Emmaus Road

Jesus After the Resurrection:  The Emmaus Road

The Bible presents a real view of life, and I want to be real about life. Today we are going to look at the Emmaus Road story to take a look at life that I hope will both encourage and challenge us.

Scripture: Luke 24:13-35

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing (reasoning) 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 which you are holding with each other as you walk?" And they stood still, looking sad (skuthropos, gloomy, sullen, dark.) Then one of them, named Cle'opas (probably Jesus’ uncle), 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, 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 this happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. (“Nothing seems to make sense, confuse, amaze, astound.") They were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; and 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 men, 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?" (“heavy or weighty.”) 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 appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, "Stay with us, for it is toward 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, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he vanished out of 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 gathered together and those who were with them, who said, "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.

What do we learn about Jesus  - and real life - on the road to Emmaus?

1. Life is hard, but Jesus joins us in our journey

Through Jesus, God entered a world He created in which grief and joy cross paths constantly. 

  • Jesus’ baptism moves into the temptation in the wilderness

  • Jesus does miracles, and people set traps for him

  • Lazarus lives/Lazarus dies/Lazarus lives

  • Crowds love Jesus/villages hate him

  • Triumphal entry/crucifixion/resurrection

This tension continues. Apparently, Jesus’ followers can expect to experience this too because now, on the Emmaus road, despair is followed by great joy. The resurrected Christ did not demonstrate the fullness of His glory by removing all the uncertainty and turmoil from life – He demonstrated the fullness of His glory by redeeming these things. 

You may have noticed that Jesus has not removed all the turmoil and uncertainty from your life. 

  • Coronavirus roller coasters…

  • Marriages overwhelm us one day with happiness and bury us the next day in anger or frustration…

  • Jobs fulfill and crush us, sometimes on the same day…

  • Physical health comes and goes…

  • Freedom from temptation/overwhelmed by temptation…

  • Or, like those on the road to Emmaus, the way in which you sense God near – or far - can change dramatically. 

Jesus walks with us spiritually like he walked with them physically.  That’s the promise of the Holy Spirit, right?  Jesus did not remove his disciples from this tumultuous world, and he does not remove us - yet.  One day He will. He joined them, and he joins us, and he offers redemption and restoration that point the way toward our ultimate reconciliation with Him. In the midst of this ebb and flow of life, look for him. He will show up with his Holy Spirit, his Word, and his people. Read the Bible, pray, and put people on the road next to you. Don’t walk alone. God will open your eyes when the time is right, and you will recognize that Jesus has been walking with you all along.

2. Jesus is content to remain hidden at times even though He is always near.

We do this with kids all the time, especially when they are young.  They have no idea that we are listening or watching, and yet we are. We care; we want them to mature on their own, but we know that can’t mature properly without us. We watch, and wait, and in our imperfect ways we help, and give them distance, and let them figure it out, and intervene, and correct and challenge and encourage…. In our imperfect way, we are trying to figure out how to balance being obvious and being hidden as we let them go and hold them close at the same time.

When Jacob was traveling (Genesis 28:11) he had a dream that he was in the presence of God. God spoke to him there. Jacob said, “Surely God is in this place and I did not know it.” If historians are correct, the Emmaus road revelation happened at the same place that Jacob dreamed he was visited by God.[1]  At the same place, the same thing happens: “Jesus was in this place and we didn’t know it.”

God could have miraculously revealed himself to Jacob at any time.  On the Emmaus road, Jesus could have instantly caught up with those guys and BAM, thrown back his hood and said, “Guys! It’s me!”  But he didn't. 

  •  God could have spared me two major breakdowns I’ve had in my life, but he didn’t. 

  • God could have healed my father, but he didn’t.

  • God could have averted my heart attack and the depression and anxiety that followed, but he didn’t. 

  • God could take away my ADD now that I can’t take medication for, but he hasn’t. 

  • God could remove the coronavirus with a snap of his fingers, but he hasn’t.

 Does this mean He is absent in these cases? No, and this geographic location in the Bible –with first Jacob’s story and now the Emmaus road walkers –remind us: “Surely, God is in this place, and I didn’t know it.”  

It’s relatively easy to follow Jesus when he is right in front of you casting out demons and raising the dead.  But when you don’t know where He is?  When you can’t sense His presence?   I wondered if God is honored even more when we continue to be His disciple even when we think we are walking alone?

There is no doubt in my mind that in all of these situations, God’s Spirit is present and working. In all these situation, I know that the message of Scripture stabilized and sustained me. (More on both of those in a second). But I’ve been thinking a lot about a third provision of God’s grace: walking with friends.  

It is much easier to keep going when you have a walking buddy. Many times we don’t sense God is near; one way to we find strength is by walking with others.  This is why we stress relationship at our church.  Nobody needs to walk their Emmaus road alone.  

I don’t have a verse for this – this is Anthony, not the Bible – but I suspect that when we want to see God, more often than not God meets that desire by sending us His people, his ambassadors/representatives/ icons. His image-bearers.

3) Jesus will reveal Himself in His time 

    The two disciples did not recognize Jesus on the road. Revelation is required. 

 He reveals His Glory Through His Word. Jesus could have just made them feel it without opening the book – I mean, the book is about Him after all. He could have just skipped that step and popped out.  But they had the Scriptures, so He walked them through the Scriptures as the way of revealing Himself even though He was right there. The early church continued this tradition: pointing to Jesus by pointing toward the Bible.

  • Old Testament quotations and allusions found in the Gospel of Matthew (which was written especially for Jewish readers)

  • The apostles' sermon material found in the Book of Acts (Genesis 22:18; 26:4; Deuteronomy 18:15-19; Psalm 2:1-2, 7; 16:8-11; 110:1; 118:22; Isaiah 53:7-8; 55:3; and Amos 9:11-12)

 If you are walking the Christian road, and you need to see Jesus….read the Bible.  This is the FOUNDATIONAL revelation. 

He reveals his glory through His suffering. Jesus tells them: “Wasn’t it necessary that the Messiah suffer to reveal His glory?” Then Jesus showed them through the breaking of the bread: At the Last Supper he had said,  “Take, eat, this is my body which was broken for you.” The Messiah must suffer to enter in to his glory.  Jesus was SHOWN through the Bible.  Jesus was KNOWN by them through the breaking of the bread, just as His glory was revealed to the world through His suffering.

Jesus wants us to share in His glory. How will this happen?  Through our suffering.

Romans 8:17-18 (NIV) “Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

 There are all kinds of suffering.  We will never pray in the Garden of Gethsemene while sweating drops of blood, but we will experience our own gardens, where we see death or what feels like a kind of death coming, and we will pray for our cup to pass…and for God’s will to be done.  In our suffering, the glory of Christ revealed in us is heavy. 

Have you ever been around people who have suffered, and in their suffering God brought out a weightiness to them, a maturity, a profound sense of wisdom and godly transformation? That's the glory that is revealed in us, I think. The glory of a faithfully transforming God who corrals all things into the service of transforming us into the image of Jesus.

But that is actually is not the focus of the kind of suffering mentioned in Romans.   This is suffering specifically for the cause of Christ. If mere suffering ushers in God’s glory, imagine what happens when we suffer for the sake of our commitment to Christ. 

  • Jesus commands us to be pure, and we suffer in our struggle to remain pure in our thoughts and actions. Saying no to sexual temptation and opportunity can be epic.   But if I want to share in the glory of Christ’s purity, I must be willing to suffer the hardship of sexual restraint.

  • Jesus commands us to love people, and we suffer as we taken on the burdens of relationships with others.  But if want to share in the glory of true Christ-like love, I might have to be deeply wounded and still come back for more.  I’m not suggesting there are never times we should walk away. Abuse is a thing. Even the  disciples “shook the dust off their feet” at times and moved on. But in the normal course of life in a fallen world, love demands sacrifice. We will be broken and spilled out for those we love. 

  • Jesus wants us live lives of self-sacrifice, and generosity, and patience…and we can suffer as everything within us wants to be selfish, and greedy, and impatient.  But if we want to share in the glory of Christ, we have to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow. 

  • You might suffer as you stand for the truth of Scripture, and because you love Christ so much you will not compromise.  But you are sharing in the glory of Christ.

 Can we all agree the world needs to see the glory of Christ?  It was seen in the suffering of Jesus on the cross; today, I suspect it will often be seen when we pay a spiritual price for the cause of Christ. 

2 Cor 4:7-11 (NIV). “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.”

He was known to them in the breaking of the bread.  “Do this in remembrance of me.“ I think the world will see His glory, as we are broken too. Amy Carmichael, a missionary who worked in India for 55 years, once wrote (and I paraphrase):

‘Have you no scar? No hidden scar on foot, or side or hand? I hear you described as mighty in the land: I hear them hail you as a rising star: Have you no scar? Have you no wound?  As the master is so shall the servant be.  Pierced are the feet that follow me; but yours are whole. Can you have followed far if you have no wound? No scar?’”

We share in God’s glory when His glory fills us – and we display God’s glory when it leaks through the cracks as our lives are broken on his behalf, and for His glory.  But we do not lose heart, because we realize:

1 Peter 5:10 (NIV) “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”

Life is hard, but Jesus walks with us. Sometimes He hides, but He always reveals Himself and His glory through His word and His life. If you are willing to be broken for the cause of Christ, God will reveal His glory through you, and will one day restore you. 

And actually, that’s going to be our focus next week: the restoration of Peter, in the final chapter of the record of Jesus’ life on earth. 

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[1] “When Jacob was travelling the sun set (early Jewish legends explained the pointed reference in Genesis 28:11 by saying God had caused it to set prematurely to force Jacob to stop there) and he had a dream that he was in the presence of God. God spoke to him there. And the name of the place was originally known as Luz — in the Septuagint it is Oulammaus. In the Codex Bezae this is the name used for Emmaus in Luke 24. In an early reading of Luke (perhaps the earliest) the Emmaus road revelation happened at the same place that Jacob dreamed he was visited by God.” http://vridar.org/2007/11/17/the-logic-and-meaning-of-the-emmaus-road-narrative-in-luke/