Luke's Gospel

So it's loop 24, and we're actually gonna start reading at verse 9. Loop 24 and verse 9. When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the 11 and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles, but they did not believe the women. Because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb, bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying to them, lying by themselves, and he went away wondering to himself what had happened. Now, that same day, 2 of them were going to a village called Emeus, about 7 miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked alongside with them, but they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them, what are you discussing together as you walk along?

They stood still, their faces downcast, 1 of them, named ClearPass, asked him, are you the only 1 visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there, in these days. What things he asked? About Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. He was a prophet powerful in word, indeed, before god and all the people. The chief priests and the rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death and they crucified him.

But we had hoped that he was the 1 who was going to redeem Israel. And and what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us They went to the tomb early in the morning, but didn't find the body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels. Who said he was alive.

Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said. But they did not see Jesus. He said to them, how foolish you are, and how slow to believe all the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory. And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them what was said in all all the scriptures concerning himself.

As they approached the village, to which they were going. Jesus continued on as if he were going further, but they urged him strongly Stay with us for it is nearly evening. The day is almost over, so we went to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.

They asked each other, were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us? They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the 11, and those with them assembled together and saying it is true. The lord has risen and appeared to Simon. Then the 2 told what had happened on the way.

And how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread. Well, good morning. And, very warm welcome. My name is Tom Sweitman. I'm the assistant pastor here, and, it's very good to have you with us on a very happy Easter to you this morning.

Whether you are a regular or, a visiting family member or friends. I know there are some friends who've joined us from Birmingham this morning come along. Anyone come further than Birmingham for this morning's service. There we go. You win the win the prize there.

Do turn back to Luke chapter 24 if you've closed your bibles to the, encounter with the lord Jesus and these disciples on the road to emmaus. And as we turn, let's bow our heads and pray. Father, we thank you for this amazing story. And we pray that the lord Jesus might reveal himself to us now as he revealed himself to these disciples. We pray that as the scriptures are opened, that our hearts would burn within us as they burn within the hearts of these disciples.

And we pray that after leaving this place, we would run as they ran with the glad news for the world. That Jesus is alive. Speak to us now. We pray in his name. Oh, man.

Oh, man. My, my thirtieth birthday, was very disappointing. My, my wife Laura had been super generous, and, she had booked myself and Pete onto a fishing trip for the whole day. And, we were going to travel down to the south coast, and we were going to sail out for an entire day in order to catch turbot. If you know what turbot are there these delicious, large, flat fish that you pick up off the bottom of the sea.

And so in the days 4, we were, we were very excited. You know, our hopes were raised. Our expectations were high. We were even looking up pictures of some of the great catches that we ourselves, might have in just a short few days' time. I was actually looking at recipes online, working out how I could cook my turbot that I was gonna be bringing home.

In fact, Laura, my wife was was was so confident in my ability to catch that she bought me an extra large thermos call box so that I would be able to bring home the fish that I was going to catch in the car and, to avoid it spoiling in the, in the warm, in the warm car. And so as we sailed out in the morning, our expectations were pretty high. I actually, got a picture of us here. This is us sailing out. And, you can see our rods are ready to go there.

But as we got out into the ocean, it became clear that nothing was happening. We weren't catching anything, and there were a number of reasons that the skipper gave us for why we weren't catching. We were in the wrong place. That the grounds that had proved fruitful in the past were were no longer, seemed to contain turbot. There also happened to be, enormous trawlers all around us just dredging up the seabed, destroying everything that was alive, which somewhat minimized our chances, of catching anything.

And as the hours went on, nothing was happening, nothing was happening, And on top of all of that, the skipper was extremely abusive to us. He seemed to hate us for no reason at all. So He refused to give us a safety briefing. He swore at us repeatedly when we made mistakes, he was grumpy to have us aboard. He gave us broken equipment.

He then overcharged us for hiring his broken equipment. And he wouldn't even say goodbye to us. And this went on for an entire day. This was my birthday present, and so eventually we sailed around and, went back to shore. And as you can imagine, when we got into the car to drive home, we we felt bruised.

A lot of money had been spent on that trip, an abusive skipper, no turbot and a mostly empty call box. And maybe, although probably not directly, you can sympathize with me in some way. Perhaps you can think of a time when you've planned a trip, or you've been going on a trip, either as an individual or a family. There's been an experience that you've been very much looking forward to, and you've got there, the expectations haven't been met, and you've gone away disappointed. Or another illustration, how about the, athletic world championships in 20 17?

This was this was gonna be Sain Bolt's last big competition, and, everybody was hoping that he was going to finish strong. I don't know if you remember. At these particular games. And, in his last ever hundred meter final, the whole stadium was silent, He crouched down, took his position alongside the other racers. The next 10 seconds, we're gonna seal his biography, finish off his incredibly impressive life as an athlete, and he was beaten by Justin Gatelyn And the next day, there was a headline that said, when Hussein Bolt lost last night, it felt like we'd all done something wrong.

It was this sort of crushing sense of disappointment, and then in his last last ever race, that which was the 4 by 1 relay, he was going to run the last leg for Jamaica. This was gonna be the last time he was gonna cross the line, He had the opportunity to bring it home for them, and he pulled up with a torn hamstring and ended up in a heap on the track, and he couldn't even cross the line. And even though Great Britain actually won that relay, I think most of us felt disappointed. It's not that watching Hussein Bolt is rubbish that he's disappointing in himself. But that our expectations were so much higher.

We expected so much and it didn't deliver. It's a terrible thing, isn't it disappointment? Maybe you're in their soul, and you've heard parents or teachers say to you, not angry with you. Just disappointed. You haven't behaved.

Have you in a way that we think you should? Maybe your teacher said, no. It was a good you did well, but I think you should be disappointed. You could have done so much better. It's crashing, isn't it?

Disappointment. And maybe, I don't know, if we're if we're honest, that is how we might describe our lives sometimes. Maybe to begin with, we had high expectations of the things that we would achieve. And the people that we would end up with and the sort of life that we were gonna live. But somewhere along the line, things didn't go that way, and we look back, and we're disappointed.

Because life hasn't delivered what we wanted it to, what we expected it to, and maybe in some way god is to blame for that. Maybe it's his his fault that he didn't give us what we expected him to give us. Well, if that's true, then the good news is we're in good company this eastern morning. In our bible story, we find 2 followers of Jesus who are extremely disappointed. They had expectations, high expectations.

But now they're left feeling flat and undone. And so the question of this story is How is the risen Jesus going to come alongside these disappointed disciples? And minister to them. And so the first point I wanted to see this morning is this, on the road, to emmaus. And as you can see, in verse 13, the story begins with these 2 disciples on the road to Emeus.

Now Emeus, as it says, was about 7 miles from Jerusalem. And, maybe these 2 disciples actually lived in EMEas, perhaps they'd come to Jerusalem for the Passover and were now returning home. And as they're walking along the road, they're talking. And as they're talking, they hear the sound of another person approaching them. Perhaps they could hear the gravel that was, crunching beneath his sandals.

They heard somebody else approaching them. They heard footsteps from behind. And they turned and they looked, and there was a mystery guest, a third visitor on the road with them. And Luke wants us to know upfront that this is Jesus. He doesn't keep us in any suspense, does he?

He says it was Jesus who came up to walk with them. Now when you piece the gospel accounts together, this is probably the third time that Jesus has appeared. And these disciples just don't recognize him. Now it's not because Jesus in his resurrection had become a different sort of being. He hadn't, transformed into some kind of alien or new speech and he hadn't gone from looking like an ordinary Jewish carpenter to a blond haired blue eyed white middle class at Jesus walking along the road, the reason they couldn't recognize him is because they were kept from recognizing him.

They were kept from recognizing him. We don't know why exactly, but that's what Luke tells us. And then we come to verse 17. Have a look at verse 17. He asked them, what are you discussing, which can also be translated arguing about.

There was quite a strong discussion. What are you discussing together As you walk along, they stood still, their faces, downcast. It's an amazing moment, isn't it? A moment ago, they'd been talking and discussing, arguing perhaps about the events that had been taking place, But that 1 question, what what what are you talking about causes them to stop the sound of crunching gravel, ceases, they hang their heads, and they are sad. They are discouraged when they're asked about the topic of their discussion.

And then verse 18, 1 of them named Cleapas asked him, are you the only 1 visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened here there in these days. On the radio the other day, there was a, there was a phone in show about people who are developing a Brexit obsession. And, apparently, it is becoming a real condition now. People are becoming sort of sort of psychologically obsessed with Brexit. And, it was a phone in show, and people had to ring in and sort of confess and talk about their Brexit obsession.

And this 1 guy ran in, rang in, and, he was saying, how Brexit has just totally consumed his life, and, he had to buy a special radio, a waterproof radio, so that in the shower, he could still be tuning in to LBC, in order to, listen to the latest Brexit news. He said it was affecting his work performance because he was trying to sit there with a headphone in constantly listening to Brexit news, even his relationship was suffering. So the, the host said, and how how how's your girlfriend with with with this? And he said, well, she was interested at first in Brexit, but as it's gone on, she's just lost interest. And he's immensely frustrated because all he wants to do is talk about Brexit, you know.

So it was just, person after person ringing in with this terrible Brexit obsession. It was quite quite funny, really, listening. And I was thinking, you know, imagine imagine 2 of those Brexit addicts, okay? Walking through Kingston discussing Brexit. And a third person comes up behind them and says, I keep hearing you using this word.

What What is Brexit? What does what does Brexit mean? I think they would turn around and say, Who are you? What are you? Who are you?

How do you not know these things? Have you not heard this word? Do you not know what Brexit is about? This is big political news. Jesus, the passover, the trial, pilot, The crowds, barabbas, the shouting, the carrying of the cross through the town.

There was a newspaper. This would not be tucked away somewhere between the travel and the business section. It would be on the front page. And, of course, for these 2 disciples on the road, this isn't just venues This was their news. Do you not know these things?

He was our prophet is crucified, mighty in his deeds buried. We had hoped that he would be the 1 to restore Israel. The chief priests didn't believe that. They put him to death, but we had hoped We had hoped he would be the 1 to restore Israel, and now he's in his grave. Some of our women came and said they've heard news of an empty tomb.

They've heard from angels who say he's alive, but we haven't seen his body. We haven't seen him. Hope crucified. Hope buried. Hope disappointed, hope vanished.

It's crushing. They stopped walking. And they were sad. Luke tells us. Now his question, how would you expect Jesus to respond to them?

How would you expect him to minister to these disappointed, discouraged disciples on the roads? Well, not with sympathy, but with tough words. And that's the second point. On the road to emmaus, There's a stern rebuke, secondly a stern rebuke. It could literally be translated, oh, foolish ones.

There's an expression of, oh, foolish ones. How foolish you are, and slow to believe. Now, why does he take that approach? Why doesn't he say, guys, it's me. You know, turn those frowns upside down.

You know, it you know, why doesn't he give them a shoulder to cry on? Here I am. Don't worry? He's here. It's me.

Well, The answer is because they should have known better. They should have known better. Have a look at verse number 25. He said to them, oh, foolish ones. How foolish you are and slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory. While my dad was a a student, he used to, live in London, And, on 1, on 1 occasion, he was standing on Westminster Bridge, just looking out over over the river, and there were 2 American tourists who came up to him as he was standing on the side of Westminster Bridge right beneath Big Bend. And, the 2 American tourists said, I won't try to and impersonate the accent exactly. But, they said, what, you know, have excuse me, have you seen Big Ben, to my dad? And my dad just sort of pointed behind him, and they sort of scaled it up and down and looked at it, and let out this sort of scyved disappointment, like, oh, 0, and if if this my dad was saying is interesting, because it's not that big ben is rubbish in and of itself.

But their expectations of it were clearly wrong. They obviously anticipated this great obelisk reaching up into the sky, big, Ben, that has its bell in the clouds, and, this mighty incredible struck you know, towering over them, but they believed wrong things. Their expectations were askew. They believed incorrect stuff about Big Ben. And there's something there's something like that going on here.

We understand their disappointment at first reading, don't we? But according to Jesus, They had wrong expectations, and this is the fruit of unbelief he says. If they had listened to the Messiah while he was with them, If they'd listened to him, they would know. If they'd believed their women, they would know. Their women had said We've heard he's alive, but we haven't seen the body.

If they had known the message of the scriptures, then they wouldn't have been so unbelieving. If they had listened to god then things would be different. And so verse 27, see what he does. And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. And so the third point after that stern rebuke is this, the best bible study in the world ever.

Imagine yourself in a bible study with Jesus. Taking you through the scriptures, pointing to himself at every turn It would be like taking an open top tour bus, wouldn't it, through the most beautiful and historic city. And at every turn of the road, every lane you go down, there is something stunning to see. It's almost too much Jesus opening the scriptures with you, pointing them to the message they should have known And so I guess he began in Genesis 3 with the serpent crusher. I guess he told them about the Passover Lam, who shed its blood so that they could be redeemed.

I guess he took them to Psalm 22 and taught them of the forsaken son who would cry out. My god, my god, why have you abandoned me? I guess he then took them to Psalm 23 and taught them all about the good shepherd. Then I reckon he probably went on to Isaiah 53 and showed them the suffering servant who would give his life on a cross. No doubt he went to all of these purple passages and told them about the Messiah, but not just to those passages.

But to help them see the grand theme of the scriptures that the creator would become the redeemer. And how would he redeem through suffering and into glory. That was the pattern of the scriptures, the theme that they should have known, that the Christ would come, and through his suffering would redeem his people before glory. That is the bell that has been chiming profit after profit of the profit. There's an amazing scene in the Old Testament when Moses, the servant of the lord dies.

And, this is the same Moses that has been with god's people for decades. And has shared so much with them, and Joshua is about to take over. And this is what we read about Moses, the servant of the lord in the first verse of Joshua. After the death of Moses, the servant of the lord, The Lord said to Joshua, son of nun, Moses's aid, Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan river.

It's not much of a funeral speech, is it? Is that it? Is that all that can be said for Moses? Moses, the servant of the lord is dead. Now then, you are gonna take my people.

Why? Because god wants us to know that his promises don't terminate with the death of 1 person. God wants us to know that even in the death of a great servant, the wheels keep turning, The promises keep coming because they're working towards a fulfillment. Jesus, Not Moses is the center of the story. Do you not sit do you not do you not Do you not know these things?

Jesus says, you should have believed the women You should have listened to the Messiah, and mainly you should have known the message of the scriptures. And look, I don't know for certain, so take it with a pinch of salt but maybe, maybe, this is the reason they were kept from recognizing him at first because Jesus didn't want their faith to be based just on a brief experience in time. He wanted their faith to be rooted in the scriptures. He wanted them to have seen it in the scriptures first, to recognize him there to build their confidence on testimony, and not just on a brief moment in the middle of the road. He wanted them to see it there.

They should. They should have seen it there. But as we know, he's not gonna leave them like that. He started with these words of, rebuke, these words which have exposed their unbelief, but he's ready on this Easter morning to bring grace to these disciples. And so fourthly, we're going to see the breaking bread and the burning hearts, breaking bread and burning hearts.

And I do reckoned that there would have been some confusion amongst these 2 disciples now because, they still don't know who Jesus is. They still haven't recognized him. And a minute ago, he seemed to know nothing about what was going on, and now he seems to have the key, the interpretive key to the whole of the scriptures. So it's a little bit strange, isn't it? Who is this that they're they're they're actually with?

Weird. Well, have a look at the 28. As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going further. But they urged him strongly, no stay with us. For his nearly evening, the day is almost over.

So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other We're not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us.

In 16 16 o 1, a painter called Caravaggio painted painted a famous biblical scene called the supper at Emeus. And, whether or not you like this particular style of, Christian paintings or not, I think it wonderfully captures this moment that we've that we've just read. Here's the painting up on the screen, and this is just after the moment we've read about where Jesus has taken the bread, broken it, blessed it, and given it out. And if you think about the idea of breaking bread in the Bible, this is very powerful what has done what has just happened here. No doubt he was trying to, cast their minds back to the feeding of the 5000 where Jesus broke the bread and fed the multitudes.

Perhaps he was reminding them of what had happened at the last supper. Now these disciples, of course, weren't actually there at the last supper, And this isn't a kind of rerun of the last supper, but there is something in this moment when he takes the loaf and he breaks it, that their eyes are opened. The old commentators from previous centuries think that this would have been the moment when they saw his wounds for the first time. As he was walking along, they probably were hung down, and they wouldn't have seen him. But when he picked up the loaf and broke it, the wounds would have been obvious to them.

We don't know exactly. But there was something in the breaking of the bread which caused them to see. And I love the way he paints this. You've got these 2 men. This 1 in the green here with tight muscles gripping the chair about to get up.

He can't believe it. He's thinking, oh my goodness, you know, this is him. And then this other this other disciple here is reaching out to us as the crowd. And he's saying, look at him. Will you look will you come into this page?

Will you see him? How foolish we were and slow to believe, look, we're not our hearts burning on the roads as he opened the message of the scriptures to us. As he took us back on that survey of the Old Testament, as he went through the serpent crusher and the suffering servant and the forsaken son and the good shepherd was not the Holy Spirit authenticating this message in our hearts. Do not we know it to be true? And so you see the pattern of things here.

God reveals the plan to them in the scriptures The the messiah must suffer and rise, then god reveals the person to them. The Messiah who suffered and rose. And in that moment, Luke tells us they are up They are out of their chairs, they are back to Jerusalem. 7 miles is a long way to go, but not when you've got this kind of news. Burning inside your heart.

And so have a look at verse 33. They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There, they found the 11 and those with them assembled together and saying it is true. The lord has risen and has appeared to Simon. Then the 2 told what had happened to them on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

Now I've never been in 1, but I can imagine this was like a newsroom when story is breaking. You know, breaking news comes up, and they're trying to get together some kind of report that they can put out, and the phones are ringing and the social media feeds are being monitored. The news is coming in. There's noise. It's spreading.

And that's what it's like here. These 2 disciples after 7 miles, bust the door open, and a bat take a breath to say what has happened. And then suddenly, you say, Simon Peter has seen him as well at some at some moment. Well, we've just seen him as well that the news is rushing in. The women were right.

They were right. There can be no more doubt now. Jesus is alive. And so you see like the disciple in that painting, Luke is at actually reaching out his hand to you and to me this morning, and he's saying Don't you now be slow to believe? See what we saw.

Believe what we believe. Trust the women at the tomb. Trust the teaching of the Messiah, trust the grand theme of scripture, trust my account, Luke says, trust it. Do not be foolish and slow to believe. In other words, there is there is grace on offer for us this Easter morning.

Because these disciples are honest with us, aren't they? I guess I mean, I don't know, but I guess Luke was interviewing them, and they could have they could have lied, couldn't they? They could have said something else. But they were honest. They said, yeah, look, we failed to recognize him.

We were foolish. She called us foolish. He said we were slow to believe. We should've known and we didn't. And isn't that the story of each 1 of us here.

We've all been slow to believe, haven't we? We've all been foolish in some way. We've known the message of the scriptures, theoretically, but we haven't known it. And therefore, our expectations can be so wrong, can't they? Just like they were?

I mean, clearly, it is true that disappointment is natural in a fallen world. It's natural. We're disappointed at suffering, disappointed when we hear stories of our brothers and sisters around the world. We're disappointed at our own sin. We're disappointed when people fail us and when we fail them time and time again, but could it be that sometimes we're disappointed?

Because we've expected the wrong things from god. We've imagined that the pattern of scripture through suffering to glory belongs to somebody else, and not to us. We expect different glory now, best life now, cross bearing for others. In some way, We have all been foolish and slow to believe, but Jesus comes to us with grace. He forgives us.

He breaks bread with us. He opens our eyes again. He blesses us. And so let us be a church of burning hearts who love the grand theme of scripture when it is being taught. Let us be a church that is not slow to believe the eyewitness testimony we find here and let us be a church that would run 7 miles and many more in order to share the news.

It is true. Jesus is risen. Let's bow our heads and pray together. Father, we thank you so much for this amazing story. And forgive us, we pray for when we have been like these disciples.

When we have known the message of the scriptures in 1 sense, but functionally it has not shaped us. It has not affected how we live, how we think, how we treat others, and therefore we've had all kinds of muddled expectations of you. Forgive us that we are slow to believe slow to change. But we thank you that this morning, this Easter morning, is all about good news for sinners. It is all about grace for the unbelieving.

And we thank you that you have opened our eyes to see Jesus Thank you that everywhere we turn in the scriptures is some pointer to his great work of redemption shedding his blood for our sin, rising and returning to glory. We thank you that Jesus is alive this morning. We praise you for the things that you have taught us about him. Help us to be those who really would run miles. If asked to, in order to share the news that Jesus is lord, and he is alive.

And we ask these things for his sake and glory, amen.