Our scripture reading today is from Luke chapter 24 and it's interesting that how much of the story of Jesus just parks on that Sunday. So I don't know if you noticed, but on Easter Sunday, if you were here, we heard about the resurrection. The angels announced the resurrection. We saw some physical proofs of the resurrection and still had not seen Jesus. And so we're going to pick up From that, the end of the day on Sunday, and read about two disciples that were heading home after the day's activity. So if you would stand with me for the reading of God's word. This is Luke chapter 24, beginning in verse 13. That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk? And they stood still looking sad. Then one of them named Cleopas answered him. Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?" And he said to them, what things? And they said to him, 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 is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see. And he said to them, 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? and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly saying, stay with us for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent. So we went in to stay with them. 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. Then 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? And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the 11 and those who were with them gathered together saying, the Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon. And they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them. in the breaking of the bread. The grass withers and the flowers fade, and yet the word of the Lord remains forever. You may be seated. So all we can do with this is try to imagine the rollercoaster of the week they have been on. And while we don't come close to it this week, it's interesting to look back. Here we are, it's Sunday. Last Sunday was Easter Sunday. Jacob and I went fishing Thursday through Saturday. Thursday, I got a text. that Jerry was in the ER and then in the hospital having a heart attack and some stents put in, and we're glad that Jerry is well. And all of this in the span of seven days. It's like, wow, that was a... exciting week and probably other things happened in some of your lives that you were, there was a church workday in there that obviously Jerry slacked off on. But just all the things that can happen in a week and just, it's crazy to think that the week prior to the resurrection, the Sunday before resurrection, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a colt, on a donkey, and they're praising Him and worshiping Him. And then Monday, He's walking back to Jerusalem. He's hungry, and the fig tree isn't bearing any fruit, so He curses a fig tree, and when He gets to Jerusalem, He goes in and cleanses the temple. On Tuesday, he's back and he's teaching in the temple and he's talking about just answering questions and even talking about when Christ returns, when the Son of Man returns, and even warning about difficult things that are coming within the next, even the next 10 years to Jerusalem. On Wednesday, the leaders are plotting how they might kill Jesus. And sometime Wednesday, Judas comes to them and offers a plan. And then Thursday, they're celebrating Passover together. And Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper. But even just Thursday night, they're out in the garden, and Jesus seems to be overwhelmed. He's very anxious, He's very sad, and He's praying, and then He's arrested, and then He's taken. And then Friday, He's executed. Not just executed, He's crucified. And then Sunday, the day after the Sabbath. These women and their stories and the confusion and the empty tomb. You can imagine that for these two, and we don't know whether it's pretty vague, it could be a couple of guys walking back home. Some historians, some scholars wonder if it's not Cleopas and his wife walking back home after the Passover week. But we can imagine that this might have been the first time they left Jerusalem happy to get out of Jerusalem. Happy for the seven mile walk on a spring Sunday afternoon so they can debrief, they can unpack, they can talk about all these things. What is going on? They, as they said, they had hoped that Jesus was the one that was going to redeem Israel. And so they're talking about these things and their disappointments and their expectations. And then this third person is walking with them. And we get to be told that it's Jesus. You know, we're told that then Jesus was walking with them. But they were kept from recognizing him. And so they see Jesus, but they don't see Jesus. And I love how Jesus asks them the question, hey, what is this stuff y'all are talking about? It's great how Jesus asks questions, really how God asks questions that He already knows the answer to, but He loves us that much that He pursues us and He wants to hear from us. We were just talking about this some in Sunday school, how Jacob wrestles with God all night and God finally says to him, what's your name? Because He wants to draw Jacob into the conversation. You know, God in the garden, Adam. Where are you? And here's Jesus. So what's all this you're talking about? And it stops them. They just sit there and they're like, just kind of probably looking down, looking off into the distance until Cleopas realizes what he's asking. And he's like, wait a minute. Are you the only person in Jerusalem who doesn't know what's been going on these last few days? Little bit of irony, even in scripture, Jesus is the only person in Jerusalem who does know everything that's going on right now. He's the only one that fully knows what has happened. And he says, well, what things? I'm like, you know, Jesus, of Nazareth. He was a prophet, did some pretty cool things, said some cool things, and then our leaders had him arrested and crucified, and we thought he was the one that was going to redeem Israel. And now he's been dead three days. And then on top of that, some of the women in our group, they went to the tomb today, They came back in a kerfuffle. He's gone. Apparently they had a vision of angels who told them he's alive, so obviously we sent men to investigate. And then they came back and they couldn't find him either. And just to hear the desperation and how it ends, but him, they did not see. It was almost like they were hoping that maybe the women weren't hysterical, but no such luck. Him, they did not see. And even now, him, they do not see. Why don't they see him? And it could be. Could be that God is masked him or he's hooded or he's trying to keep himself, keep them from seeing him. I was telling the guys that I was fishing with that I was preaching on this and. And my dad asked, he's like, so why do you think they didn't recognize him? I said, well, I think he had those plastic glasses and a nose and the eyebrows, and those are hard to see through. You just can't recognize a guy with those things on. But we talked about it more, and my dad is on the side of that, he said, could be as simple as the resurrection changes us. Maybe a resurrected body isn't exactly like your old body." I was like, yeah, that could be. A lot of these aren't mutually exclusive. I wonder if they didn't recognize Him because they weren't expecting Him. I wonder if they didn't recognize him because of their circumstances. That things didn't go the way they expected. Life did not take the turn they thought it was about to take. And so when Jesus showed up, they just couldn't see him. I think maybe their expectations of Jesus kept them from seeing that Jesus was there. What were their expectations? They thought they thought he was going to redeem Israel from what? Well. From. Those bad people. Like deliver us from the Romans. Deliver us from the Roman Empire, the evil occupiers. Deliver us from even self-righteous and wicked Pharisees. Deliver us from oppression. Maybe it never dawned on them to ask Jesus to deliver us from our hard hearts. Deliver us from our own sin and wickedness. And part of why they didn't. Their expectations were shattered and part of why they didn't recognize him is because they hadn't listened. They didn't hear him. You know, last week I pointed out how in Luke, three times Jesus tells them, I'm going. To be crucified. And die. And on the third day be raised, it's even more clear, Matthew and Luke also. Write these conversations, Matthew's recording of these in Matthew 16, Verse 21, we're told from that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And then in Matthew 17, 22, as they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, the son of man is about to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him and he will be raised on the third day. and they were greatly distressed. And then in Matthew 20, And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. And he will be raised on the third day. Jesus had told all of them this, But they had all forgotten, even as we saw last week, when the angels remind the women, we're told, and then they remembered. And what a beautiful picture. Then they remembered what Jesus had taught them. So how does Jesus get these two to finally see him? To finally hear and remember? What does Jesus do? He doesn't perform a miracle. He's going to say, bring me some stones. I mean, I wouldn't do this for Satan, but for you guys, let me help you. I'm going to make some bread here. He didn't wander along and accidentally fall into the river beside them and stand up and brush himself off and walk along the river. He didn't do any of that. He didn't perform a miracle. What does Jesus do to help them see him? He takes them to God's word. He takes them to scripture. Before he does anything to reveal himself to them personally, he reveals himself to them in God's word. Do you want to experience Jesus in your life? Read God's word. Do you want to experience a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus in your life? The first place to go is God's Word. Jesus says to them, you know, it's interesting, I don't think He'd win any empathy rewards in this conversation. He calls them both foolish and stupid, well, foolish and slow. Oh, foolish ones, so slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ, the Messiah, should suffer these things and enter into his glory? Then we're told, beginning with Moses and the prophets and the whole Old Testament, he interpreted to them all of scriptures, the things concerning himself. Now, that. Would have been a good Bible study to have been at. I mean, we've got good Bible study leaders. You know, Bob does a great job leading the men's every Tuesday, Laura's doing a great job with the women, but I got to tell you, like, I mean, if we're watching, if we're on Zoom and Jesus shows up in one of the screens, we're going to be like, hey, Bob, not today. We asked some questions for the guy in the lower left corner. Like, could you imagine? Like, what did he say? What did he tell them? And we don't know. We don't know. I mean, we can speculate, we can surmise, we can wonder. I wonder if some of it wasn't even just very similar to the passages we read for our Good Friday service, for the Tenebrae service, where every passage was just an Old Testament prophecy or an Old Testament psalm that Jesus may have used, that He did use on the cross, but perhaps He took them all the way back to Genesis 3 first. where God says to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between her seed and your seed, and he will bruise your head and you will bruise his heel. Perhaps he unpacked that a little. He's like, what do you think that meant? That God was going to send someone who would crush the head of our enemy, of our deceiver, of our tempter. But somehow in the process, this person was going to be struck on the heel. There was going to be suffering involved. It wasn't going to be a fully one-sided fight. Or maybe took him to Leviticus and the Day of Atonement. And you know, the low-hanging fruit is the lamb that's offered on the Altar, you know, obviously here's a lamb being sacrificed for our sins, but what about that other goat? This goat, they bring two goats to the priest and the priest lays his hands on the goat's head. And in so doing, transfers the guilt of the sin of the nation to this goat. This goat bears the sin, the guilt of the sin of the nation, and is sent outside of the city to bear that guilt and to die in the wilderness. Would there be one that would come who would bear the guilt of God's people's sins and take it away? Or maybe he took them to numbers. That's who he took. He took Nicodemus in John 3 to numbers, to the passage where Israel again is showing their amazing ability to sin and grumble and complain. And God sends serpents among them and they bite them and they're dying and God and Moses intervenes and he mediates and he prays for mercy and God says, take and make a serpent and put it on your staff and raise it up and tell the people that everyone who will just look up, just get their eyes off their own navels, just look up and see the provision that God has made. They will be healed. And God sends another who's raised on a tree for the healing of his nation. If they would just look up, they would see that God loved the world so much that he sent his only son so that whoever would believe in him would not perish but would have everlasting life. Or in Deuteronomy, the prophet that would be sent when Moses says, God is going to send a prophet just like me. And we think, oh, like a mediator like Moses, and yeah, that's nice. Or one who hears from God and speaks God's words for him, and yeah, that would be nice. But what if it was also one who would be completely rejected by God's people? One whom God's people would not want to follow, would complain about at every step. Or certainly in Isaiah, so many of the passages we read Those servant songs he might have taken them to this this person that comes in Isaiah. Who sometimes is called Israel? Itself, but then also said that it's he's going to redeem Israel, so he is Israel, but he's also redeeming Israel and he's. He comes because God sends him, but sometimes when he speaks, he's speaking as God himself. You know, he says, I gave my back to those who strike my cheeks, to those who pull off the beard. I did not hide my face from the disgrace and spitting. But the Lord God helps me. Therefore, I've not been disgraced. And all of Isaiah 53. We esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Who would consider that he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgressions of my people? And yet it was the Lord's will to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hands. Or even Zechariah, some of the last books of the Old Testament. Behold, your king is coming to you righteous and having salvation, afflicted and mounted on a donkey. Why would the king, why would a king come afflicted? What would afflict him? Or Zechariah 12, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only child. Or I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered and. And they tell us we read about it later, like as he talked. Like the the scales were falling off the the eyes of their hearts, they were they were hearing these things and realizing these things, and they said, didn't our hearts burn within us while he taught us these things? And Jesus doesn't just leave them seeing Him in His Word. He also comes to them and lets them see Him personally. How did they see Him? When did they recognize Him? You know, they're walking along, they get to this town seven miles from Jerusalem. He acts like He's going to keep going. I love that. That's hilarious. And they're like, no, wait, it's late. Why don't you come and have dinner with us? They don't want this conversation to end. This is amazing. So he agrees. He comes over. He's coming over for dinner. And then a slight breach of etiquette. I mean, he was invited over. He's the guest. Sit down. Let me serve you. And here's the guest kind of taking over. The guest suddenly becomes the host. He takes the bread and blesses it and breaks it and gives it to them. And so before we get there, hold on, I know you're excited. Jesus will not be your guest. It's not what He offered to do. When you invite Jesus over, he's the host. He's not just there to hear your stories or to make things nice. Jesus comes to take over, and rightly so, because most of us, if we have even an ounce of honesty, will look at our lives without Christ and recognize what a royal mess we've made of them without him taking over. There was a time that I called my mom once and I said, hey, do you remember when you used to make all of my decisions? And she said, yeah. I said, do you want your old job back? Because this is hard. Jesus comes as host, but here it is, the beauty, he took the bread, he blessed it, he broke it, he gave it to them. He took the bread, he blessed it, he broke it, he gave it to them. We just see patterns of this. But how many times would this have happened as they would all just gather together, just for normal suppers? This would have been his pattern at every supper. He would take the bread, he would bless the bread, he would break the bread, he would give it to them. They're sitting out in the field in springtime, and there's 5,000 men, plus their women and children. And they say, what do we have? We don't have very much. And he takes the bread, and he blesses the bread, and he breaks the bread, and he gives it, and there's more than enough for everyone. And then there's 4,000, and he takes the bread, and he blesses the bread, and he breaks the bread, and he gives it. And then at Passover, just last Thursday, he took the bread, the bread of affliction from the Passover, and he broke it, and he gave it to them. And he said, this is my body for you. I give myself for you. And in the breaking of the bread, they saw Jesus. They saw him in the personal care for them, they saw him. They were reminded, yes, he always This is his way. This is what he does. It's so personal. It's so intimate. How did we not see it? And then he was gone. And I don't have anything to say about that. He was gone. I don't know. And so then they're shocked and they're amazed. And they were walking to Emmaus and now they run all the way back. These guys are healthy, by the way. But they get back, and like, can you imagine like what they're feeling? It's like, oh, they probably stopped half, like so many times they stopped. And then when he said, and then you, and then I, oh, and remember when he called us foolish? Man, wasn't that bang on? That was, oh, let's get going. And they're running, they're like, oh, we're nobodies. Like I doubt my name will be ever mentioned, but even one time in all of scripture. And you, I don't even think they'll even know whether you're a man or a woman, but look at us! We get to go back and tell the apostles! We're gonna tell them! They will be eating crow for weeks, and they burst in, and the apostles say, it's true! They're like, come on! But no, they wouldn't have been like that! They would have been so excited! They get in the room, and the apostles are there, and others are there, and they're like, it's true! It's true! He appeared to Simon! And then you're like, what? Why? Why Simon? And this isn't the only gospel that mentions Simon. You know, John obviously does, he gets this huge thing, but it's way later. Like, Simon gets this great restoration, but in Mark, in Mark, the angel says to the, the angel says to the woman, go tell his disciples and Peter. Like, why does Peter get so singled out in the resurrection? Because of his sin! Because Peter's the one we get to see sin in living color over and over. Jesus says, I am going to die on a cross and be raised the third day for you. And Peter, who just said, you are the Christ, the son of the God, the living one. Like it couldn't be a clearer confession from a man about who Jesus is. And now he's saying to him, hey, let's cut that out. Don't talk like that. You're going to discourage people. We're not going to let you do that. And so Jesus, this is awesome, Jesus has just said, this is the rock. He says, get behind me, Satan. It's like, let me tell you, when Jesus says, hey, you're acting a little like Satan right now, you are on the wrong side of history. And then the denials. And Jesus is like, oh, even if everyone falls away, I'll never fall away. I love you more than all of these. And he says, you know what, Peter, before the rooster even crows today, you'll deny three times that you know me. What keeps you from seeing Jesus? It may be your circumstances. This is not what I thought it would be. This is not what I thought This is not what I thought it was going to look like to follow Jesus. These are not the losses I thought I would incur. These are not the struggles I thought I would have. Or maybe it's your expectations. You're not exactly the Savior I thought you were. But maybe it's just your own impression of your own worth. I can't. I imagine Peter, when he saw the empty tomb, I mean, this isn't original to me, but I feel like Dolly Parton was onto something. Even if he was alive, it wouldn't be the same. Like, after all that I have done to prove how unworthy I am of Him, like, if He shows up alive, like, there's going to be a lot of, like, I don't even know what would happen. And yet, Jesus comes straight to Peter first. See Jesus in his word, but see him also in his intimate care for you and provision for you. Even as we come together today at the table, as we break the bread, as we take the bread and bless the bread and break the bread and receive the bread. See the intimate personal way that the resurrection of Jesus, the resurrected Jesus is with you, is for you. And he told his disciples the very night he was going to be betrayed, he told them, it's better for you that I go. Because my spirit can dwell in you, my spirit can dwell with you. Then I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. As we come to the table, we are reminded and fed again that Jesus has always been with us, always been for us. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you. Thank you for your love for us, for your goodness, for your pursuit of us. Thank you for your patience with us. We are all so slow of heart to believe. Thank you for your word that points us to you, to your cross, to your glory. Thank you for your patience. Thank you. for this bread, for this wine, for your body, your blood. Thank you for yourself, for your life given on our behalf and in our place. In Jesus' name, amen.