This morning interim Pastor Kang spoke about Luke 24:13-35, in which Jesus reveals himself as the risen Lord to two disciples who are traveling to Emmaus. Some brief notes from the sermon follow.
Summary of the Scripture
In this passage, two disciples are walking to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. One of the disciples remains nameless. The other is named Cleopas, though he isn't mentioned anywhere else in the New Testament. As they are walking along, they are discussing the things that have happened in Jerusalem over the past several days. After the Lord's final supper with the twelve disciples, He was betrayed and delivered up to the chief priests, who then brought Him to Pilate. He was crucified on Friday, and entombed several hours later. This morning, Sunday, some of the women went to His tomb, but found it empty. They saw a vision of angels, who said that Jesus had risen. When they went to see it for themselves, the tomb was empty, just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.
Along the way, Jesus comes up to the disciples, who are kept from recognizing Him. He asks what they are talking about—they stood still and looked sad. They began recounting the recent events: that Jesus the Nazarene was a prophet mighty in deed and in word in the sight of God and all the people; that the chief priests and scribes delivered Him up to the sentence of death; that they were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel, and that these things all happened already three days ago; that this morning some of the women went to the tomb, but that Jesus was not there.
At this point, Jesus rebukes them, saying, O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?
He proceeds to start from the beginning, with Moses, and explains the prophecies concerning Himself throughout Scripture.
As they near the village, Jesus seems as if He will continue on, but the disciples urge Him to stay the night with them. He took dinner with them, and when He blessed and broke the bread, their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him. They arise that very hour and return to Jerusalem to tell the eleven that Jesus had really risen.
Notes from the Message
That the women have already seen the empty tomb, and Mary has already seen Jesus might make this setting of this story seem later than it is. However, this is the same day. The women saw the empty tomb that same morning.
What the disciples discuss, and what Jesus has to explain to them shows how incomplete and immature the disciples' conception of the Scripture and the prophecy concerning the Messiah really was. Indeed, they had hoped that He might be the Messiah; yet their hope was finished. Jesus had been crucified, and they knew
that dead men don't rise again to pick up where they'd left off. They were in a state of hopelessness.
They rightly called Jesus a prophet, for indeed He was, yet they don't call Him the Son of God. They had a reverence and respect for the prophets, and so honor Jesus by comparing Him to them, but they didn't understand Christ's divine nature.
They didn't understand prophecy. Jesus Himself had told His disciples that He must be crucified and would rise again, yet they say some women among us amazed us.
One is only amazed at things that one isn't expecting. They were not eagerly awaiting the resurrection of the Lord. Furthermore, Jesus' suffering and resurrection wasn't merely a possibility, but Jesus said Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?
That necessary
indicates divine imperative, and one that had been laid in out in Scripture by the prophets.
The disciples' misunderstandings might not have entirely been a product of ignorance. Had it only been a lack of knowledge, they wouldn't have required so much correction. (Recall that the walk to Emmaus was seven miles—a two to three hour walk during which Jesus was explaining the prophets to them!) There were probably elements of pride and a kind of arrogance. They had witnessed these events, and they had some conception of what had happened, and so they were hesitant to let go of these.
However, by the end, they do recognize Jesus based on a new understanding of Scripture, and also through Jesus' actions that parallel those before His crucifixion. Though it was already dark (they'd invited Jesus to spend the night because day was nearly over) they arose that very hour and went all the way back to Jerusalem to share their story (and the stories of the women and of Simon Peter) with the eleven.
Pastor Kang ended with the story of Robert Jermain Thomas, a missionary who was martyred in Korea. The relevance of the story, however, is that many came to know Christ through exposure to the Scriptures, and that just as the two disciples recognized Christ when the Scriptures and prophecies were explained to them, so we come to a fuller knowledge and understanding of Christ through the Scriptures.
As an aside, the story of Thomas is somewhat contested, and so I haven't recounted it here. The relevance to this is post is the fact that people come to know Christ through the Scriptures, and this is true.
