Rev. Deacon Allen Batchelder

Trinity Church
Waltham, Massachusetts
May 4, 2014, Easter III

Acts 2:14a, 36-41, Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19; 1 Peter 1:17-23, Luke 24:13-27

From the Acts of the Apostles:
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

From the First Letter of St. Peter:
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart.

And from the Gospel of St. Luke:
And he said to them, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”

Let us pray:
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer, our Strength and our Salvation.
Amen!

The Emmaus road experience is a well-known story; it is such a gripping story because it is in many ways our own story; when we lose hope and the desire to move on because our dreams have been crushed.

This story highlights the living hope that we have in the Resurrection of Jesus. Paul wrote to his friends in Corinth, “If we have hope in Christ in this life only, we are the most miserable of all men. But now Christ is risen from the dead” (1 Cor. 15:19-20).

But on that first Easter day that living hope was all but snuffed out for the two disciples on their way back home to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35).

Emmaus was a small village eight miles north-west of Jerusalem. The two men walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus were discouraged disciples who had no reason to be discouraged. They had heard the reports of the women that the tomb was empty and that Jesus was alive, but they did not believe them.
They had hoped that Jesus would redeem Israel (Luke 24:21), but their hopes had been shattered. We get the impression that these men were discouraged and disappointed because God did not do what they wanted Him to do. They saw the glory of the kingdom, but they failed to understand the suffering.

Have you ever noticed that some of the saddest words in our language begin with the letter D? For example: disappointment, doubt, disillusionment, defeat, despair and death. All of these are summed up in the words of Cleopas and his companion to the unrecognized stranger on the road to Emmaus.

They had left the demoralized and confused group of disciples with the events of Good Friday fresh in their memories. We can understand their confusion and grief; can’t we?
The Master they had loved and followed had been horribly put to death on a Roman cross. Death by crucifixion was the most shameful of deaths; the victim was made a public spectacle, exposed to the jeers of all that passed by.

Only a week before, on Palm Sunday, the hopes of the disciples had risen to fever pitch when the excited crowds had hailed their Master as the longed-for-deliverer from the tyranny of Roman occupation…but now He lay dead in a sealed tomb!

The hopes were dashed…the dream was over! The followers of Jesus were without a leader and they were falling apart quickly…These two were already on their way home. Peter and his fishing partners had returned to their former life as fishermen.

What else was there left to do? Life goes on…Life must go on…

The reports that Christ’s tomb was empty had only confused the disciples more. Their entire world had come apart. The two downhearted disciples summed up the situation when they said, “we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.”

As the travelers made their weary way to Emmaus, a stranger fell alongside them. It was going to be one of the most wonderful walks in history! We know, of course, that it was the risen Jesus, but somehow they didn’t recognize Him. In fact, Luke tells us “they were kept from recognizing Him.” Maybe they were too preoccupied to look him in the eye. Maybe they didn’t care. What difference did it make who was walking with them…They were grieving a great loss in their lives! And along comes a chatty stranger, who hasn’t a clue about the things that happened in Jerusalem.

Jesus graciously walked with them and listened to their “animated heated conversation” (Luke 24:17). No doubt they were quoting various Old Testament prophecies and trying to remember what Jesus had taught, but they were unable to put it all together and come up with an explanation that made sense. Was He a failure or a success? Why did He have to die? Was there a future for the nation? Would God send someone else?

There was a touch of humor in this passage when Jesus asked these two disciples what had happened in Jerusalem; why were they so unhappy? He had been at the heart of all that had happened in Jerusalem, and now He was asking them to tell Him what occurred! How patient our Lord is with us as He listens to us tell Him what He already knows (Rom. 8:34). But we may come “boldly” to His throne and pour out our hearts to Him, and He will help us (Heb. 4:16).

The longer Cleopas, the disciple talked, the more he indicted himself and his friend for their unbelief. What more evidence could they want? Witnesses had seen the tomb empty. Angels had announced that Jesus was alive. Witnesses had seen Him alive and heard Him speak. The proof was there, but they wouldn’t accept it!

“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17). This explains why Jesus opened the Word to these two men as the three of them walked to Emmaus. Their real problem was not in their heads but in their hearts. They could have discussed the subject for days and never arrived at a satisfactory answer. What they needed was a fresh understanding of the Word of God, and Jesus gave that understanding to them. He opened the Scriptures and then opened their eyes, and they realized that Jesus was not only alive but right there with them!

What was their basic problem? They did not believe all that the prophets had written about the Messiah. That was the problem with most of the Jews in that day: they saw the Messiah as a conquering Redeemer, but they did not see Him as Suffering Servant. As they read the Old Testament, they saw the glory but not the suffering, the crown but not the cross. The teachers in that day were not unlike some of the Christian preachers today, blind to the total message of the Bible.

If you think about it, that was some Bible conference on the road to Emmaus, and I wish I could have been there! Imagine the greatest Teacher explaining the greatest themes from the greatest Book and bringing the greatest blessings to men’s lives; eyes open to see Him, hearts open to receive the Word, and lips open to tell others what Jesus said to them!

Perhaps Jesus started at the fall of man and the first promise of the Redeemer, and traced that promise through the Scriptures. He may have lingered at the story of Abraham (Genesis 22), which tells of Abraham placing his only son on the altar. Surely He touched on Passover, the Levitical sacrifices, the tabernacle ceremonies, the Day of Atonement, the serpent in the wilderness, the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53, and the prophetic messages of Psalms 22 and 69. The key to understanding the Bible is to see Jesus Christ on every page. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end; and also in between. He did not teach them only doctrine or prophecy; He taught “the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27).

These men had talked to Jesus and listened to Jesus, and when Jesus motioned that He was going to leave them, they asked Jesus to come home with them. They had been won by the Word of God, and they did not even know who the Stranger was. All they knew was that their hearts were “burning” within them, and they wanted the blessing to last.
Jesus opened the Scriptures to them, and then He opened their eyes so that they recognized Him. Now they knew for themselves that Jesus was alive. They had the evidence of the open tomb, the angels, the witnesses, the Scriptures and now their own personal experience with the Lord. The fact that Jesus vanished did not mean that He abandoned them, for He was with them even though they could not see Him; and they would see Him again.

A simple two hour walk turned into a life-transforming experience. Now their hearts were burning with passion to share with everyone what they had seen and experienced. The two men immediately left Emmaus and returned to Jerusalem to tell the believers that they had met Jesus. I am almost certain that the two-hour journey back to Jerusalem took these two men a mere 45 minutes. They were on a Mission! Their hearts were burning! They had some Good News to share! They couldn’t keep it to themselves. Their broken hearts had been transformed into hearts that were on fire for their Lord!

You see, Hope has that powerful effect on us. It transforms ordinary people, like the Emmaus Disciples…like you and me…into passionate witnesses of the risen Lord!

As we journey along life’s road, and as we experience defeat, despair and disappointment in our daily life, let us welcome the stranger that joins us on our journey. May our hearts also be warmed by His presence and may our lives be ignited with passion to share with all, that we have seen the risen Lord!

Let us pray:

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen. †