Encounter with Jesus in the road to Emmaus

Introduction

When we came to the U.S. for my graduate studies, we had a plan and a budget. I would continue working remotely for Prison Fellowship and several friends and relatives had promised to send gifts so I could be able to study and become better equipped for ministry.

When we got to Wheaton, IL, they assigned us a house that was way more expensive that what we had anticipated. When we made our budget, the currency exchange was way lower. 1 dollar was 2.400 pesos, but when we got here went up to 4.000, meaning that our money had less value every day. And to add to the situation, most of the people who promised to support us, for different reasons, didn’t send us money.

So, now we were here, in a foreign country, with no family and no money. We became experts in food pantries and every dollar we would receive was directed to pay the rent.

But then, one day we received a letter from the school saying that since we were behind several months in rent, I would not be able to continue studying next semester.

Of course, sadness and worry arrived. Despite God had made miracles to bring us to the US and despite he had confirmed to us that he wanted us to come, we were now thinking: “what are we going to do? Should we go back to Colombia?”... Nothing was as we expected.

In a similar situation of broken expectations, we find these two disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Background

It’s been like a rollercoaster of emotions for the followers of Jesus. After the triumphal entering to Jerusalem the expectation of the Messiah was at its highest moment, but suddenly everything changed. The cries of the crowds shouting of “Hossanna!, Hossanna!” were turned now into “Crucify him, Crucify him!

The one who was understood as the bearer of hope, liberation, and restoration for Israel was now defeated.

All the hopes of those who had walked with Jesus, those who had seen him perform miracles, the hopes of those who had listened to his powerful teaching were now nailed to a shameful cross, and then put away in a tomb. An even worse, now not even his body was found.

The tragedy of this situation had brought not only sadness but fear to the disciples. They were probably thinking, “if this happened to Jesus, what is going to happen to us.”

Not even the testimony of the women who visited the tomb and had an encounter with angels, (and who quoted Jesus’ words), made sense to them. They were so traumatized by the falling apart of their expectations that they were blind to God’s plan and even to the presence of the resurrected Jesus.

Now, as readers of Luke’s Gospel we know at this point that Jesus is risen. So, we are tempted here to judge the disciples and say, “they’re so dumb”, “it’s so obvious”. But it was not that they were dumb or that what was happening was easy to understand. In fact, if you have been a Christian long enough, you would probably agree that in our humanity, is not that easy to make sense of our life and our faith, especially when we have erroneous or incomplete beliefs about God.

That’s one of the things I love about the Chosen series about Jesus. Because I can see myself as a disciple. So needy, so short of understanding,… but also so loved by Jesus.

So, what is then, Luke’s purpose with this narrative? Well…let’s find out…

Exposition of the text

Luke starts by saying that “that same day”, meaning the same day of the resurrection, and the same day Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James found the tomb empty and then gave testimony. Also, verse 1 says “on the first day of the week”. So, Luke is giving us here a timeline of the events.

Then, Luke mentions that two of them were going to a village called Emmaus. Again, Luke is pointing back in the narrative. These two people were among those, including the Eleven, who didn’t believe the women’s testimony.

And now, for some reason not mentioned here, they are going away from Jerusalem. And as they are going and talking about the recent events, Jesus comes and joins them as they walk. But they don’t know its Him.

The fact that the disciples cannot recognize Jesus at this moment is a mystery. It appears to be that the disciples were somehow prevented from recognizing Jesus. But Luke does not mention anything else about it. Luke wants us to focus in the conversation that it’s about to happen.

Now, Jesus’ initial interaction with the two disciples is kinda funny. He knows they don’t recognized him and asks them about their conversation. And their response sounded kinda rude: “Are you the only one who doesn’t know about these things?” It’s like if you would be walking around Wilmore a couple of months ago and ask someone. What’s up? –and he would say--Do you live under a rock or something? It’s the revival!

However, despite of their rude response, Jesus plays along just to get information out and asks, “What things?” And the response of these men is where the key issue in this narrative is.

1. The first thing they say in verse 19 is: Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people.

In the Gospels we see Jesus acting as the prophets of the Old Testament. We see Jesus teaching the Torah with authority, like the in the Sermon on the Mountain and performing wonders like Moses, and we see Jesus resurrecting the widow’s son like Elijah in the book of Kings.

This idea about the prophetic role of Jesus was not completely wrong, but it was incomplete. Through the Gospels we see how Jesus acting with power, is not only a man sent by God, but as God himself. And frequently in the Gospels, the answer to the question “who is this man?” should lead them and us to say, “this God with us”.

But now, for Jesus followers it seems like this powerful prophet was not as powerful than they thought.

2. The second thing in verse 20 they say is. That “He was handed over by the religious leaders and was crucified (which means he was dead). In fact, it’s been 3 days. So, like Jesus, all their hopes were dead.

3. The third thing they say to this unknown traveler (in verse 21) They had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.

Despite of Jesus’ popularity and apparent power and authority from God, his followers fully expected him to triumph over the religious establishment in Jerusalem and even to subjugate the Romans. Israel at last would be free. But now that Jesus had been crucified and buried, it was obvious to them that these glorious things were not destined to be.

Because of their incomplete beliefs and false expectations, they did not realize that an even greater victory had been won.

4. And the last thing they mention in verse 22 and 23 is that some women gave testimony of the empty tomb and their encounter with angels. This disciples effectively checked the tomb, but he was not there. So, the testimony of the women was discharged.

The answer of these two disciples reflected the false expectations they had about the person and the work of Jesus. Despite they had heard him and seen him, and walked with him, what they believed about him was based in an incomplete understanding of who he was.

And the frustration of not seeing their hopes fulfilled had them now full of sadness and fear. As some of us might feel like this morning.

But the story is not over!

After hearing the disciples account of the events Jesus says, verse 25.

“How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”

And then Luke continues saying that Jesus “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Luke gives no indication of which passages the Lord chose, but he makes it clear that the whole Old Testament was involved. We should perhaps understand this not as the selection of a number of proof-texts, but rather as showing that throughout the Old Testament a consistent divine purpose is worked out, a purpose that in the end meant and must mean… the cross. The terribleness of sin is found throughout the Old Testament and so… is the deep, deep love of God.

In the end, this combination made Calvary inevitable. The two disciples had wrong ideas of what the Old Testament taught and thus they had wrong ideas about the cross.

So, Jesus opened the Scriptures to them, and later in the narrative we read that their eyes were open.

This encounter with Jesus had a great significance for the disciples who later ran to the others to give testimony. Luke includes this encounter not only to give us lenses to read the story of the Bible through and towards Jesus, but he also includes it as a historian who wants his readers to be certain that Jesus has resurrected. This is why he includes the testimony of the women who he mentions by name (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Joanna), and in this narrative he gives the name of one of the two men who was called Cleopas.

In Judaism, two witnesses fulfill the legal requirement of credibility, so this requirement is fulfilled in the case of an alleged resurrection. Luke is telling us here: “this is not a fairy tale. This is real. Jesus is alive”.

We find the same idea in 1 Cor 15:4-8, where Paul sums all the appearances of Jesus:

that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, (that is Peter) and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

So, this certainty about Jesus’ resurrection should also produce in us hope. Luke is telling us that God is faithful to his Word and his promises. But also, he is inviting us to examine our beliefs and our expectations about God in the light of the Scriptures, the Old and the New Testament.

Application

“We, like those two men on the Emmaus road, need Christ to remind us of his power in our generation.”

N. T. Wright, a New Testament scholar, in his book “The Challenge of Jesus” written a couple of decades ago (1999 ) re-creates the Emmaus Road scene for the post-modern reader in a fascinating and practical way:

“Two unbelievers . . . [are] discussing, animatedly, how these things can be. How can the stories by which so many have lived have let us down? . . .Into this conversation comes Jesus, incognito. . . .“What are you talking about?” he asks. They stand there looking sad. Then one of them says, “You must be about the only person in town who doesn’t know what a traumatic time the twentieth century has been. Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx were quite right. We had a war to end wars, and we’ve had nothing but more wars since. We had a sexual revolution, and now we have AIDS and . . . ended up with half the world in crippling debt. . . . Our dreams have gone sour, and we don’t even know who “we” are anymore. . . .” (We could probably add to this we had a pandemic, a war exploded in Ukrania…)

“Foolish ones,” replies Jesus; “How slow of heart you are to believe all that the Creator God has said! Did you never hear that . . . in his own death he dealt with evil once and for all? . . . and that he is even now at work, by his own Spirit to create a new human family in which repentance and forgiveness of sins are the order of the day, and so to challenge and overturn the rule of war, sex, money and power?”

Perhaps you are feeling today like these disciples, with broken expectations, sadness, and lost hopes. Sometimes, like the disciples our beliefs and expectations about God need to be completed or even corrected. They might need to be revised against what Scriptures say.

In Latin America, for example, the prosperity gospel is abundant. People are taught that God is like Santa Claus. His function to give us whatever we want or dream. And like an expending machine, if you give the pastor or the church money, God will give you even more. And at the end, when this God doesn’t not act accordingly as expected, people leave the church saying this God is not real, and Christianity is a fairy tale.

Perhaps you’ve had the same feelings like the disciples that when God didn’t fulfill your hopes, all hope is lost.

Or perhaps, you have been thinking is this it? Is what I’m living everything God has for me?

Or maybe you are in a situation that seems impossible and hopeless. And although these stories about Jesus’ miracles seem entertaining, you think that, well…they are just stories …and at the end of the day you are on your own.

But let me encourage you, dear brothers and sisters, and remind you today that God is real. That he is powerful, that he loves you, and that there is nothing impossible for him.

My family and I are living testimonies of the power and faithfulness of God.

There is no way that in our own capabilities we would be here today. But God has made miracle after miracle to bring us to this place today.

Remember the story I told you at the beginning? So, here we are with this letter saying that we would have to leave and with no idea of what to do.

And then we got a videocall from the pastor of the church we were attending. We had just talked a couple of times with him and his family, but he was aware of our situation.

I was hoping that he would say, the church has a gift for you or something like that. But instead he and his wife said, would you like to come and live with us? Forget about raising that money for your rent. We told them, are you sure? You have no idea who we are, we could be murderers! And they said, we are sure that God is inviting us to do this.

And so we did it. It was definitely not what we expected before coming. But God provided a home and a family for us, and for them. When together through the loss of their second baby, we went together through the pandemic, through the miracle of the birth of their third baby, and finally to my graduation from my masters. Although it was not as we planned, God was faithful and present all the way

God knows what you are going through and he cares. It might not be a financial crisis, but emotional, physical, or spiritual, Maybe you are suffering about a family member or someone you love and you think there is no hope for this situation.

But I’m here we testify to you today He is alive, that he is powerful, and there is nothing impossible for him. The same Jesus that we read about in the Scriptures is here today and he is not done with you.

This section of the narrative ends with Jesus sitting in the table with the disciples and when he breaks the bread,

…just as he did a few days ago before he was captured,

…and just as he did when he multiplied the loafs of bread and the fish to feed the 5.000.

And their eyes were opened, and they realized that He was alive and that it was him who was walking with them all the time.

So If you are here today needing God to give you hope, and you need his touch so you can see that he is acting and is present in the midst of your situation, as he has been before, let me remind you that he is here with you today. He, God himself, has come close to you, and he is walking with you as you go through this rocky and painful road, and what he has in store has for you is greater than anything than you can ever imagine.

Let’s pray.