Walking with Jesus to Emmaus

Sir Darris McNeely. Good afternoon, everyone. Wow. That's a red lens welcome, I suppose, huh?

Hope all of you had a very good Day's of Unleavened Bread, which concluded last evening. We're now here on the week of Sabbath as well. With the Holy Days, spring Holy Days behind us, at least concluded, we're not completely beyond that because, as you know, it would have been last Sunday, the day after the Sabbath, during the Days of Unleavened Bread. The Bible shows us there was a wave-sheaf offering that was given, and Christ Himself was that wave-sheaf offering, and so on the day after His resurrection, He did ascend to the Father, and that count began toward Pentecost. And so we look now toward the Day of Pentecost. About six weeks now, a little more than six weeks away, we will be observing the Feast of Pentecost. So we're in that period between Unleavened Bread and Pentecost. And there's a lot in the Scriptures that actually cover that period between the resurrection of Christ during the Days of Unleavened Bread and the Pentecost that we read about in Acts 2, where God poured out His Spirit at the beginning of the church, and that story began at that time. There's a number of episodes and vignettes from Scripture that can teach us certain things about this period of time and what to focus on. And so I'd like to take you to one of those stories at this time back in Luke chapter 24. Luke chapter 24 is the only gospel writer Luke is that recorded this particular incident, this story, that took place on the morning after the resurrection of Jesus Christ during the Days of Unleavened Bread. And it is a story of two disciples who were walking on the road to Emmaus.

Emmaus was a small village not too far distant from Jerusalem, and this is where the story opens in Luke 24 beginning in verse 13, where it says, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus. And that same day would be a Sunday. It was a Sunday during the Days of Unleavened Bread. It was the day after the resurrection of Christ, which was seven miles from Jerusalem, very short distance. And archaeologists think they know the location of that today, about where that would have been, a very short distance out of the even present-day city of Jerusalem, about three score furlongs, perhaps, down the road. Now these two disciples were walking, it says, and they were talking. It says in verse 14, together of all these things which had happened, those things would be the death of Jesus Christ, his arrest, his betrayal, the crucifixion, the events that happened at the very moment Christ died of an earthquake, the renting of the veil, the ripping of that veil in the temple, in the darkness at midday, all those events that took place at that very moment, tombs were opened, dead walked the earth in Jerusalem who had been dead.

And people saw that. And it was a moment. And then Christ died, and he was put into the grave. And now, as the earlier verses described, some disciples had gone to the tomb and found it to be empty. And so here are two other disciples. Only one of them is going to be named.

But they were talking together about these things and mulling it over in their mind about what had happened. And verse 15 says, it came to pass that while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. So here are two disciples walking down the road back to Emmaus, probably where they were their home. And they're talking about all of this and what had happened. And Christ drew near and he went with them. But their eyes were holding that they should not know him. They did not recognize as they talked, they were restrained so that they did not know, they didn't recognize him. How that happened, Scripture doesn't tell us. If you're a Star Wars fan, you know that these Jedi mind tricks are performed that keep people from perceiving certain things. I'm not saying that's what Jesus did on this occasion, but they for that moment didn't know what was taking place. And so they talked, they conversed, and they reasoned. And what the meaning of that phrase is, to discuss, it really reflects the, they were exchanging ideas. They were throwing ideas back and forth about what everything meant.

Kind of like you and I do when we talk over among ourselves about the Bible, about a sermon that we have heard, or something going on in our lives, and we're seeking to, you know, just iron sharpening iron, working back and forth in our own conversations that we will do, hopefully, and we need to do. In fact, that's one of the lessons from this particular story, and that is, of disciples talking among themselves about the things of God. And to do that, which is what we should be doing ourselves. Two of them here, Christ did say, where two or three of you are gathered I will be in the midst of them. And this is a literal application of that, that shows us that Jesus is among his people today when we talk about him, when we talk about the Word of God.

And so this is a very important lesson that we can gain here. These two at this moment, we're talking about the very, the most momentous event in certainly in their lifetime and as we know in all of history, and seeking to figure it all out. Now, when we see Christ, he says he came and he drew near and he went with them. He walked with them. We can draw a lot from that as well. In the book of Revelation, chapter one, we find that the picture that John receives in that vision of a resurrected Christ standing in the midst of seven candlesticks, which are interpreted to mean the seven, seven churches or the totality of the church, which is his body. In Christ's, through that we gain a lot of information, one of which is that Christ is in his church. He's in the midst of his church. Here he's in the midst of two of his disciples. So understand this. When we are conversing, when we are fellowshiping, as we are today, we ask God's presence. When we may do that, even in smaller groups, God is there. And he may be there even when, you know, we may not be aware of that, which again teaches us to mind what we say and keep that in mind. So he walked with him, just as he is with the church throughout time and throughout history. Now let's go to verse 17. He said to them, what kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk in or sad? They were sad. The reality of the resurrection had not sunk in to them. All they seemed to be focused on were the events of his death. And then, you know, there's an empty tomb. They're not quite sure what that means. And it took some time for all of this to sink in. They're not fully believing, if you will, that he was resurrected. So there's a sadness about it, and they're going to explain what exactly that was. In verse 18, 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 happened there in these days? As if, of course, it was the talk of the town.

Social media lit up with Christ's crucifixion and those events. It did not subside for a long time.

This was the talk of the town. And for someone who they didn't recognize, thinking it was just a stranger, not to know what happened, that that's kind of unbelievable. So it goes on here. In verse 19, he said to them, What things? And they said to him, Well, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God, and all the people. So they emphasized what he had done, the work of God's Spirit in Christ as he conducted his ministry. And what it had done, he had gone about with the power of God, we are told in other scriptures, he did good things. Christ would walk into a village, walk into an amongst a group of people, and he would do good things. If you really would add it all up from the gospel accounts as to what Jesus did as he interacted with people, he would teach them, he would feed them, and he would heal them.

Think about that. By the power of God, he healed the sick, cast out demons in some cases, did good things. On occasion, he fed them, thousands of them. And then he taught them, most importantly, he taught them his word and what all that meant and what was going on and what the word of God was. And so he did all of that by the power of God. And that's what they said here in verse 19.

He was a prophet, mighty indeed and word before God and all the people. And this is summation of Christ's ministry here. And so going on in verse 20, they said, "...and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him." And of course, that whole story they knew, they had been witnessed to it, parts of it.

They may not have been exactly in the court when he was questioned by the chief priest or pilot that night, but they heard about it. And they certainly witnessed his crucifixion if they chose to have been, you know, lingering in the back parts of the crowd that would have been there. There's a very interesting painting. A year or two I discovered it. Maybe somebody recommended it to me or whatever. It was online.

It's a view of the crucifixion, the death of Christ, from Christ's perspective. I don't know if any of you have ever seen that or not. But it's, it's, it doesn't picture Christ on a cross. It pictures the people down below watching Him. It's a very, very moving picture. And you could, you could pull out Mary and others that are, that are there, a centurion, and those that are looking up and watching, watching all of this. And so perhaps these two disciples had been there in the crowd and had seen it all and were eyewitness to it.

In verse 21, but we trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel. And beside all of this, today is the third day since these things were done. So here they, they kind of reveal that they thought and they had hoped, as many did, that Christ would have restored Israel, the kingdom to Israel, which is what they, they asked many times. Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

And of course, He had to give a parable. So no, it's going to be a while. And He gave the parable of the, of the talents to show there's going to be a time gap before that happens. They came, He came in His ministry during this time and people looked for, and were looking for, the Messiah to appear, according to the scriptures of Isaiah and others, to restore the kingdom to Israel.

But His death then for His disciples, this is, this is what discouraged them. This is what they were talking over. They didn't fully comprehend the joy behind the event of His death and resurrection because they were so focused upon this hope of an expectation of a restored Israel and they were bewildered about it. That too is probably what they were talking about among themselves.

Going on in verse 22, Yes, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre, when they found not His body. They came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that He was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre and found it even so as the women had said, but Him they saw not.

And so that part of the story these two disciples had, and again it tells you that it was within a few short hours of that, those events that we read about were Mary and Peter and John ran to the tomb and saw the empty tomb, had the appearance of Christ at least at one point. He said, don't touch me, I've not yet ascended to my Father. And you piece all that together. There was a bit of time in that morning and these disciples didn't have the whole story even of that because they didn't realize that He had been seen finally and proven to be resurrected.

The tomb was empty, but to them they couldn't put it all together. That didn't prove anything to them at this point in time in the story. They were still, again, trying to figure it all out. Verse 25, then He said to them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. In other words, you're not quick enough. You haven't been able, you should know the scriptures. You're a bit foolish and this is not a bit of hate speech here or they didn't feel uncomfortable and threatened and unsafe by our standards today by Christ saying what He did.

It was an expression to them that showed that they just didn't fully understand the scriptures and what they were actually being a part of at this time. He said in verse 26, ought not Christ to have suffered these things. In other words, shouldn't the Messiah have gone exactly as this event played out and to enter into His glory? In other words, had they known and did, if they would know the scriptures fully, they would be able to discern that it went according to the plan. That even the price paid for His betrayal, 30 pieces of silver, had been talked about and was according to the plan.

That His piercing with the spear being thrust through His side was also according to the scripture. But they hadn't put it all together yet. This is what they were slow of heart to believe. You know, we, how long does it take you and I at times to figure something out that we may have read a dozen times, a hundred times, in Scripture? I have a fantastic job. Part of my job is to teach the Bible at Ambassador Bible College.

Brenda was there. Isis was there a few years ago. And every year I get to go through Book of Acts, Book of Daniel, Book of Revelation, which are assigned to me, plus all the 20 fundamentals of belief. And every time I go through these scriptures, I learn something different.

I love the Book of Acts. It's probably my favorite thing to do. And every time I go through the Book of Acts, I see I didn't realize that. And I've taught it a dozen times before.

And I see it from a different perspective. I'll see a read a verse. I didn't realize it was there.

No matter how many times we think we have gone through a passage or the Bible or a doctrine or topic of Scripture, there's always something to learn. And I'm a little slow of heart, I guess is what I'm saying at times, to put it all together. And that's kind of the nature of us, which means that we have to be laboring in the Word. We should be going back over various things in a regular reading of Scriptures. And I need to go into other passages. I know a lot about the Book of Acts. I need to know more about Genesis and Deuteronomy and some of the others that I don't teach all that much. Actually, I don't teach them at all. But there's a lot there. I could only imagine how much more we might mine from all of these matters, and it's a lifetime of study.

So the point I'm making to us all is that the remedy for this is to be laboring in the Word of God, taking every opportunity to read, listen, study, and open the Scriptures.

You know, we, there's one thing to hear the Scriptures and have them read to us and explain.

That's part of the process of learning. But there's no substitute for us to open our own Bibles and to read the Word of God ourselves. I guess I take that for granted. Many of us do. I was 11, 12 years old and started coming, being brought to the church by my mother. All these people walking into the door carrying a briefcase, and the Bibles came out. Everybody had a Bible on their lap.

I didn't see that in the Methodist church in my early years. Not that I was paying that much attention to it at age 8 in the Methodist church, perhaps, but it's our custom. Why? Well, that's how we learn. We open the Scripture. It's read to us, but we read it, and it helps us to remember that we have to be kind of like the Bereans and search the Scriptures on a regular basis to discern the truths of God. There's no substitute for that. And so this is what Jesus is saying to them here. So look at verse 27. What does He begin to do? Well, He begins at Moses, and all the prophets, and He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

And that's what He began to do. So He turns back. If He'd had a Bible like we do, He would have turned back to Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, probably, to the first prophecy of the Scriptures about the Messiah. And He would have walked them through Moses, the first five books of the Bible, on into Isaiah and shown how they applied to Him. That's what He would have done.

And He would have opened up an entirely new dimension of understanding to these disciples about what they had been knowing all their lives as Jews in the first century. But He begins to clarify. And He shows them how the sufferings and the glory were all predicted in the Old Testament, and that all these Scriptures concerning Him had been fulfilled. This is what He did. Now, He was proving that He was the Messiah to them. And that was a remarkable thing. And it was also setting a precedent because Christ was opening the Scriptures and showing to them that He was not just a good rabbi, a good teacher. He was God who had come. He was the Messiah. And He was showing them that. And the disciples began to learn something tremendous at that point in time.

And actually, you find that later on when Peter and Paul and the Church begin to expound Scriptures in the book of Acts, they also turned to the Psalms and the prophets. And they showed how those Scriptures applied to Jesus of Nazareth. And they read with a greater clarity to the people those Scriptures. And it's part of what got the Jews mad at the early Church because these people were describing things that the Jews didn't see because they were attributing that to Jesus of Nazareth. And these Jews were mad because they were saying things that they didn't believe. And the Jews would have been saying to Peter and to John and the others, look, these are our Scriptures. We know what they mean. Don't think that you know more than we do.

And this is part of what got them upset at the early Church. Well, let's go back to verse 28 and go on because Christ begins to show them and quote Scripture to them. In verse 28, they drew nigh unto the village where they went, and he made as though he would have gone further.

All right? So they drew near to Emmaus, and Christ begins to, in a sense, kind of peel off a little bit, maybe step back from them or to, as they began to turn down the path that would have led to their village, he indicated that he wasn't going to go further with them into their village. And that's why in verse 29, they constrained him. They said, whoa, they kind of grabbed, maybe they grabbed his arm, and they said, abide with us, come with us, stay with us. And they wouldn't let him go. They said, for it's toward evening, and the day is far spent. In other words, as I grew up in the south of this country and spent a lot of time in my ministry in southern states, and one of the things that people would say to us was, stay a spell. Don't leave so quick. Have dinner with us, have supper with us, in a way as it put. And you may have already been there two hours, and they really wanted you to go, but they'd say, stay a spell. That's the way it would be. They were saying to Christ, stay with us. It's evening. The day is far spent. Verse 29, but he went into tarry with them. In other words, he stayed, he then went on with them. And in verse 30 then, it came to pass, that as he sat at the table with them, that he took bread, blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. Now here's a meal. To them it was to be just an ordinary meal, a bread, probably some wine and oil. Maybe a few herbs might have been, maybe they pulled out a few pieces of meat, a piece of meat, because if they had a stranger, they probably wouldn't have had meat, you know, at that time. But bread, some oil, and he, it says he blessed, and he broke it, and he gave it to them. Now Christ had done this a few nights earlier with those gathered in that last Passover meal, where he changed the symbols. This was not a Passover service that they were involved with here in any way, or a communion. It wasn't anything like it, it was just a regular meal. But in the blessing and the breaking of the bread, and there's a symbol of his body, as he had already said and taught, that he was the bread of life, and that that bread represented his body. But again, this was not a communion service, but something here happens. Because in verse 31, then, their eyes were opened and they knew him. In other words, they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. Poof! Just like that. He's gone.

Christ had been resurrected, and he manifested himself to them and appeared as in the flesh.

Or in the flesh. We don't need to quibble over, you know, that at all. But they saw him as he was, and then they finally recognized him at this moment of blessing and the breaking of the bread, and giving it, when he gave it to them. Then they recognized who he was. Their eyes were open, but he was then gone. And then in verse 32, they said to one another, Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us on the road, and while he opened the scriptures to us? This is their commentary now. They finally realized that there was something unique. They couldn't fully grasp who he was, but his teaching certainly created this burning within, this desire. That teaching fed them with something, and it stirred something within them. And this is a description of the effect that the Word of God should have upon us at any point in our life. Young, old, decades in the church, brand new in the church of God.

That the Word of God should create a burning in our mind, a desire for more, an appreciation for the understanding that comes. They had that. They didn't understand why, but then all of a sudden now they began to, when they recognized who he was at this point in their life. And so, verse 33, they rose up at very hour, returned to Jerusalem. They probably hightailed it back, as we say. Double step, quick time, back to Jerusalem to find the 11, because Judas had not been replaced. And those who were with them gathered together, saying, the Lord is risen indeed and has appeared to Simon. And they told about the things that had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. In the breaking of the bread. And so the story ends. Actually, it concludes because, as they said, these things, he stood in the midst of them. We'll end that, save that story for another time.

Because in the breaking of the bread, they understood who he was. Now, that bread has tremendous symbolism. We just kept the days of the bread. We focused upon the bread of life, Christ being that bread of life. And the eating of the unleavened bread should symbolize that to us that we must take in daily that bread of life, which is Christ, through the Spirit in our lives. And not just for seven days, but for 365 days, every day of the year. We have to feed on that. We don't live by bread alone. Then we live by every word of God. And it is that word that created this burning within their life and in their mind and their heart. As we think about this story, as we find ourselves in this period now between the period of the days of unleavened bread, looking toward Pentecost, a period that, from the beginning of the count, is 50 days to Pentecost, from the time of actually the events of this day here that we've just read about and the acceptance of Christ and that time of the waysheet, the waysheet being accepted.

We look to that time as they did, to a time when they would receive power of the Holy Spirit.

And we think of the power of the word of God, the bread of life within us, the power of disciples speaking among themselves of the things of God, and that creating a burning within our lives for more. As we appreciate one another, as we fellowship, and as we talk among ourselves about the word of God, make sure that there's as much of that as possibly can be in our conversations, and that our conversations flow from the depth of our own study of the word of God.

As that life of God lives, is manifest within us through the Spirit, which is a prime meaning that we take and lift from this entire season, and especially as we point toward Pentecost, with the giving of the Spirit of God, and the disciples being imbued with that, and we receive that, become this group of people called the first fruits, the first fruits of God's harvest, of God's salvation. That the word of God creates a fervent desire that burns in our lives for this way of life, for overcoming sin, using that power to put sin from our lives.

The story of the disciples who are on the road to Emmaus teaches us a great deal about what should be our walk every day in our life. And I hope that we can focus on that and think about that, and as we exit the Days of Unleavened Bread and look forward to the next holy day and that of the the giving of the Spirit, pictured by that on the day of Pentecost, that we then find ourselves feeding continually upon the bread that opens our hearts and minds to understand the reality of Jesus Christ living his life within us.