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Introduction
Pray.
Coming off of Easter…what a wonderful celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.
A popular text to look at following Easter is the Emmaus text and it is one of my favorites.
It is in this text that for once in the gospels, the reader has more information than the characters.
I also enjoy us looking at this text today because the main point here is the doubting of these men in the resurrection.
If you were with me last week on Easter I shared about an interview in the New York times about a seminary president that doubts the literal resurrection among other important pillars of our faith.
We talked about the necessity of the resurrection of our faith.
Today I wonder how we encounter this resurrected Jesus?
I wonder if Luke is creatively telling us about Revelation and the way that God reveals himself.
The way that Jesus reveals himself.
Revelation:
Term from the Latin revelatio, referring to either the act of revealing or making known, or the thing which is revealed.
In theology it designates God’s own self-disclosure or manifesting of himself, or things concerning himself and the world; it may also mean the word itself, oral or written, which bears such revelation.
Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988).
Revelation.
In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol.
2, p. 1844).
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
Referring to the ways in which God reveals himself
I think we will answer these two questions today:
How does Jesus reveal himself to these men on the road?
And how does God reveal himself to us today?
The Story
Remember the state of the followers and those that had hope in Jesus to be the messiah.
There was an incredible amount of grief and probably numbness in being unable to process this magnitude of events over the last few days.
These two were leaving Jerusalem.
They had probably made the trek for the passover festival and they were no doubt trying to process together everything they had witnessed.
And Luke tells us that even though they did not realize it was Jesus, he caught up to them and joined their journey.
I love that.
The other day I was with Luke and we were running errands and we stopped by GNC…seeing that this worker looked exhausted in this conversation I could kind of tell something was going on.
So even though I knew what I wanted to get…I asked him for some help.
That’s when the guy left and the employee told me I had saved him.
That he had never met the guy but he stayed for over an hour to talk.
Has that ever happened to you....someone just joins a conversation or you get stuck talking with someone?
If they are in the room....don’t look at them right now.
That’s what Jesus does....Hey guys what are yall talking about?!
And I love the irony…they ask Jesus, are you the only one that does not know what happened in Jerusalem?
Oh he knows.
So the men begin to explain their perspective and beliefs and hopes about Jesus and how things seemed so promising and ended so bleak.
and even though the women have reported that the tomb was empty and others have seen Jesus....it is all too weird.
Side note: Sometimes our expectations or our preconceived notions of how things are supposed to go down get in the way of just pursuing and knowing Jesus.
Then Jesus shifts gears...
Luke 24:
Jesus began to open up the scriptures to them.
When they were confused…this is where Jesus turned.
To the scriptures.
All scripture concerns him.
There are hints and shadows of Jesus all over the place.
God revealing his plan of redemption throughout this OT.
That plan of redemption culminates in Jesus.
Jesus is the plot twist that brings everything together.
Then as they approached Emmaus, they invite Jesus to stay in their home.
This was custom for travel and especially for Jews because the roads became very dangerous at night.
As they gathered at the table....Jesus again forgets his manners, first inviting himself into the conversation on the road and now he breaks the bread.
This would have been the hosts’s responsibility.
But it is as Jesus becomes the host of their fellowship that their eyes are opened to him.
How does Jesus reveal himself to the men on the road to Emmaus?
Friends, we might get a little abstract here for a few moments but it is in order to teach and then bring us to the practical.
Jesus gradually reveals Himself through scripture and in fellowship with the breaking of bread.
I want to break a part this statement....
Jesus gradually reveals Himself
Jesus is not being cruel here, but his gradual revelation of himself allows them to learn certain lessons about trusting God’s promises.
The disciples had been told about these events many times, but they cannot conceive how they could come to pass.
The gradual revelation drives the point home vividly and calls on them to remember God’s Word while trusting that what he says will come to pass.
As we remember God’s promise, we should rest in it (vv.
5–7).
Luke’s detailed account gives the reader an inside glimpse at how events were understood by disciples before they became aware that Jesus had risen from the dead.
In all of these encounters, God shows himself to be in total control (note also v. 31).
Bock, D. L. (1994).
Luke ().
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
There is something intimate and profound about how God reveals Himself to us gradually.
It is the biblical witness; God preparing the world and the people of Israel of what is to happen.
And it makes sense on a local level the way that God continually and gradually shows me more as I grow and learn more about myself and invite him deeper into my life.
Jesus gradually reveals Himself through scripture
Jesus begins to open up all of their scriptures to them.
He points to the truth throughout Israel’s history and the necessity for things to shake out in this way.
Scripture is primary here…it points to Jesus.
Do you see that in the story?
Jesus is saying this points to me.
During the 17th, 18th and 19th century there was a period known as the enlightenment where biblical authority and faith came under full philosophical assault through people such as Descartes and Immanuel Kant.
The rise of critical thought stated that reason was the primary source of knowledge and refuted any revelation that could not be fully proven.
The supernatural is under attack, the bible was forced to become a history book which it is not supposed to be.
One of the heroes of modern scholarship and the greatest critique of enlightenment was Karl Barth.
Barth rightly argued that scripture is revelation because it is a witness to Jesus and thereby a witness to God.
Let me simplify: Jesus is the full revelation of God, and scripture is the witness to that revelation.
Drawing on Barth, my contemporary theology professor Laurence Wood put it this way: “The words of the bible convey information about God and are a witness to God’s self-disclosure.”
Last thing I want to say about scripture....Barth also made it very clear that the Bible is not God.
Like we know that, right, but what I mean is the bible by itself is not revelation.
The bible is only revelation in which the Holy Spirit is working to reveal God in Jesus through scripture.
This is why reading scripture and prayer go hand in hand.
We can see that from the story because even in Jesus teaching the scriptures the men did not know who he was yet.
That leads me to the last point here....
Jesus gradually reveals Himself through scripture and fellowship
I think the order to this story is critical.
It is in scripture that it begins but the full revelation takes place when they are in fellowship with Jesus and each other.
It is in the intimacy of fellowship that Jesus is recognized.
This setting is no mistake; it is a major Lukan theme.
Many of the resurrection appearances he describes are associated with table fellowship (; ; ; also ).
Luke
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