4.26.20 Luke 24:13-35
He said to them, “How foolish you are and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
The Way to Emmaus is one of my favorite paintings. My parents had a large picture of it in our basement, and I have a smaller version of it in my office. Jesus is standing in the middle with the two disciples on either side of him. There are large trees surrounding them, and Jesus is walking along side of them explaining exactly what happened to Him.
Take a Wonderful Walk with Jesus
Luke tells us it is a 60 stadium walk, which would be about 7 miles. That’s no short trek. If you go down to Hotchkiss on the other side of the river there is a nice river walk there which goes all the way to the bridge. It is 5.7 miles one way. When we walk a little over two miles at an average pace it takes us about 45 minutes. So seven miles would probably be at least two hours to walk.
I love the way that Jesus approaches the disciples. He hides His identity from them. They have no clue who He is, and He doesn’t want them to see who He is. Why is that? I’ve heard that some celebrities love it when they have to sit by people who they don’t know on an airplane so that they can have a normal conversation with them and treat them like normal people. Jesus was able to have a somewhat NORMAL conversation with these disciples so that they wouldn’t be freaking out over being in His resurrected presence and they could actually LISTEN to what He was saying. He was able to just let the WORD do its WORK.
Isn’t that a testament to us then too? If the resurrected Jesus didn’t rely on His own resurrection to convince Cleopas and the other disciple that He was the Messiah, then we can just use the Word of God too and trust in it to convince people who Jesus is too.
Jesus comes meandering up to them and basically plays dumb. “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” The disciples stop walking. They look at Jesus and basically accuse Him of living in a box, assuming that He must be completely clueless. How could He be walking from Jerusalem and NOT know what was going on. All Jesus has done is to ask a question. It wasn’t as if He didn’t know, but He wanted to get in a conversation with the disciples, so He asks a question He knew the answer to.
When you deal with sickness and death and mass destruction in this world, it might seem to you that God is clueless as well. Don’t imagine as if God didn’t know what was going on or was off visiting another planet and had his back turned for a minute. That’s not how God works. Just think of how we pray. We explain things to Him. “Dear Lord, I’m having a very difficult time here.” And I suppose God could say, “Don’t treat me like an idiot. You don’t have to EXPLAIN it to me. I’m not an idiot. I know what’s going on.”
Yet here we see how Jesus deals with us, right? He asks the disciples questions because he WANTS them to explain. He wants us to express what is making us sad or anxious or afraid. He likes us to have conversations with Him and pour out our thoughts and emotions to Him. Just because God knows everything doesn’t mean He doesn’t want you to talk with Him about it. Think about a child that has just learned a Bible verse. He wants to recite it to you or sing a song to you. You don’t say, “I already know that!” You love to hear it from your child’s mouth and heart. You even say, “Can you sing me Jesus loves me?” It brings joy to your heart to hear them speak and confess. Well, Jesus’ question gives them an opportunity to confess their faith, or lack thereof.
Sometimes the best thing you can do with people who are struggling with their faith is to first just ask them questions about it. Get them to express it. Let them hear themselves speak. Sometimes you will also run into someone who is adamantly against Christianity for some reason. Instead of answering all of their objections, first ask a few questions. Make them express WHY they believe or don’t believe what they do. A question can be like putting a pebble in their shoe - to make them realize that maybe their reasoning isn’t the best - to open up a door to share God’s Word. Jesus does that with the disciples because He wants to calm their fears.
Maybe you don’t even realize what your fears are, but if you take the time to try to express them, you’ll understand where YOU are coming from. You need a good Christian friend or pastor to talk things through with once in a while. Don’t be afraid to go to them and talk about your fears. I’m here to listen! It is a part of being a sinful human to have struggles. It is what we do. God wants us to come to HIM with our struggles.
Cleopas and his friend had high hopes for Jesus. They called him a prophet, mighty in word and deed. But they also said, “we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” What does that mean? When we use that word “redeem”, we mean to buy back from slavery to sin, death, and the devil: to pay God what we owed so that we wouldn’t end up in hell. But when Jesus died, their hopes were gone. So that would tell me that they had the WRONG idea about redemption, that it would come through shedding ROMAN blood instead of JESUS’ blood. Ok. They had a misled faith. Now Jesus can deal with that.
But that’s not all. They add two more things. First of all, it was the THIRD day since all this took place. You can’t help but think it was in reference to what Jesus said about REBUILDING the temple on the THIRD day, that He would rise. Even the unbelieving teachers of the law knew enough to post a guard to try and STOP it from happening. Then, when the WOMEN went there and found an empty tomb with a reported vision of angels, they were even more AMAZED. That word for “amazed” was also used of a sorcerer named Simon in Acts chapter 8, who used to perform signs and call himself “the Great Power.” The women seemed to corroborate that something miraculous seemed to have happened, but they weren’t sure what or why it happened. They were seemingly stuck on the fact that Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried. They just couldn’t seem to move on from that. As they were standing still and telling Jesus this, they were also stuck with that last vision of Jesus. It didn’t make sense to them that it could happen to Jesus or did happen to Jesus.
It makes sense, doesn’t it? I’ve seen that look in the eyes of those who have had a spouse die rather suddenly and unexpectedly. Three days later, they were still in somewhat of a state of shock over it all. The disciples didn’t know what to think. But notice that they were mostly saddened through it all. They couldn’t get past what happened to Jesus no matter what the women said or what was prophesied. Maybe you’ve been there too.
So what does Jesus do? He said to them, “How foolish you are and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter his glory?” Most of us wouldn’t like to be called foolish. But if calling me a fool makes me realize my foolishness and see the truth, then Lord, put the dunce cap on me. Shame me to faith if you must. It will be the most glorious shame I could experience if it leads me to you. Sometimes our thinking is foolish, and we need to be called out on it in a loving yet firm way. God doesn’t want to coddle us into hell. Shame can be a good thing. Paul did the same thing with the Galatians when they were being led astray. He called them foolish too.
The actual word for “foolish” is rather interesting. Usually when I think of “foolish” I think of perhaps a sophomore or freshman boy in high school who is constantly goofing around and acting like a moron. But that’s not the flavor of this word. The Louw-Nida dictionary says the word means, “pertaining to unwillingness to use one’s mental faculties in order to understand.” (Vol. 1, p. 385) So when Jesus uses this with the disciples, it wasn’t that there wasn’t any EVIDENCE of His resurrection. The women and the disciples went out and saw the empty grave. Jesus had even predicted it, and they referenced the third day. So it wasn’t like there wasn’t any evidence that Jesus would rise from the dead.
They were also SLOW of HEART to believe it. Perhaps they WANTED to believe it, but they were GUARDING their hearts. They were AFRAID to hope such a thing could be true - like it was too good to be true.
So what did Jesus do? He explained, Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. Imagine what a BEAUTIFUL Bible study that would have been. Think of Jesus perhaps going to Psalm 22, where David prophesied the piercing of Jesus hands and feet. Isaiah 53 where Isaiah talked about how He would be pierced for our transgressions. Psalm 16, where it was foretold that God would not let His loved one see decay. Zechariah with the triumphal entry and the 30 pieces of silver. Jesus would have had at least TWO HOURS to go through passage after passage after passage and explain to them how all of these things prophesied exactly what happened to Jesus. The disciples said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us along the road and while he was explaining the Scriptures to us?” Jesus was able to do so much MORE for them by NOT revealing Himself to them, but simply letting the Word speak for itself.
Jesus spoke with confidence. He wasn’t in the least bit worried about what had happened in Jerusalem, because suffering was the only way that Jesus COULD enter into His glory. You know, we have the same opportunity to speak with confidence in the face of death today. Everyone is so filled with fear over dying of a virus. It’s easy to get so worried when you listen to the news, not only over the virus, but even more so over the government! Don’t let the fear and their horror stories blind your eyes to the promises of God’s Word. Don’t be foolish when it comes to what He says to you about Jesus.
In today’s epistle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:18-19, “you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, not with things that pass away, such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot.” He says, “YOU KNOW.” Not “you think.” This is our confident hope that we have in Jesus’ precious blood shed for us.
There can be a disconnect between listening to the Word, knowing what it says, and then actually believing it will actually happen. Doesn’t God promise to take care of you, His children? Doesn’t He talk in the Proverbs about His children not begging for bread. Take time to think about this and understand what this means for YOU right HERE and right NOW. Talk about it with your spouse and your children, so that they too can know what God promises them and you can also hear YOURSELF say it. Jesus walked alongside the disciples and guided them into the truth. Take the time to walk aside with people and talk with them on the pathway they are on. What an opportunity we have to give hope to those who DON’T know who Jesus is. You can choose to be a fool and walk around in gloom and doom, or you can listen to the Word and remember WHO JESUS IS! He is the living God who conquered death and hell. He is NOT dead. You don’t need a vision of the living Jesus to know this. You just need to remind yourself of this in the Word time and again.
The disciples were profoundly affected by Jesus’ words. They urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, since it is almost evening, and the day is almost over.” I love this phrase. We sing it in our evening worship liturgy. The day is almost over for life here on this earth as well. And what does Jesus do when we listen to His Word and receive His Supper? He comes in! He makes Himself at home with us. He comforts us with Himself, the bread of life.
The disciples would have loved to have that moment forever, but Jesus, in His omnipotent power, disappeared from their sight. Now they couldn’t sit still. They walked all the way BACK to Jerusalem. Fourteen miles total? I would have been exhausted! But it was their faith and their excitement that brought them back. They couldn’t wait to regather with the saints and share what had happened to them. How about you?
Usually when we go on a walk, we ask the kids, “Who wants to come along?” It depends on the weather, the time, and the place. How long will it take? Are they itching to get out?
Jesus went on a personal walk with Cleopas and another disciple. He made seven miles feel like walking on clouds as He explained the Word to them. It shows us how PERSONAL Jesus is. It shows us how He fights against DESPAIR with His Word and with His death and resurrection. He wants to speak with you too and walk you through the valley of death, comforting you with who He is and what He has come to do - to live and die for you! It is a living illustration of what God says in Isaiah 41:10,
do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Amen.
