christ is the Son of God. Yes, but we saw him die. And they're in the process of trying to rectify these two things. They're trying to work this out in their heads. And in times of incredible stress or pain, your brain will make you rectify these two things, and frequently you will default to your deepest, seated, or longest held belief, which is why in times of stress and trouble we frequently default to our own carnality instead of the Spirit of God dwelling in us.

Because there is cognitive dissonance in us as well. We are physical human beings. We believe this. We also see this. And we default to the longest held position in most cases.

These guys had been Jewish their entire life. The teachings Christ was providing to them were new to them. They were expounded on. Christ had given them a glimpse into the mind of the lawgiver, but we cannot forget they were not converted yet. They did not yet have God's Spirit.

In that sense, though, they were a step above the rest of Israel because of Christ's presence with them and the teachings he had provided. But in this moment of crisis, they reverted back to what they knew. Let me prove it to you. Let's go to Acts 1. Acts 1. Forward to the, you know, end quote unquote of the story a little bit as we're getting outside of that window of time. We're going back to what Luke had written here. We're going to pick it up where we left off beginning in verse 4 of Acts 1. Acts 1 and verse 4. Mind you, this is written after all of the appearances that took place during this time period, during this Omer period, all of the appearances that took place. This is written after that. And being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father. So we're at or around day 40 at this point, right? He said, which, he said, you have heard from me. He says, I've already taught you about this. Wait until this point. For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Okay, the disciples. Notice verse 6. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? They are still thinking of a physical kingdom that is on this earth, destruction of the Romans, etc. They are looking at it in a very Jewish way of looking at things at that time.

Notice the way that they're looking at this. He said to them in verse 7, It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. But Christ, again, at this point, has already appeared to his disciples almost a dozen times, just in this stretch between the days of unleavened bread now and these weeks that followed, counting up to Pentecost.

He's been imparting these lessons to them. He's been teaching them. He's been helping them to understand at this point, Pentecost was all of 10 days away by the time this information was put here. He says, wait in Jerusalem until the day of Pentecost when the promise of the Father would come. And they said, is that when? Is that when you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel?

Is that when this finally is going to come? What we've expected for so long?

After all of this, they were still viewing Christ in many ways as a conquering king.

As the Messiah, the Jewish people are waiting for still to this day, that they would come and He would come and conquer Rome, restore the nation of Israel to greatness. So they were conflicted in their understanding of the events of that prior week and how that fit in with the understanding that they had. During this period of time, we see disciples who are in shock.

They're mourning, they're weeping, they're conflicted, they're struggling to rectify what they're seeing with what they know. But in addition to that, there's one extra layer.

They were afraid for their lives. They were afraid for their lives. The Jews had put Christ to death, in essence, kind of forcing Pilate's hand, and the disciples were known associates. They'd been seen everywhere with Him. They knew who they were. In John 20 and verse 19, during one of Christ's appearances to the disciples, they were gathered together in a room around a table with the door shut. The Greek word for shut can also be translated as locked. And it says that that door was shut for what reason? Because of the fear of the Jews. They were worried. They were scared. They were afraid for their lives. They were uncertain. They were deeply mourning, and they were deeply grieving.

And so it is from this mindset, and it's from this place, that Christ's final lessons to His disciples begin. It is in this headspace that the people He is talking to are in, as He begins to teach them these things leading up into the day of Pentecost. And it's from this place that everything else comes, everything else builds, as Christ really truly meets His disciples where they are and what they're dealing with. Let's go to Luke 24. Luke 24. One of the appearances that we have that provides us with quite a bit of detail is the appearance of the two disciples that are walking along the road to Emmaus. It's in Luke 24, and we'll pick it up in verse 14 of Luke 24.

Luke 24 and verse 14. One of these men is identified. His name is Cleopas, sometimes listed as Alphaeus. Depending on your translation, they may just call him Alphaeus. There's some speculation.

He may have been the father of one of the Jameses, may have been married to A. Mary. There's some connections here. So he's connected in that sense. But Luke 24 and verse 14, we'll pick it up in 13.

I'm sorry, I told you 14 meant 13. The other one with the three in it or four in it says, "...now behold two of them were traveling to the disciples were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. They talked together of all of these things which had happened. And so it was," verse 15, "...while they conversed and while they reasoned that Jesus himself drew near and he went with them." It says, "...their eyes were restrained so that they did not know him." So these two men, as they're walking down the road here on the way to Emmaus, they're having a conversation.

Now the Greek uses two different words here to describe this conversation that these individuals are having. The first is the word homileo, which literally just means to talk to each other. That's it. It means to talk, to speak, or to talk to one another. The other word, though, that is used here when it talks about them reasoning with one another is siteo, which means to dispute, to debate, or to argue. So they are talking, yes, but the discussion is heated. That discussion is they are reasoning with one another.

They are like going back and forth through the events of what they've just experienced. They're trying to figure out how it fits and how it is part of what was taught. This conversation may be emotional. In fact, Christ comes along and says, what is this conversation? Why are you so sad?

Right? It's kind of what he says to him at that point. So along comes Christ. Along comes Christ. He inserts himself into the conversation. They're unable to see him who he is. They surmise that he's just a stranger. Verse 17, he says, what kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk in? They're sad. Why is your countenance sad? What is going on here? What kind of conversation are you having? The one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to him, are you the only stranger in Jerusalem?

And have you not known the things which have happened here in these days? He kind of said, bruh, where have you been? Like, hello, where have you been? How is it that you haven't heard about all of these events that have taken place in Jerusalem over the past week? Verse 19, he says, well, what things? What things? Educate me. Tell me what happened. So they said to him, the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. Keep in mind, please, as we read this, these are disciples. These are individuals who had followed Christ. Okay, keep that in mind.

These aren't just two random people on the road to Emmaus. These are connected folks. Says how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned and to death and crucified him, but we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company who arrived at the tomb early astonished us. When they did not find his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the woman had said, but him, they did not see.

Cleopas essentially just unloads this information, just kind of full download onto Christ. He tells him of Christ. He tells him of how he was delivered and killed. He goes on to describe their hopes, the vanishing of the body, the vision of the angels. He just spills everything to this quote-unquote stranger. But notice what he doesn't say. He does not identify Jesus as Messiah. He calls him a prophet. Says he was a mighty prophet.

He describes the events and how they transpired, even though, even notes that it's the third day, but he's not connecting the dots. That three days and three nights was the sign that Christ would give. He states that he had hoped that he was the one, but kind of implicit in those words is a certain degree of dejectedness that he felt maybe he wasn't. He largely disregards the testimony of the women. He says, well, they said that they saw him, but I don't know, Peter went. He didn't see him.

You can imagine as they walked along this road prior to Christ's arrival, they were talking about these points emotionally. They were debating them. They were going back and forth again as to what it all meant. Verse 25. Verse 25. Christ says to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all the prophets have spoken, ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory. Christ chastises them for their lack of belief, their lack of understanding. He calls them foolish ones, and that's a strong word. He says they are senseless. They are without understanding.

That's what that word means in Greek. They are senseless and without understanding. He says, they're slow of heart. He goes as far as saying you're slow to perceive. You're slow to understand.

He calls them dullards, slow learners. We have a word for that today. We call it mental retardation.

That's literally what the word is suggesting here, that they are slow of learning, slow of perception. Christ is not pulling punches at all with these two men. They're very strong words that Christ is using here. He says even with all of the things that you've listed, all these things that he said, you should have been able to connect the dots. Everything was there for you to understand and believe. Christ essentially tells him you had all the proof that you needed. He had all the proof that you needed. And then we see that he begins with Moses and the prophets, the very things they should have understood and believed, and then expounds on passages regarding himself and the suffering of Messiah, filling in the spaces. Passages like Isaiah 52 and 53.

Say, how do you work your way around that, guys?

You can only imagine after the strong words used in the chastisement that this message was pretty powerful. We're not privy to exactly what was said. It's interesting. One commentator actually goes as far as saying, oh, if that sermon were recorded, like if we could be on a fly on the wall to hear those words. They arrive home. They finally arrive at Emmaus. They invite him into dine with him.

Christ breaks bread at that point. He blesses the bread. Their eyes were open. They were able to see him. They were able to perceive him. And then he vanished from their sight. They realized, as they were on the road, how their heart had burned in them while they talked with him, while he had taught them the scriptures, while he had worked with them. And the words, as you read that, almost have a little bit of a certain like, how could we not have known? How could we not have known who it was that was walking alongside us for all that time along the road? Verse 33. So I love this part of the story. This is my favorite part of this whole thing. Verse 33. They rose up that very hour.

They're excited. They just had all these things. We've just seen the Lord. And they go running to Jerusalem. And they find the 11 and those who are with them gathered. And they go, you guys, you guys!

We've got some huge news! And they're like, wait! Us first! They said, the Lord has risen and he appeared to Simon! And they're like, oh, oh, he returned to Simon first. Oh, same thing, but he came to us. You know, they have this moment of almost like dejectedness just a little bit as they kind of get deflated as they find out, oh, okay, well that was our news. You know, so they end up telling them along what happened along the road and ultimately at their home. And then verse 36, this is the famous peace to you or peace be with you as Christ just appears suddenly in the room behind the door. And he says, peace be with you. Peace to you. The disciples at that moment, as you can only imagine, freaked out. They were scared. In fact, I think we would be too if we were new to this whole resurrected Christ thing. He wasn't there, and then suddenly he was. He was not at this time bound by physical constraints in that he was not bound by walls or doors. He suddenly appeared in their midst. So they surmised what anyone who would reason at that time surmised, well, he must, must be a spirit. That must be what we're seeing here. This must be a spirit.

And the scripture records that realization terrified them. It frightened them. Verse 38, as we look forward into this, Christ says to them, why are you troubled? Why are you troubled? And not only that, why do doubts arise in your heart? Why do doubts arise in your heart? Why are you so troubled? Why are you so disturbed? What's the reason for this fear that you're exhibiting all of a sudden? The word doubts there is dia logismos, which is used to describe like reasoning thoughts.

Why is it you're trying to reason your way around this? Why are you trying to find some way to explain it? Accept it for what it is. Have faith. Believe in what I told you. Trust me.

And then, verse 40, he says, when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

But while they still did not believe for joy, notice at this point they're still in disbelief, albeit for a different reason now, but they'd marveled. He said to them, do you have any food here? So they gave him a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb, and he took it, and he ate in their presence. At this point, these disciples had heard from Mary, they'd heard from Peter, they'd heard from these two disciples that were on the road to Emmaus, but they were not convinced.

They were not convinced. They needed to see him, and they needed to hear his words. They needed to touch him with their own hands. Notice that they, at this point, didn't believe for joy. He says, Christ even went as far as eating some fish in a honeycomb to further prove that he was not a spirit.

Seeing their doubts, seeing their troubles, he offers up his hands and his feet for inspection.

He invites them to touch him, to see that he is flesh and bone. You ever had something happen in your life that you were so overjoyed about that you were in disbelief that could actually be happening? When it says they did not believe for joy, that's what it's talking about. I cannot believe that this is true. I cannot believe you're here. We watched you die. We have no explanation.

Is he a spirit? Is he this? What is he? But their unbelief and their skepticism and their doubt shifted into an inability to even comprehend what they were seeing standing before them in that moment due to the extreme joy in what they were seeing now. They now knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Jesus Christ had been resurrected. There was no doubting anymore. He was standing before them in the flesh and blood, in the spirit body that was capable of going through walls, but also somehow capable of being handled, consuming food, and they were just overjoyed that their master had returned. In verse 44, as we continue on here in Luke 24, verse 44, as we continue to look at these lessons, he said to them, These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms concerning me. Kind of has a moment of like, Look, I told you guys this was going to happen. We've been through this. We've mentioned this before. Verse 45, he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures. And then in verse 46, so they kind of got the the second barrel of what was given to the Cleopas and the guys on the road to Emmaus. They got the second part of it. And Cleopas was there to get it a second time, but he said to them, verse 46, Thus it is written and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day and that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. And you, verse 48, you are witnesses of these things.

So Cleopas and his friend get the message again. And starting again with Moses and the prophets, he opens their understanding, expounds on the scripture to teach them how all of these events that they've just processed and are in process of processing. It's a lot of processing. How these things fit in with the teaching of the prophets. How they teach in with all of these prophecies.

Kind of provide the surety, the message. But in verse 40-80, really brings it home. Verse 40-80 really brings it home. You are to be witness to these things. This is why these things have happened. It's so that you could see them. And so you could tell the story. So that those who come later, as this ecclesia begins to be built on this day of Pentecost that is now only a few days away, ultimately can be built as a result of the things which you have seen. These things were done for their benefit in a large way. This experience that they'd had over these weeks as he was bringing these appearances. We see, in fact, Peter and John, in both of their epistles, harken back to the things that they witnessed with their own eyes. The things that they heard with their own ears.

John 1, verse 1 says, that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. These events, these appearances, were critical for the disciples for them to be able to go forward to build this church that Jesus Christ was building that began on that day of Pentecost. They had to go through these events.

Let's go back over to John 20. John 20. We'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 26 of John 20.

But the disciples went out from this meeting. We're not going to take a ton of time here.

And they told Thomas, who was not present at the time of his first appearance, but they told Thomas what had happened and how they had seen the Lord. And Thomas, reacting very similarly to how they would have reacted at the time, said that unless he could see in his hands the print of the nails and put his finger into the print of the nails and put his hand into his side, he didn't buy it.

Thomas said, unless I see it with my own eyes, unless I put my fingers in the holes in his hands, my hand in the hole in his side, I don't buy it. It could be somebody else. It could be a fake.

Deep fake. It could be a deep fake, right? These days we see those types of things. They didn't have deep fakes then. So eight days later, Christ let Thomas kind of stew a little bit, eight days later, he appears to the disciples again while they're all gathered together.

Again, it's still similar to the prior concept. We won't take a ton of time, but verse 26 of Acts 20, after eight days, his disciples were again inside and Thomas with them, Jesus came, the doors being shut and stood in the midst. So once again comes into a closed up room and says, peace to you. Peace be with you. He then said to Thomas, point blank, immediately following, I mean, we don't know if there's anything in between, what we see recorded is, he then said to Thomas, reach your finger here. Look at my hands, reach your hand here, put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing. So we see Thomas does. Ultimately, Thomas answered and he said to him, my Lord and my God. My Lord and my God. And we see Thomas ultimately exhibit the belief necessary now, recognizing who Jesus Christ is, what had taken place. Mark 16 and verse 14, you don't need to turn there, you can jot it if you'd like. It's the parallel to this. It characterizes this encounter as a rebuke, not just for Thomas, but for the entirety of the disciples that were present.

So this is a rebuke. Maybe it's not as gentle as we're reading here in John 20. It says in Mark 16 verse 14 that Jesus Christ rebuked them for their unbelief and for their hardness of heart.

Sounds just like the Israelites, doesn't it? Sounds very similar.

And why was he upset? Because they didn't believe those who had seen him after he had risen. They didn't listen to Mary. They didn't listen to the men on the road to Emmaus. They didn't listen. They had to see it themselves. They had to somehow prove it. He says, do not be unbelieving but believing.

Thomas answered and said, my Lord and my God, Jesus said to him, Thomas, verse 29, because you have seen me, you have believed. But then he said, blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.

Thomas was convinced. He was convinced. Identifies him not just as Lord but also as God. Theos is the word there. Christ essentially tells Thomas, you believe now because you've seen me. But he says, blessed are those who have not seen and yet still believed. Paul writes and puts it this way, blessed are those who walk by faith, not by sight. Those who trust and believe without the need to see, without the need to reason around it, without the need to dissect it.

The remainder of the lessons for Christ's disciples had to be built on this foundation of faith and belief. They could do nothing more until this got settled. And Christ settled it in magnificent ways. He settled it. Just like the disciples, brethren on the road to Emmaus, we have every bit of proof that we need from the scriptural account. We have the same prophets.

We have the same writings. We have the same Torah. We even have the added benefit of the words of Jesus Christ via the gospel accounts and the epistles that go on from Paul and the general epistles as well. We also have the added benefit of God's Holy Spirit working in us. We have every bit of proof that we need from the scriptural account. We have the Spirit of God to bring to remembrance all things. We have these events that we've seen in the Days of Unleavened Bread, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have the rest of the New Testament that takes place after the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. We have their witness. We have their words. We have their testimonies, their experiences. How frequently do we doubt? How frequently do we look at a situation with skepticism? Perhaps not considering what it is that God is doing. How frequently do we have the need to place our hands in His side? For Him to prove that He is there, that He is with us.

What will it take for us to believe? Or will we walk by faith and not by sight?

Will we believe and will we trust in the accounts that we have, the testimonies that we have, and put the skepticism and the doubt behind us? You know, even though Christ realized that His disciples were in a tough spot after His death, even though they were clearly experiencing shock, deeply grieving, experiencing these doubts and these skepticism situations, even though they were afraid for their lives, worried about the Jews and the Romans, Jesus Christ rebuked them for their hardness of heart and their disbelief. And not just their disbelief from a, you know, intellectual standpoint, but their disbelief here. Their disbelief in their heart of hearts, in who God is and what God was doing. Again, we have everything that we need. We have all of the proof, all the support to not just believe with our heads, but to believe with our hearts that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. That this totally messed up world around us is not the end.

That what He has promised us and what He has said will take place is going to take place.

We have incontrovertible proof that He died for our sins, that He was raised, just as He said He would be after being in the grave for three days and three nights, that He has ascended to the throne and He is sitting at the right hand of God.

And brethren, if all of those things are true, then everything else is too.

It's from this foundation, this foundation of faith, that the rest of the lessons from this Omer period take place. We'll take a look at those in Part 2 on the Day of Pentecost.