©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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4/12/98
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The Road to Emmaus
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If you want to read on your own
the incident we will be looking at
during the next few minutes
it can be found in Luke 24:13-35.
Matt and Cleopas began the 2 hour walk home.
They didn’t really want to leave Jerusalem.
They didn’t want to leave
all their friends there
who had come for the Passover,
but there was no longer
any reason to stay,
and they had some real concerns
about whether or not it was safe for them to remain in the city.
Hopefully there would be no more executions,
now that the Master was dead
and the leaders had gotten what they wanted.
But still...one never knew.
It had all turned out so wrong,
so terribly,
horribly,
hideously wrong.
And it should have been so good.
Just a week ago
when Jesus made that amazing public entrance into the city
it looked as though
everything was in place
for Him to take over the nation.
I wish you could have been there.
It was an absolutely perfect morning -
sunny, but not too hot,
a gentle breeze blowing,
the road packed with people
all filing into the city
for the greatest celebration of the year.
And then all of the sudden
two words came racing through the travelers... "He’s coming!!"
There was no question about who "HE" was.
During the past three years
He had become the favorite topic of discussion throughout the nation.
JESUS!
Matt and Cleopas had been right there with Him
through that whole amazing entrance into the city.
They were not members
of the "official" band of 12
that Jesus had specially selected
as His disciples,
but they had been
a part of the inner group
for more than two years.
They, like many others in the nation,
knew the Messiah promised
by so many of the ancient Prophets
had finally come...
and His name was JESUS!
The political leaders had been curious
and concerned about the rumors they had heard.
The religious leaders were just plane jealous of His popularity...
jealous and really threatened.
They wanted the man dead.
But they clearly hadn’t had the power
or the support of the people
to bring it off.
It was evident that day when Jesus made His entrance into Jerusalem.
Everyone was screaming
and yelling
and flinging their clothes on the ground before Him
so even that little donkey He was riding on
wouldn’t have to put his foot on the dirt.
What in the world had happened?
Where had all those people gone
when the Master really needed them?
Jerusalem... the city of peace. Right!
Jesus Himself had said it so much better -
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her!
And now it had killed the greatest Prophet,
the greatest Man,
the greatest hope Israel would ever have.
And crucified, of all things.
Somehow the religious leaders
had organized an arrest
and a trial in the middle of the night,
then had Him executed
by that hideous form of Roman torture -
Jesus had been crucified.
Rumors were flying all over
that Jesus’ followers
were in danger of being arrested as well.
One of the 12 disciples
was apparently responsible
for selling the Master out.
The other 11 had been in hiding
ever since the execution.
And all of the sudden nobody was claiming
to have known anything about Jesus.
It had been three days, now, since the execution.
It was all over.
Nothing was going to change.
Nothing was going to make it better.
Nothing was going to remove
the awful, aching emptiness
of life without the Master.
It was late afternoon,
really a very nice late afternoon,
but neither of them noticed.
They walked along together,
talking through all that had happened,
trying to convince one another
and themselves
that everything was going to be OK.
But it wasn’t.
There had been some talk
about trying to keep alive His memory.
Someone had thought
it might be a good idea
for everyone to get together
and try to write down
some of the things He had said.
But nothing had come of it.
It wasn’t what He had said
that they had loved.
It was HIM.
It wasn’t His ideas
that had given them
that little thrill of excitement
when they woke up each morning,
it was the sudden realization
that they were going to be able
to spend another whole day with Him.
But now He was gone.
Those who held the power had won,
like they always won,
and now, just like the road they followed,
an endless, dreary life-the-way-it-use-to-be
stretched out before them.
Then, as they talked, they suddenly realized that a third traveler
had overtaken them and was now walking with them,
listening to their conversation.
They glanced over at Him,
but neither of them recognized Him.
He had certainly not been
one of Jesus’ followers
or they would have known Him.
The man had obviously been eavesdropping on their conversation
for longer than either of them realized,
and when they looked at Him
He said,
"What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking?"
They both stopped and stared at the newcomer.
How could He ask such a question?
Intense grief engulfs a person
in a way that makes it seem
as if the whole world knows
and understands your pain.
Three days before
the world had come to end.
True, the sun had risen the following day,
but it was a different sun,
a dark, dismal, dreary sun
that radiated regret
and pain
and emptiness.
An now, here this man stood,
casually asking them for information
about what they had been discussing.
Cleopas was rather more blunt
and combative in his response
than they Man’s question justified.
"Are You the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?"
But, rather than taking offence,
the man almost seemed to sense
the kind of pain these two men were feeling,
and He just responded by asking
what things they meant.
Then Matt jumped in and said,
"The things about Jesus the Nazarene,
who was a prophet
mighty in deed and word
in the sight of God and all the people,
and how the chief priests and our rulers
delivered Him up to the sentence of death,
and crucified Him.
But we were hoping that ...
well, we were hoping that it was He
who was going to redeem Israel.
Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.
They started walking again.
Matt paused for a few seconds,
seemed to make a decision,
and then went on...
There’s something else, too...
some women among us amazed us.
When they were at the tomb
early in the morning,
and did not find His body,
they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels,
who said that...that He was alive.
And some of those who were with us
went to the tomb and found it just
exactly as the women also had said; but ... well, Him they did not see."
What happened next
sent a shock through Matt and Cleopas.
Rather than responding with
the words of sympathy
they had expected,
this stranger suddenly spoke
with an authority
that sent a thrill through them.
He said,
"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 into His glory?"
They both looked at Him in amazement,
then asked Him
what in the world He meant.
Then,beginning with Moses
and with all the prophets,
He explained to them the things
concerning the Messiah in all the Scriptures,
things they had never seen before.
He went all the way back to the Book of Genesis
and reminded them of God’s comment to Satan in the Garden of Eden
following Satan’s successful efforts
to tempt Adam and Eve into sin,
promising him that,
though he would one day succeed
in bruising the heel of the Messiah,
yet the Messiah would ultimately
bruise satan on the head.
He went on to talk to them
about why
God had used a blood sacrifice
to get skins with which
to cover the nakedness and shame of Adam and Eve following their sin,
and why Cain’s offering of fruit
was rejected by God,
and why Abel’s blood sacrifice was accepted.
He talked about how
throughout the history of their nation
without the shedding of blood
there could be no forgiveness of sins,
then told them that
that blood was symbolic of Jesus’ blood
as He offered Himself
as God’s true, eternal payment for all sins
as He hung on that cross 3 days earlier.
He went on to talk about
Zechariah’s prophecy that the Messiah
would be sold for 30 pieces of silver,
and how Zechariah had also foretold
that the Messiah would die
by having nails driven through Him
and a sword thrust in His side.
He talked about Isaiah’s prophecies
telling how He would be
executed among thieves,
how He would remain silent before His accusers,
how He would be whipped
and spat on by his executioners.
He even talked about David’s prophecies from the Psalms
telling how he would be given
vinegar and gall to drink as He was dyeing,
how the soldiers would gamble for His coat,
and how none of His bones would be broken.
And He talked about the prophecies
from both the Prophets
and from Jesus Himself
that 3 days following His death
Jesus would rise from the dead.
Never had these two men
ever experienced anything like it before.
As this fellow traveler
skillfully painted a portrait of the Messiah unlike anything they had ever heard before,
a picture of a Messiah who came
not to conquer
but to die
so that through that death He might give us life,
a Messiah who, having defeated sin with His own death
would then defeat death with His own resurrection,
those men felt their hearts burning inside them.
Oh! If only it could be true.
They reached their destination
in what seemed like
only a few minutes.
Their traveling companion said goodbye
and began to head down the road,
but there was no way they were going to let Him leave.
They urged Him to please stay with them
for the night.
He agreed
and they all went in,
cleaned up from their journey,
and gathered together for the evening meal.
They asked their visitor
to offer thanks for their food.
When He had finished
He took the loaf of bread sitting in front of Him,
broke off two pieces
and handed them to Matt and Cleopas.
Then, at the same instant,
as they reached for the bread,
they both saw His hands -
they saw the jagged wounds
and torn flesh where the nails
had been driven through.
They looked at His face,
a face filled with a kind of
radiant, amused victory,
a face suddenly recognized
as that of the Master’s.
Then, before either of them could say a word
He was gone ... just disappeared.
Matt said it first, "He’s alive!
He’s really alive!!"
There was no question about
waiting until the morning -
they had to tell the others tonight.
And what a night it was ...
what an incredible, beautiful,
warm and wonderful,
glorious night it was.
The road stretched out before them
like an endless river of hope
and opportunity.
They ended up running most of the way back,
because, you see, He was alive
and they knew it,
and all the world had to know.