Please turn in your Bibles once more to Luke chapter 24. Luke chapter 24, the text that was read earlier in the service. And before we look at this together, let's pray. Our Father, you've been very gracious to us on this day. We thank you for bringing us here this evening. We thank you for the life and health that comes only from you. We know that in you we live and move and have our being. We praise you for the blessings that are ours in Christ, for the spiritual blessings that we are beneficiaries of because of his death and resurrection. Oh, Father, you've done the work in our lives. You deserve the glory. It's by your grace alone that we stand. But we do ask you this evening, for a ministry of your spirit in our midst through your word, that he might take your word, wield that sword in our hearing, use it to convict us of sin and train us in righteousness and thoroughly equip us for every good work. We ask this for our good and for the glory of Christ, and it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. One of the unusual features of each of the gospels is that each gospel ends with a with a kind of question hanging out there. Each gospel, of course, ends with the resurrection of Jesus. But then after the resurrection of Jesus, there are these appearances, these resurrection appearances that Jesus makes to his disciples. If you think about the gospel of Matthew, of course, it ends with the Great Commission that Jesus gives the resurrected Christ. There's a note in that Great Commission just preceding Jesus' words to his disciples. It says that the disciples were worshipping him and their worship was mingled with doubt. They still had all kinds of questions, which Jesus addresses. Worship and doubt. And then we think of the end of the Gospel of Mark, and Mark 2 ends with this note of perplexity. Those who now see that Jesus is raised from the dead aren't sure exactly what to make of it. The centurion declares at the end of Mark's gospel, truly, this is the son of God. But his own disciples are confused, rejoicing, but fearful. And then we have the Gospel of John, and you'll remember how the Gospel of John ends. It ends with Jesus' encounters with his disciples, the resurrected Jesus. And one of the primary encounters that John records for us is the one of his disciple Thomas. And Thomas, of course, famously said, unless I can actually see and handle these nail prints and this pierced side, I'm not sure I'll believe. And Jesus appears to him and offers him his hands and his side. And Thomas does worship God, but that worship is preceded by doubt. And then you remember after that, John gives another resurrection appearance where Jesus is speaking to the disciple whom he loved, the writer, John himself, and he talks about John's old age and how John will continue to minister, and Peter is confused, and Peter wants more information about his own life and ministry. There are all kinds of questions. It's as if at the end of the gospel, after the resurrection, the big question is, well, what now? We know He's been raised from the dead. We know that's a fulfillment of everything He said and everything the Old Testament said. But what now? And that's really part of the question that Luke seeks to answer in giving us this account of these two disciples on the road to Emmaus. We've left off in verse 12. Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in. He saw the linen clothes by themselves, and he went home marveling at what had happened. And there's a pause. And we could insert that question. and ask the disciples, what now? So verse 13 picks up and Luke gives us at least part of an answer to that question. And we heard the account read for us earlier, but I'll just review what it is that happens here. What is described beginning in verse 13 is that there were two men two disciples of Jesus who were leaving Jerusalem, going to Emmaus, and Luke records for us the distance, about seven miles away, and they're speaking about everything they'd heard, everything they'd observed, all the things that had happened. It had been an eventful week for disciples of Jesus. Things had come at them fast, and they weren't sure what to make of it all. And as they're describing these things to one another and discussing the meaning of it, asking the what now question, Jesus appears to them. Only he's veiled from their sight. They don't recognize him. And he begins to ask them these probing questions. Maybe you've noticed this. in each of the Gospels, how often Jesus will ask questions to elicit some kind of response and make it clear what's in the heart of man. Jesus, of course, knows what they're talking about. He knows exactly what they've been talking about. But he asks these questions to, as it were, draw out what it is, not just that they've been saying, but what's been driving what they've been saying, where their hearts actually are. He's responded to by one of the disciples, Cleopas, in verse 18. And Cleopas says, Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? And Jesus responds, What things? Again, to draw him out further. And they say this concerning Jesus of Nazareth. a man who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it's now the third day since these things had happened." Now, This really, this encounter, this dialogue that Jesus instigates with these two disciples really comprises the heart of this whole account. We begin to see what it was that they were concerned with and what it was that was driving them. And really, we might say this, that for them, as they left Jerusalem, there was a profound sense of discouragement. They were confused in many ways, but they were also discouraged. And those last words in verse 21 make clear their discouragement. We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel. Now, there are a couple other notes that Luke gives us that I think are helpful in this account. In both the account that we looked at this morning, the account of the women visiting the tomb, and the account just after this one, beginning in verse 36, Luke goes to great lengths to make it clear that all the events that happened were historically accurate and were public events. That's important to note here. Even these disciples, when they respond to Jesus out of ignorance, out of discouragement, out of fear, nonetheless assume that everything that happened here is a public, was a public event. They know that these things actually happened in time and space. And we'll get back to that later as we see how Jesus responds to them. But I would note as well that not only is that the case in verses 1 through 12, but in 36 and following, It's made clear by Luke that these were things that were publicly verifiable events. It wasn't a private vision that anyone had. They're not speaking about some dream that they received or some private revelation. No, this is something that happened. In fact, they They're confused in the encounter because they assume that Jesus must have known about it because everyone in Jerusalem knew about it. It's interesting because you see that later on in the book of Acts, which Luke records for us. You see that, in fact, when the apostle Paul appears before King Agrippa, much, much later on, decades after this, He addresses Agrippa and he talks about these events, the events of the crucifixion and the resurrection. And at a certain point in the conversation, he turns to Agrippa and looks at him and says, you know these things are true. These didn't happen in a corner. And the significance of that is that Agrippa would have been around Jerusalem at this time, at this very moment. And so Paul could very easily appeal to Agrippa. Agrippa wasn't a Christian. He wasn't a believer. But nonetheless, he knew that these things were actually true. He knew that they had happened. They were publicly verifiable events. You might remember what Agrippa said after that. He said, you almost persuade me to become a Christian. We don't know what Agrippa's final conclusions were after receiving Paul's testimony. But he couldn't deny it would have been a perfect opportunity for Agrippa to say, Paul, that never happened. I was there at the time. It was just something everyone made up. It was a sort of mass psychosis episode. But Agrippa doesn't say that. Agrippa acknowledges that it's true. He's just not certain whether he's going to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ. In any case, these disciples also assume that what happened is true. What happened is public. And but what they say in verse 21 is that they had expected him to redeem them, to release them from slavery. We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Now, it is striking that they use this word. We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel. It's probably the case that these disciples, just like so many of the disciples through the Gospels, assumed that Jesus' redemption at that moment was going to be a political and a military redemption. The word they used is used that way in the book of Exodus. When the Lord redeems his people, As it's recorded for us in the early chapters of Exodus, in Exodus 6, he uses this precise word. Say, therefore, to the people of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. And it seems that when they heard about the redemption that was going to be brought by Jesus and they recognized him as their Messiah, and then they looked around at their situation, even after the account of the women, they said, we hoped he was the one who was going to redeem us in that way. One of the things that Jesus is going to point out to them is that actually what he did is precisely according to the scriptures. And so we might almost say that they had the wrong definition here of what it meant to redeem. They were thinking of this redemption from Egypt. But there are other places in the Old Testament where this exact word, the word used by Jesus and the word used by the disciples, is used in an entirely different fashion. In Psalm 130, the Lord says he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Or, Hosea 13, 14, I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol. I shall redeem them from death. O death, where are your plagues? Or, O Sheol, where is your sting? Or Isaiah 44, where the Lord says, I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. And so they were confused about the kind of redemption that was being offered to them at this time, and the kind of redemption that had been accomplished on the cross by the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord points them, it seems, to the real significance of his death. They go on to describe in verse 22 the puzzling events that had happened. They say, Some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning. And when they did not find the body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. And then others went to the tomb and they found it just as the women had said, but they didn't see him. So what's Jesus response to them? What would you expect him to do at this point? They've laid out for him exactly what their dilemma is. They've laid out for him their confusion. He's standing right there in front of them. And they've said to him, we just haven't seen him yet, so we can't quite make sense of it. Well, you'd naturally expect that Jesus at that point to reveal himself to them, to make it clear that he was the resurrected Jesus that they'd been looking for. This is why the tomb was empty, because he was standing there right next to them on the road to Emmaus. That's certainly what any of us would have done. That seems to have been the logical next step in the story. But Jesus has something significant to teach them, something significant to teach us today. Look at how Jesus handles this situation in verse 25. Oh foolish ones 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? It's striking to see the contrast. They repeat the eyewitness testimony, but he doesn't point them to his physical appearance, but rather to what the scriptures say about him, what the scriptures say about his death, burial and resurrection. In other words, what Jesus says is your essential problem here isn't that you haven't seen the resurrected Christ. Now I'll show him to you. I am he. No, Jesus says your essential problem is you haven't read the scriptures carefully enough. You haven't actually believed what you've read, that you haven't thought through all that God has already said to you. That's your problem. Your problem isn't with not seeing enough visible appearances of the resurrected Jesus. Your problem is not looking carefully enough, not listening to what God has said in his word. You might almost say Jesus tells them, you haven't read your Bibles carefully enough, have you? Go back and study the scriptures. You know, Jesus says this repeatedly throughout his earthly ministry, doesn't he? Whenever there's a real question about his identity and about the scriptures and the Messiah, he says, search the scriptures, where they speak of me. If you search the scriptures, you'll see that everything I'm doing, everything I'm saying is exactly according to the word of God, which cannot fail. I wonder today, as we consider the resurrection of Jesus, if we see some of the connections that they obviously missed. I wonder when you read your Old Testament, do you see those things that Jesus said, spoke of him? Do you see the way in which the scriptures, the Old Testament of our Bible points us forward to the Lord Jesus Christ? It does. In the very first pages, there are many promises of the coming Messiah. We see in the book of Genesis right after the fall of Adam and Eve, our first parents, we see this promise. that there will come one who is a seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent. We see and we have seen this week that there's this coming prophet like Moses, this Davidic king, this great high priest and perfect sacrifice. We see that he's going to be a Messiah who reigns and rules, but also suffers on behalf of his people. You can read a chapter like Psalm 22, which Jesus recites while He's on the cross. Jesus is meditating on that psalm, and He speaks words from that psalm, including the one that we know the best, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Of course, that psalm goes on to talk about the deliverance of God, the fact that God hadn't forsaken His servant, and that God would one day raise Him up to the praise of all the nations. We can think about texts like Isaiah 53. All we like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. What about the three days? Jesus says, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? He's describing for them the time and the situation in which he died and was raised again. Well, we see this again and again in the Old Testament. Exodus 19.11 says, be ready for the third day. It reminds us of the importance of this. On the third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. Hosea 6-2 looks forward to the revival of God's people. After two days, He will revive us. On the third day, He will raise us up. Or how about that note in the book of Jonah that Jesus draws upon earlier in His ministry when He talks about Jonah being three days in the belly of the fish, and so the Son of Man will be three days in the earth. In verse 26, Jesus tells us that all of this, All of this was necessary, the suffering and the glory. You know, in one sense, it's hard for us to blame the disciples. We read from Peter later on that, in fact, the prophets themselves struggled to put together this issue of the suffering and the glory. Peter says in 1 Peter 1, concerning this salvation, The prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory. In other words, what Peter is saying is, prophets like the prophet Isaiah, who prophesied about the suffering Messiah and also prophesied about the glories of the Messiah. You think of Isaiah 53, but you also think of Isaiah 9. The government will rest on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. And it says that Isaiah struggled to put this together. He made careful searches and inquiries and the Spirit of Christ told him that he was serving us. But it's not just that Jesus here unpacks the suffering and the glory or the Old Testament prophecies. As significant as that is and as much as we ourselves should be attuned to that today. No, Jesus is in fact instructing His disciples, instructing us to see all the Scriptures as a story that ultimately centers on Him. That ultimately all those things that we read about in the Old Testament are speaking of Him. You search the Scriptures, Jesus says, but these things speak of Me. Well, what happens when they go a little further after Jesus has this Bible study with them? It says in verse 28, they drew near to the village and they urged him to stay, although he acted as if he was going further. And so he does go in to stay with them. And in verse 30, it says, when he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he vanished from their sight. Now here's another point in the story where we need to pause and ask ourselves what we would expect to happen next. We asked that question earlier when they said to Jesus, we haven't seen him yet. And if we could only see him, we could make sense of this. And Jesus doesn't reveal himself. Instead, he opens the scriptures and points them to their need to understand their Bibles. What would we expect to happen here? Now, Jesus has revealed himself to them. He has shown them who he is and then vanished from their sight. We would expect, I think, that the very next words out of the disciples' mouths would have been, now we've seen him. Now we've seen him and we understand everything. This is the great moment in our lives when he appeared to us in the breaking of the bread. But look at what they say instead. Very different response from the one we might have expected in verse 32. They said to each other, Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures? You see Luke's focus here. Luke is reminding us and giving us this account that the what now for the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ is to turn their hearts again to the word of God. to understand and hear and meet this resurrected Lord, to hear from Him, to respond to Him through His Word in the Scriptures. Their hearts burned within them, not when He broke the bread and appeared to them, as remarkable as that occasion must have been, as miraculous as it was. No, their hearts burned within them, not at the miracle, not at the visible sight of the resurrected Lord. They recall their hearts burning within them as he opened the scriptures to them. And when they arrive back at Jerusalem, immediately leaving to tell the others, they say in verse 34, the Lord has risen indeed. And then look at how they describe their knowledge of this. Then verse 35, they told what had happened on the road. and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. Well, what are we to make of all this as we reflect on the resurrection today? Certainly one implication of this, just like the earlier account and just like this next account where Jesus appears and has breakfast with the disciples at the end of Luke 24, a very significant text, by the way, in demonstrating the veracity of the resurrection of Jesus. C.S. Lewis considered this one of the most powerful passages in proving the truthfulness of Luke's account and the truthfulness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But certainly one of the applications even of this middle story, this story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, is to remind us of the reality of the resurrection, the historicity of it, Faith in Christ is not a leap in the dark. You're not closing your eyes and turning off your mind and just hoping that this might be true. No, no. It's based on eyewitness testimony. It's based on facts. They know it to be true, and they know they had heard from others who saw him directly. It's not just a leap in the dark, and it's not just a leap in the dark because it's based on eyewitness testimony, but it's not a leap in the dark because it's based on what the scriptures themselves said. You remember when Paul is describing the resurrection of Jesus, I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins. Do you remember what he adds after that? According to the scriptures. That he was raised on the, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day. in accordance with the scriptures. And then he goes on to say how significant this was for his preaching and for their faith. Our belief in the resurrection of Jesus is based on historical reality, but it's also grounded in the scriptures themselves. And that leads us to the second implication of this, the implication that these disciples certainly grasped immediately. Which was if Christ's promises, his teaching, and if the scriptures teaching of his death and resurrection were fulfilled and everything else receives validation. We saw this as well in the text that we looked at this morning, but it's certainly here in this text, the minute that they find out that they learn from their view of the scriptures who he was and what happened. They have to go and tell others because they know that it means everything to their lives. It means that he was the Messiah, the son of God, the savior of sinners, the giver of the Holy Spirit. He was indeed the redeemer they'd been looking for. They had the wrong idea of what that redemption would look like at that moment. They needed to go back and search the scriptures because it was there all the time. But there was no question that he was the redeemer. And this leads us, I think, to a third implication, a significant one for us today, and maybe the primary one in this account, this middle account in Luke 24. The way in which we know Christ today, the way in which we learn of him, the way in which we're taught by him, the way in which he disciples us and we are discipled in him is through the scriptures. You remember, that's how Jesus teaches these disciples, even though he's standing right there in front of them. He teaches them from the Bible. And later on, when they reflect back on all that had happened, it's the it's the time in the word of God that made such an impression on their hearts. You know, we see this actually in the next account as well. If you turn your eyes over to verse 44. When Jesus appears yet again, he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then, it says, he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day should rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name. to all the nations beginning in Jerusalem. How does Jesus instruct his disciples even when he's present with them? Well, by opening the scriptures to them and opening their mind to understand the scriptures. It's a wonderful thing when we see this happen today. Remember, we see it in the book of Acts. The apostle Paul is preaching to Lydia. It says, the Lord opened her mind to understand these things, to believe. So the Bible says it's necessary for anyone to come to a saving knowledge of Christ. The Lord has to work opening their eyes, opening their minds so that they hear the word of God and the spirit of God works through the word of God to bring them to saving faith. Faith comes by hearing, hearing the word, the word of Christ. How do we meet Jesus today? You say you want to know Jesus better. You want to obey Him in every area of your life. You want to be sustained by Him. You want to be trained by Him. You want to be shaped by Him. You don't know where to begin. Well, the answer that Jesus gives here is you search the Scriptures. sit under the preaching of the Word of God, you open your Bible, you study your Bible, you meditate on your Bible day and night because these things speak of Him. This helps us untangle all sorts of questions we might have in our lives, questions about life and death, about eternity, about all the kinds of things that we are troubled by in this life. Search the scriptures, for they speak of me." Jesus himself puts it this way in John's Gospel. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. He's speaking to those who denied the fact that he was the Messiah, that he had come in the name of the Lord, He says to these people who reject Him, you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about Me. So, what now when it comes to the resurrection? Well, we know it's true, and that has significant implications for all that we do in our life and for all that we look forward to after death. But the way in which we grow in our confidence about these things, the way in which we grow in our assurance, the way we come to know Jesus even more is the risen Lord speaks through His living Word. I wonder how your life is oriented and how much of your mind is filled with the Word of God as opposed to other things. That's how you come to know the living Christ. It's how you come to hear from Him. It's how you're taught who it is that you are supposed to be. Well, when it comes down to it, these disciples provide a model for us in their confusion we can understand and their clarity, which is brought by God's Word. And what do we see happening at the end? Well, we see them rejoicing because the Lord has risen indeed. And what happens afterwards? Well, if you continue to read in Luke's gospel and then continue to part two of Luke's account, you see what happens. They took the word of God and they proclaimed the word of God to everyone around them. And it changed the world as Christ built his church. And there's a little phrase that Luke repeats over and over again as he shows us the growth of the church. And the phrase is this and and the word of God begin to spread rapidly among the people. God's spirit uses God's word to do God's work to lift up and glorify Christ and to conform us to his image. And He calls us to search those same scriptures and to follow Him today. Let's pray together. Oh, our God and Heavenly Father, thank You for this account of the resurrection appearance of Jesus Christ. What a glorious thing it is for us to read of this and also to learn from it. So teach us from Your Word. Show us Christ as we study Your Word more closely. Cause us to be those who are filled with Your Spirit and meditating on Your Word. We ask that You would do this in Jesus' name. Amen.