Luke 24:8-35; 44-46
Main Idea: RE: Jesus’ Resurrection: Investigate, Evaluate, Believe & Adjust Your Life Accordingly
For the last 6 months, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the supernatural—miracles in history. I know they’ve happened; I know they happen today, and I’ve had some happen to me. But I was seriously interested in how common they were, how much evidence there was for them, and what kinds of miracles we’re talking about.
So my interest has led me to read two books—First, the Case for Miracles by Lee Strobel and then a monumental scholarly study, consisting of 900 pages and 300 pages of bibliography, appropriately called Miracles by Asbury Seminary Professor and author Craig Keener.
I’ve been amazed to find out how prevalent miracles are, how many hundreds of millions of people across the globe have claimed to experience them, and in particular, their relationship to our subject this morning: the resurrection of the dead. I have been very surprised to find out how many eyewitness testimonies there are in our time with regard to the epitome of miracles—people being raised from the dead in our time. Yes, there are dozens of examples of reliable eyewitness testimony by honest and sincere people, especially of people having been raised from the dead, especially in Africa. Keener recounts miracles all over the place, but personally interviewed a deaconess at his wife’ church in the Congo who has been on the praying end of three different resurrections, and more than that recounts other ministries which have experienced 14, 18 and in one case, involving American missionaries in Mozambique by the name of Rolland and Heidi Baker, 53 separate resurrection accounts as of 2007 and counting.
What’s interesting is that virtually of these resurrections involve some common factors:
a. Obviously, a dead person, not breathing, with no pulse.
b. A Christian who prayed for the dead person, with faith that God could raise them.
c. Prayers uttered in Jesus’ name.
d. And of course, a resurrection.
Which points us to the specific resurrection we are focused on this morning—a person and a resurrection that seems to be the central pivot point between life and death in all these resurrections—Jesus Christ, and His own resurrection.
This morning we’re going to focus on a lesser-known story about His resurrection in which he appeared to two men who were apparently non-apostles on the Road to Emmaus.
Which ought to tell you something. If you don’t believe in Christ’s resurrection, you ought to at least investigate it. And if you do believe in the resurrection, it ought to change your life, because it has massive implications for the rest of your life here and especially in eternity—at least if you pay attention to what Jesus had to say about it.
Now let’s all admit one thing: Resurrection is an incredible thought, a hard-to-believe event. Death is so universal and so inevitable in this world that very few of us have ever observed it being reversed, very few of us have the faith to even pray with respect to our most beloved friends that it be reversed, and some of us really doubt whether it has ever happened.
Interestingly, that’s exactly where, philosophically, the original eyewitnesses of the resurrection found themselves--incredulous, unbelieving and unmoved.
But their experience, especially as we find it in Luke 24:8 gives us a roadmap to deal with this incredible story: First, investigate, then evaluate, then believe, and then be moved—adjust your life accordingly. This was a life-changing story for them, which became a world-changing event historically, so that now history is divided by the life of Jesus Christ. B.C., vs. A.D.
As we have read, even Jesus’ own remaining 11 Apostles did not believe the report of the women on Resurrection Sunday morning—that they had seen the risen Lord Jesus Christ. Multiple eyewitnesses, all women, including three of the most prominent and trustworthy female followers of Jesus Christ had brought testimony to the apostles about something they would not dare joke about—given the seriousness of the situation: that Jesus had risen from the dead.
What was the response of the 11? Verse 11: “But these words appeared to them as nonsense and they would not believe them.”
Struggling with doubt about the resurrection? You’re in good company. So did Jesus’ own apostles—yes, Peter, James, John and the rest. They didn’t just with doubt. They were totally incredulous. These testimonies of sincere and honest women appeared to be absolute nonsense, and they would not believe them.”
But one did something that the others didn’t: A sign for what we should do when we struggle with unbelief. Peter chose to investigate. He investigated the facts. Investigate the facts about Jesus’ resurrection! When you do so, you will be amazed at the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, how God choreographed the fact that His body was placed in a tomb hewn out of solid rock, guarded by Roman soldiers who dare not let the body be taken because they risked forfeiting their lives if they did so. It was going to take an act of God to overturn an edict of Rome to keep that body in its tomb that morning—and that’s exactly what happened.
So what did Peter do the other that the apostles didn’t. Verse 12: “He got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings only; and he went away to his home, marveling at what had happened.” Now the Gospel of John actually adds to this story—Peter was not alone in his investigation. The Apostle John joined the spring to the tomb.
Unconvinced, but curious, they decided to check the situation out for themselves. What did the artifacts still available at the tomb indicate? Did they tell the story of a resurrection, or a big steal? And when he, accompanied by the Apostle John showed up, guess what they found? The linen wrapping that had encompassed Jesus’ body, the empty shell as though an abandoned cocoon of a butterfly or a moth, laying their where the body lay within the tomb, as though the body had supernaturally been removed from its grave-clothes, a certain indicator that something miraculous had happened. The cocoon in the shape of the body, but no body? Huh? That’s why he went away to his home, now “marveling at what had happened.” The evidence had begun to pile up—hope against hope now beginning to rise in Peter’s heart and he began to believe.
That’s the first step for any of you here this morning who still have your doubts. It’s fair to have your doubts, but its foolish not to investigate the possibilities, especially when your own life, and your own eternal destiny could depend on what you think of the resurrection of Jesus. For Jesus said our eternal welfare will depend on it. He said in John 11:25: I am the resurrection and the life, he who believe in me and dies will live again and will never die.” Jesus was saying here your very eternal future depends on believing that He is the resurrection the life, and your life depends on believing He arose.
A famous example of skeptic who investigated Jesus resurrection is the aforementioned author Lee Strobel, the atheist turned Christian who was the award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune. Incensed over the fact that his wife had become a Christian and he wasn’t about to have anything to do with it, he decided to investigate, as an investigative reporter interviewing experts on the matter, with the goal of disproving Christ’s resurrection. His story is documented in the film and the book The Case for Christ, thus indicating his conclusion on the matter—that Christ, against his personal prejudices, was indeed raised from the dead just as the Apostles ultimately declared.
You have doubts? Do something about them. This is too big a deal to put off indefinitely. Your eternal destiny, the nature of your own personal resurrection, unto life or unto everlasting contempt, depends on it.
Peter investigated. Zillions of others have. Many have come to the inevitable conclusion that the eyewitness reports of Christ’s resurrection to people who wert totally skeptical about the reports of Christ’s resurrection, such as the apostles themselves, have come to the conclusion that yes, Jesus of Nazareth was indeed raised from the dead.
Then we have the experience of the two followers of Jesus, the non-Apostles, who were later on that Sunday walking to the village of Emmaus when they encountered an apparent stranger on the way. As we have seen they were mulling over the possibilities, still skeptical, but now at least entertaining that possibility that Jesus may have been raised from the dead.
Now we know that they encountered Jesus, but they were supernaturally kept from recognizing Jesus on this occasion. Why? Well, I believe it’s because Jesus wanted them to understand the total picture, the overwhelming evidence for both His identity as the Messiah, His resurrection, and His claim to be the Savior of all mankind.
Jesus was saying, by what He said to these disciples, well, there’s actually more to this whole story, more evidence with regard to my identity, my mission and my resurrection that you all need to consider.
As He asked them what they had been talking about He stimulated them to think and evaluate all the evidence they already had for believing that He was the Messiah. The fact that they weren’t there at the moment, that they had regressed to believing Jesus was only a prophet is evident in their response in verses 19-21; “And He said to them, “What things?” And they said to Him, “The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet, mighty in word and deed in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death and crucified Him. But we were hoping (notice the past tense here—their hope that Christ was the redeemer and Messiah of Israel was past at this point)—that He was going to redeem Israel. Jesus’ crucifixion had destroyed their hope, but temporarily but we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.”
Now let’s consider the qualifications Jesus had already provided toward His being the redeemer or Messiah, of Israel, the Son of God, from Cleopas’ statement in verse 19:
First, Jesus was indeed a prophet, though now we believe Him to be much more, He was at the very least a prophet. How do we know? Because He repeatedly knew things that no one would know by natural means. He knew them supernaturally. He always knew what the people around Him were thinking, and He often addressed their questions without their having ever asked. He repeatedly knew the life histories and character of the people he had met for the first time, such as when he met the Woman at the Well and revealed that He knew that she had had five husbands and the person she was living with at the moment was not her husband. And He repeatedly revealed He knew the immediate future in his own lifetime, for instance who would betray Him, when He would betray Him, that He would die and be raised again. But He is even more impressively demonstrated to be a prophet today, 2000 years later. Consider for a moment that this was a mere peasant who lived in Israel, an insignificant nation which was now part of the great Roman Empire. He was likely in His early 30s when he made statements like what we find in Matthew 24:35: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.”
Now think about that for a moment. This 30-year-old Jewish peasant says His Words will never pass away, though heaven and earth will pass way. How could He know that? How could He predict that? And yet, now, 2000 years later, His words have not only not passed away, but they have been spread throughout the world, all over the world, in the form of the Bible. And He even predicted that. He said this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached to all nations in Matthew 24:14. What mere 30-year-old Jewish peasant who had never travelled more than a couple hundred miles from his birthplace could successfully predict that, and now there are more than 2 billion people on this planet who claim to be followers of Jesus.
Yes, He was a prophet. And much more.
And He was mighty in word. Have you ever considered the way Jesus spoke? He never said, I suppose, or I think, or I guess. There was never a maybe about anything He said. He always spoke with authority. He didn’t ever refer to other rabbis for their support of anything he ever said, rather He quoted the Word of God and as the people said, He spoke with authority, and not as the scribes. He spoke with the very authority of God. When hostile and highly educated political and spiritual leaders plotted to deceive Him, publicly embarrass Him and put Him into seemingly impossible situations, he outfoxed and outwitted them on every occasion, demonstrating such wisdom that his enemies dared not speak another word to Him, they had been so obviously defeated and humiliated by His wisdom. And when these same spiritual leaders, the most educated men of their time, sent their temple police out to arrest him, those same police came back empty handed, confessing in John 7:24: “No man ever spoke like this man.”
And mighty in deeds. Have you ever considered that there has never been another founder of a major religion who is even reputed to have done repeatedly, with absolute and never-ending success, the kind of miracles Jesus did: healing the sick, delivering the demonized, walking on water, stilling storms, transporting people through time and space in a moment, raising the dead, and even coming back from the dead Himself. As Jesus put it, He did the works that no one else did—He did the works that only God could do and certainly lived up to His own unique claim to be God Himself, God in the flesh, the only begotten Son of God.
But what Cleopas and his friend had not yet figured out, what none of the Apostles seemed to have completely understood was how Jesus had fulfilled dozens and dozens of Old Testament prophecies given hundreds and thousands of years before His coming about precise events in the Messiah’s life—prophecies that also required that the Messiah die and rise again.
So, Jesus, operating under-cover as a stranger they had met on the road, acquaints them with these facts, after first gently rebuking them for their slowness to believe. Verses 25-27: And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter His glory?”
You see what was the crux of their problem, the crux of their current unbelief! They had not understood or believed the prophets’ predictions that the Messiah would suffer and die and be raised from the dead. For instance, the claim in Daniel 9:26 that the Messiah would be cut off, and precisely when He would be cut off, before the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Isaiah 53 clear references to the fact he would die for the sins of the people and be raised from the dead, as in Isaiah 53:10-11 where it says, “But the LORD was pleased
To crush Him, [l]putting Him to grief;
If [m]He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His [n]offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the [o]good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.
11 As a result of the [p]anguish of His soul,
He will see [q]it and be satisfied;
By His knowledge the Righteous One,
My Servant, will justify the many,
As He will bear their iniquities.
All these things topped off by the fact that Jesus had now been raised from the dead should have settled the issue for them—that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. He fit like a hand in a glove of the prophecies long ago given about the identity of the Messiah, and as this “stranger” spoke to Cleopas and his friend, they would later say to one another, in verse 32, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us.”
In other words, what they doubted and didn’t believe they should have believed, it should have been obvious to them. And it all came together in one grand moment as Jesus agreed to sit down and break bread to them, and after giving thanks, distributed that bread to them as a symbol of the bread of life He was distributing to them, and at that moment revealed His true identity to them—the Risen King, Christ, their Messiah and Savior was indeed risen from the dead!
You see if you investigate and take the time to evaluate the overwhelming supernatural and historical evidence, there can be no question that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, the source of salvation.
And these two men then began to do what any objective, impartial person would do. They began to believe. As verses 33 through 35 tell us, they got up that very hour. They wouldn’t wait for the next day, though they were ready to retire for the night in Emmaus. No, they had to go tell the great news. They had to go tell the apostles and other followers of Jesus that they had seen the Lord. Verse 33: “And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them, saying, “The Lord has really risen and has appear to Simon. And they began to relate their experiences on the road with Jesus.”
If you’re really open, if you’re objective, that will be inevitable third step in the process of dealing with the resurrection of Jesus. You will believe. But it ultimately becomes evident in the conclusion of this story that this was not the end of what these disciples and others needed to do. It is not enough to believe the facts about Jesus. It is not enough to give intellectual assent to the fact that Jesus was the Son of God, risen from the dead, the source of life to all who believe. So many people stop there, thinking I agree, and I’m okay.
No, agreement with the facts will get you nowhere, unless you add to it what Jesus Himself would add to the equation as He appeared to the 11 and all the disciples on that night. For in the next moment, Jesus appeared among them, showing them the wounds on his hands and feet, offering to let them touch him so that they would know he was not merely a spirit, but that He had physically, bodily been resurrected from the grave just as Scripture had predicted, and even eating a piece of broiled fish to prove His physical presence among them.
Then He proceeded to provide the same lesson that He had given to Cleopas and friend, showing how the Scriptures required that the Christ suffer and be raised from the dead, concluding with this vital statement in verses 46 and 47: “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise again the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
Did you notice the one more thing that was necessary for the forgiveness of sins? It’s repentance. It’s that little attitude adjustment I’ve mentioned. The resurrection of Jesus was a life-changing event for everyone who witnessed it. They were never the same again. They could not go on only minding their own self-centered mundane interests. Life now had taken on new meaning. They not only changed their minds about Jesus, but they changed their minds about life, what it was really all about. And that’s what the word repentance really means, changing your mind, turning from sin and turning to Christ. No longer living for self, but now living for Christ since He has now been demonstrated to be God in the flesh, the author of life, the one who determines your resurrection.
This morning, has the resurrection of Jesus changed your life? Have you not only believed but repented? Have you not only been convinced, but convicted of the need now to live for Jesus?
It’s only when that happens, when belief is combined with repentance that the gift of forgiveness of sins becomes a reality for you, and you are guaranteed you own personal resurrection.
This morning it’s important to realize that you have been confronted with ultimate reality, and that you adjust your life accordingly. That reality is this: Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, has indeed been resurrected from the dead. He has shown Himself to be what He claimed, the resurrection and the life for everyone who repentantly believes. You owe it yourself and to him, if you have any doubts to investigate, to evaluate, and then to believe and adjust your life accordingly, because your own personal resurrection depends on it.
That’s what Lee Strobel found out—that Jesus rose from the dead, and that when you really believe that, it dramatically changes the direction of your life. He went from scoffing atheist to one of the greatest defenders of faith in this time, from a legal editor, to an author of many books presenting Jesus as the Christ, the Resurrection One, and our Savior.
For Jesus Himself said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live even if He dies and will never die.”
His question for you this morning is this: Do you believe this? If so, adjust your lives accordingly!
Let’s pray.
