"An Encounter With the Risen Lord"
Scripture Reading: Luke 24:13-35
Sermon Transcript for March 27, 2005
By Rev. Mike Beck
What we celebrate today—that the tomb is empty—and what we will focus on in our upcoming Missions’ Conference—Jesus’ last command to go into all the world with His Good News—friends, that’s the heart of what we are about as Christ’s church. Luke in his gospel gives us a very beautiful post-resurrection story about Jesus’ appearance to two men walking on a road from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus. And the timing of this message is kind of interesting because we have six persons here at Grace Church that will be sharing in the “Walk to Emmaus” weekend retreat in Greensburg during the month of April. In fact, all of you who have shared in that wonderful experience raise your hands. Many of you!
Reverend Dan is going to read this passage of Scripture throughout my message, beginning now with Versus 13-16: “Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking to each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus Himself came up and walked with them; but they were kept from recognizing Him.”
How often Christ is present, but in our busyness and in our preoccupation with other things that are going on, we fail to recognize Him. Perhaps we are anticipating experiencing His presence in our worship services. In fact, in all that’s gone on before this message, if you haven’t felt the presence of Christ, you’d better check your pulse. I don’t think you’ve got any! We anticipate experiencing His presence in our times of devotion, when we are involved in a study group. But I’m convinced the measure of our growth in faith is when we become aware of Christ’s presence in all of life—at work, in school, in our moments of joy with family and friends, but also when we are aware of His presence even in the difficult, frustrating moments of life when we are aware of Him 24/7. For Jesus said His very last words, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Luke 24:17-21: “He asked them, ‘What are you discussing together as you walk along?’ They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked Him, ‘Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do 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 and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified Him. But we had hoped that He was the One who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since these things took place’.”
“We had hoped…” Our hopes and dreams sometimes they have a way of crashing to the floor, seemingly dashed into a million pieces. And no doubt that was true for these two men as they walked along the road leading away from Jerusalem. Obviously they were followers of Jesus just like the remaining eleven disciples. But this Jesus, who they believed was the answer to their deepest questions and needs, they had seem Him taken outside the city walls and nailed to a cross between two thieves. To them, the message of the cross spelled defeat and an abrupt end to their hopes. But little did they realize that just in a matter of moments they would look at the cross from a very different perspective. They were soon to discover that God, in what seemed to them to be life’s darkest moment, would flood in with His power and His grace. And isn’t that the message of Easter? That God is somehow taking the broken pieces of our lives, re-making them into something new? Some of you have lost loved ones since we celebrated Easter a year ago. It is the message of Easter that allows us to say in the midst of our tears, with the Apostle Paul: “Oh death, were is your victory? Oh grave, where is your sting?”
One of my favorite songs is a Bill and Gloria Gaither song. We often don’t sing the verse. Let me read it to you: “If there were ever dreams that were lofty and noble, they were my dreams at the start. And the hopes for life’s best were the hopes that I harbored, down deep in my heart. But my dreams turned to ashes; my castles all crumbled; my fortune turned to loss. Then I wrapped them all in the rags of my heart and laid them at the cross.” And then the chorus: “Something beautiful. Something good. All my confusion, God understood. All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife. But He made something beautiful of my life!” God did that for me; He can do that for you as well.
Luke 24:22-24: “In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning, but didn’t find His 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 Him they did not see.”
And it is interesting in a culture that devalued women, that it was women that led the way on Easter morning. As I read these verses, I get the feeling these men wanted to believe, but it just seemed too good to be true. And isn’t that often the way it is with us? We want to believe that in Christ there is forgiveness for those awful things we have done. But we can’t quite embrace that reality and so we continue to trudge through life carrying the heavy load of guilt and shame on our back. And God doesn’t want us to carry it. We want to believe that in Christ there is emotional healing for the areas of our life that lack that. But when we get near the door of Jesus, the Master Counselor, we have a tendency to back away. We want to believe that in Christ there is the promise of eternal life, yet we continue to order our world as if this life is all there is, as if the trip to the cemetery is the ending instead of the beginning.
Luke 24:25-27: “He said to them, ‘How foolish you are and how slow at heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter His glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus explained to them what was said to them in all of the scriptures concerning Himself.”
Jesus called these two men foolish for their failure to believe. He said to them, “how slow at heart you are to believe”. He probably says that to us too. But notice His patience as He continues to walk with them. For so many persons, they fail to believe because of false preconceived ideas about God. Sometimes things they have carried over from their childhood. So many persons focus on negative images of faith and religion. And, friends, there are plenty of them out there for you to find. But because they focus on those things, they discount the true Gospel that has the power to transform their lives. So many people fail to really accept, live out the promises of Christ trying instead to earn their salvation in their own strength. Yes, so many of us are slow to believe. But I want you to notice where Jesus took them to put the missing pieces together. He took them to Scripture. And I see it over and over again. When people here at Grace will take time to be a part of the ALPHA course, be a part of Disciple Bible Study or Christian Believers, take three days to share in a “Walk to Emmaus”, be a part of a weekly study group—when they get in touch with Scripture their lives are transformed and they touch the hem of Jesus’ garment.
Luke 24:28-32: “As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if He were going further. They urged Him strongly, “Stay with us for it is nearly evening. The day is almost over.” So He 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?”
Jesus acted as if he was going further. The men invited Him to come in for supper. Jesus, friends, will never force Himself into the door of your life. He invites you to welcome Him in. But if these two men would have let Jesus go on down the road, they would have missed it all. Have you invited Him in? And perhaps an equally important question, are you taking time as these men did to fellowship with Him around the table? For you see, it was the time they spent with Jesus that allowed their eyes to be opened. And they said, “Oh, my gosh. It’s the risen Christ.”
I was listening this week to James McDonald on Moody radio. Reverend Dan shared so many wonderful things last week about the bread. And James McDonald shared a new insight with me. He said they knew it was the risen Christ when He broke the bread. For when they took time to have supper with Him and He broke the bread, then they saw the nail prints in his hand. And they could believe.
The song of Easter that is a favorite of so many speaks of this: “I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses. And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. And He walks with me, and He talks with me. And He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share…” Note the next phrase… “as we tarry there, none other has ever known.”
Luke 24:33-35: “They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven and those with them assembled together and saying, ‘It is true, the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon!’ Then the two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus was recognized by them when He broke the bread.
The real crux of the gospel is right there. Good news is for sharing! They didn’t go out to Emmaus and their home decorum. They walked seven miles. Have you ever walked seven miles? It’s kind of tiring. But when they realized they had been in the presence of the risen Lord, supper got cold. They didn’t wait for morning. They walked seven miles straight back to Jerusalem to tell the good news. And their message was simply this: Friends, it’s not hard to witness. It says, “They just told what had happened to them on the way.”
Christ has been walking beside each one of you hearing my voice this morning. Perhaps in ways you haven’t realized. He wants you to invite Him in. He wants to make you a new person. So in the words of John Wesley, how is it with your soul today? Is the message of Easter just a story you recount once a year as you go to church in your new clothes? Or is it something you live 24/7? The answer makes all the difference in the world now and, friends, it’s going to make a difference a million years from now. I hope your answer is found in the words of our closing hymn. “You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart!”
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