Luke 24:13-35
“The Eyes Have It!!!”
By: Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN
I remember a time, long ago and far away…
…on a distant planet…
…no…
…that’s not right…
I remember a time when I was asked by the associate pastor of my church to read the Scripture passage before his sermon.
I was a brand new Christian, and although the basics of the Bible and the basics of the Christian message had come alive for me…
…well, I still hadn’t really studied the Scriptures all that closely.
I can’t remember the passage of Scripture that Pastor Dale asked me to read, but I do remember that it made no sense to me whatsoever.
It might as well have been written in the original Greek!
I didn’t understand and was unable to ingest a lick of it!
But that wasn’t my main concern.
My main concern was to read it well, to pronounce the names and places correctly.
So, I practiced and practiced reading that passage of Scripture.
And the Sunday morning that I stood up in front of the congregation, with knees shaking, I knocked the reading of that Scripture right out of the park!
I got a lot of compliments that morning.
And my parents were impressed, if not a bit surprised.
It felt great.
In my world, it was a big accomplishment…
…even if I didn’t understand a bit of what I was reading.
There’s a time, for all of us, I think
when we believe…but we don’t have the foggiest idea what that means.
That must be a little like what the first disciples of Jesus Christ felt.
They had sacrificed a lot to follow Jesus.
They had listened and listened to Him talk over and over again.
They had even read the Jewish Scriptures or had heard them read from the time they were old enough to sit.
But they hadn’t really understood much of any of it.
They had accomplished a lot, but they sure had a long way to go.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
In our Scripture lesson for this morning we find that as the two disciples walked along, talking about everything that had happened, “Jesus himself came up and walked along with them.
He asked them, ‘What are you discussing…’
They stood still, with their faces downcast.
One of them, Cleopas, asked him, ‘Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?’
“What things?’” Jesus asked.
And as they talked it became more than evident that they, like everybody else in Israel had been reading the Bible through the wrong end of a telescope.
They just didn’t get it!
They had been seeing it as a long story of how God would redeem them from suffering, but it was instead the story of how God would redeem them through suffering; through the suffering which God would take upon God’s Self.
In verse 27 we are told that Jesus, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets…explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”
And when Luke tells us this, he doesn’t mean that Jesus collected a few, or even a few dozen, isolated texts or verses chosen at random.
He means that the whole story, from Genesis to the last book of the Bible pointed towards the fulfillment which could only be found when Christ took the entire world’s suffering upon Himself, died under its weight, and rose again defeating death and opening up the Way for people to be saved.
This is what had to happen; and now it just had happened!!!
And as Jesus talked to them on the road, opening the Scriptures up for them, they found that their “hearts” were “burning.”
And though their hearts burned, they still didn’t recognize Jesus!
We may find this to be amazing.
I mean, they certainly knew what Jesus looked like!
But as we look upon the other Resurrection accounts we find a similar feature.
It seems that Jesus’ body, emerging from the tomb, had been transformed!
It’s like it was the same, yet different…
…it’s a mystery we will probably never completely understand until we ourselves experience the Resurrection of our Bodies through our Risen Lord!
But Luke seems also to be telling us that the disciples couldn’t recognize Jesus at first because they didn’t understand Who Jesus really was.
And in order to understand Who Jesus really is we need to learn how to read the Scriptures…
…be aware of Christ’s presence among us through our times of trouble, and when we break bread together as a community of faith.
…and for that, we need, as our Teacher, as our Guide, as our Friend and Companion along the Way the Risen Lord Himself!!!
We can’t go it alone.
It is only through the power of Christ working in us that we are able to get a glimpse at God and what God’s salvation means to us.
It’s only when we open our hearts to Christ that the Bible comes alive and is real!
And so, as we open God’s Word we pray for God’s presence, and guidance.
And as we read, we listen for God’s fresh insights.
As we eat the bread and taste the grape juice we look for Christ dining with us, right in our midst!!!
Only as we are aware that Christ is at our side will our hearts burn within us, and lead us to the point where we see Him face to face!
Now, it’s interesting that these two disciples weren’t part of the original Twelve.
Indeed, Christ had many disciples whom we know very little about.
And what was Emmaus?
Where was it?
Why were they going there?
Emmaus was just a little town, not really known for much.
It was just 7 miles North West of Jerusalem.
So, perhaps they lived in Emmaus and were simply on their way home, or maybe they were going to Emmaus so that they could get away from the terrible things that had just happened in Jerusalem.
Some have interpreted Emmaus as the place we go to in order to escape—a bar, a movie theater, wherever it is that we throw up our arms and say, “Let the whole thing go…It makes no difference anyway.”
Emmaus could be buying a new suit or pair of shoes that you don’t really need.
Emmaus could stand for whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves try and forget about the awfulness of things.
But as we see, the Risen Lord walks with us on the road to our Emmauses, in the ordinary places and experiences of our lives, and in the places we go when life is too much for us to bear.
Although, if we don’t pay attention, we could easily miss the fact that the Lord is there with us…
…and thus miss the opportunity to experience joy in the midst of despair, peace in the midst of turmoil and new life in the midst of death!
It is so important for each and every one of us to participate in a group Bible study, and to read the Bible daily as our devotional guide and the light for our paths in this dark and often dangerous world.
We are also to come together as a community in Communion with the Risen One.
Only then, are we able to understand, see, and withstand the arrows of the evil one.
A Christian without a living knowledge of the Bible, and without a community of faith has a target-- an easy target on his or her back.
How often do you participate at church?
How often do you read the Bible?
How often do you apply the Scriptures to your everyday life?
Do the Scriptures and the teachings of Christ guide your decisions?
Does the Holy Spirit reveal to you new and exiting moments of understanding on a regular basis?
Are you growing more mature in your Christian walk?
The Bible is bread for the soul, meat for the journey.
And it burns within us!!!
Now, it’s key that these two disciples didn’t recognize Jesus until He broke bread with them.
Think of the first meal in the Bible.
It’s heavy with significance.
“The woman took some of the fruit, and ate it; she gave it to her husband, and he ate it; then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.”
It was the beginning of woes for the whole human race.
Death itself is traced to that moment of rebellion.
The whole creation was subjected to decay, futility and sorrow.
Now, Christ, echoing that first meal, blasts it out of the water.
“When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.
Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him.”
They discover that the long curse has been broken.
Death itself has been defeated.
God’s new creation, brimming with life and joy and new possibility, has burst upon the world of decay and sorrow!!!
Jesus Himself, risen from the dead, is the beginning Life itself!!!
And He isn’t just alive again in the same way that Jairus’s daughter or Lazarus were.
Those folks would have to face death again.
Jesus has gone through death and out the other side into a new world, still physical only somehow transformed!!!
And we are called to live into this ourselves!!!
We are invited to listen to Christ as we read the Scriptures and travel through life, to have our hearts burning within us as fresh truth comes out of the old pages and sets us on fire!
And we are invited to come together, sharing a common meal, in Holy Communion with one another and with Christ Himself!!!
John Wesley’s mother had been a Christian her entire life, but it had never become real to her until, at the Communion Table, the Words, as she explained, “struck through my heart, and I knew God for Christ’s sake had forgiven me all my sins.”
Upon seeing the Risen Christ at the breaking of the bread, the two disciples got up and returned right away to Jerusalem.
They had no more need to wander off to their Emmaus.
All the dark shadows had disappeared!!!
They had invited the Risen Christ in, and their eyes had been opened!!!
There is no better reason to praise God!
Christ walks with us through our Emmauses, Christ speaks to us through Scripture and Christ opens our eyes as we eat with Him during Holy Communion.
As we approach the Communion Table this morning, we are aware that the Risen Christ is in our midst.
This is not just a meal of bread and grape juice.
We are about to be fed Communion by the Lord of the Universe, the Author of our Salvation, Jesus Christ Who shed His blood and allowed His Body to be broken so that we might see Him, and live!!!
