2017-12-03 Luke 24: 13-27 Grand Openings (2)- Open Scripture (1)

GRAND OPENINGS (2): OPEN SCRIPTURE (1) (Luke 24:13-27) December 3, 2017 Read Luke 24:13-24 –Woody Allen once said, “Civilization stands at the crossroads. Down one road is despondency and despair. Down the other is total annihilation. Let us pray that we choose the right road.” Well, mankind is always at a crossroad. And one road does lead to despondency and despair. Thankfully, the other road, the narrow way, has a much happier ending. Woody Allen sees despair down both roads because he has a naturalistic worldview – that considers God irrelevant or non-existent. Either way, He doesn’t matter. Naturalism views life thru a lens that filters out any reference to the supernatural or God. That is the perspective of much of our world. In contrast the Xn or Biblical worldview sees the Bible as the special revelation of a God who is at once loving yet holy; transcendent yet close; wholly other, yet involved in every detail of life. That worldview also sees life at a crossroads. Down one road is despair and annihilation. But down the other is peace, joy and victory. Mankind has forfeit any right to go down that road, but God has chosen to save some based on His own Son paying the price for our rebellion. And while He saves whom He will, it’s also true that we each choose which road we will pursue – to ultimate destruction or eternal life. The naturalistic worldview, in the end, denies reality in claiming God doesn’t matter when He most emphatically does matter. Naturalists know much truth, but deny the ultimate truth found only in Jesus Christ who said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” It matters eternally what you do with Him. Truth doesn’t lie. Reality reigns and it matters what you commit your life to. Our text contrasts life seen thru the lens of naturalism (all roads leading to meaningless annihilation) with life seen through the lens of God’s revelation (revealing a road leading to eternal life). A naturalistic worldview versus a Christian worldview. It is a switch in worldview – in the way of looking at life – that takes these two disciples from burdened hearts to burning hearts – from emptiness to euphoria. They go from seeing a reality defined by human limitations to seeing a reality defined by the God who created it. So, our starting point. V. 17b: “And they stood still, looking sad” – sad to the point of despair. Like Eeyore! They’re on a helpless journey to nowhere – a mass of unmet expectations leading to a hopeless future. Yet hours later, after 1 meeting a stranger on the road, they ask, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road.” They rush back to Jerusalem filled with euphoric hope of the future. What changed? They now saw reality from God’s perspective instead of theirs. How did that happen? Great question. Two Sundays to answer. First, the problem – reality defined in human terms. Next week – reality as defined by God. Two limitations to their self-defined reality. I. They Viewed Existence in Natural Terms The Setting – It’s Sunday morning. These 2 are with others in Jerusalem when some women return from Jesus’ tomb and announce it’s empty. Peter and John confirm the empty tomb, so all assume the body’s been moved. Nothing they could do about it, so they’re on the way home to Emmaus – 7 miles west of Jerusalem. Who are they? Not part of the 12. V. 18 tells us one was named Cleopas. The other is not named, which, by the way, is an indication of the genuineness of this record. Made up legends include all names or no names. Cleopas may be in John 19:25: “but standing by the cross of Jesus were [Jesus’] mother [Mary] and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” “Clopas” may be short for “Cleopas”, and thus the 2nd disciple might be his wife, Mary. That they were at least husband and wife is seen in that later 29 but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, which sounds very like a couple inviting a stranger into their home. Whoever they are, a stranger joins them, notes their despair and asks them about it. Cleopas responds: “Man are you the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard what’s been going on? It’s been front page news.” Then Jesus’ humor shows: “19 And he said to them, “What things?” He might have said, “I’m the only one who actually does know what’s been going on.” But He asks, “What things?” Now, God never asks questions to get information. He’s got all of that He needs. Jesus is drawing these folks out, trying to get them to see their need. Gently probing to take them from where they are to where they need to be. How gracious! Perhaps He’s doing that in your life as well? Unmet Expectations –In answer, they spill their hearts about their unmet expectations. Vv. 19b ff: “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, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be 2 condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Disappointment – and accusation! “We really thought this was the guy. So authoritative. We staked everything on Him being the Messiah who would deliver us from Rome! But our own leaders killed Him. How that could happen we don’t know. But it’s all over now.” False Premise – But you can see the false premise of the naturalistic worldview. Even after 3 years with Jesus, what do they seek? Physical deliverance! They’ve missed the spiritual nature of His mission. They don’t get that if He was from God even death must have a purpose. Their reality is limited to physical senses. Their naturalistic worldview has a God, but He’s a small God -- anemic -- a God in their image, subject to all their limitations. Result – The result? They think death is the end. Jesus is dead; expectations are unmet; hope is gone. When you take God out of the picture, that’s all you have left – a meaningless existence that ends in death. You can dress it up all you want with philosophies that range from “you only go round once, so get all the gusto you can”, to humanitarian causes to benefit mankind after you are gone. But in the end, death is it. These two are looking at life without resurrection. That’s a dead end street. One road leads to despair – the other to total annihilation. No hope; no meaning, just unmet, unmeetable expectations! Naturalism is a worldview of despair. Jean Paul Sartre, in Nausea, has one of his characters, Roquentin, comment, "I existed like a stone, a plant, a microbe…. I was just thinking… that here we are, all of us, eating and drinking, to preserve our precious existence and there's nothing, nothing, absolutely no purpose for existing." Sartre never seems to stop to wonder how, if he’s just like a stone, he can think at all! Elsewhere he says: "Every existent is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance. Man is a useless passion.” What he never seems to question is how, if he were truly born without reason, he could reason his way to such fatalistic conclusions! He missed the hope implied by his own ability to think. You say, “Well, those disciples weren’t that far gone.” No, but they were on their way. Hope for this life and the next had gone up in flames with Jesus’ death. Viewing life on our terms with all our human limitations is a scary proposition when we follow the logic to its ultimate conclusion. II. They Viewed Jesus in Natural Terms 3 They saw Him as ordinary. Reduced Him to mortal man. Do that and you’ll never truly see Him. And you’ll miss the only escape from a Godless eternity. It starts early in the morning as these two recount to Jesus, v. 24: “Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said [empty], but him they did not see.” They didn’t see Jesus. Why? Looking in the wrong place with the wrong assumptions. That’s why the angels ask, 5b: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Wrong place; wrong time; wrong assumptions – viewing life thru a naturalism lens. So, here they are walking with Jesus, and they don’t even know it. V. 16, “But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” Why? Had God closed their eyes? Or was it their naturalistic assumptions? Maybe both? We’ve all seen someone out of context, thinking they look familiar, but not recognizing them because they don’t look the same. So with these disciples. They expect Him to be in the grave, not up walking around. So whether God had pulled the shades down or whether it was the limitations of their own faith that did it, they missed Him. You don’t want to miss Jesus, but they were missing Him. Jesus was too ordinary. He looked like any other traveler. Nothing special. Nothing distinguishing. This was true all His life. Isa 53:2b: “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” There was nothing about Jesus’ looks that caused people to say, “Oh, there goes the Son of God.” He was extraordinarly ordinary – and it caused a lot of people then and now to miss Him. God would never look like this. First sermon in His hometown: Mark 6:2b-3: “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.” His ordinariness turned them off. No different here. 19 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.” See the problem? How do they identify Jesus? A mighty prophet. Was He -- a mighty prophet? Of course. But was that all He was? They knew His claims to be God. All the people did: Jn 10:33: “The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” But believer and unbeliever alike had the same problem. They couldn’t see God in ordinary! The best these two could say was, “Well, He 4 was a pretty great prophet, you know.” Amazing. Selling Him short. Subjecting Him to their own limitations of how people should act and how God should act. Naturalistic worldview. If God should show up on the scene, you’d never be able to kill Him! Jesus might have been a mighty prophet, but nothing more. Too ordinary. And can’t expect a prophet to come back to life. Are you missing Jesus because He’s too ordinary? Seeing Him as just a man? A great one, yes. Fighting for the poor and disenfranchised -- for the cause of freedom and justice. Taking the battle to the corridors of power until it got Him killed. Great guy -- extraordinary prophet. But God? God wouldn’t act like that – get dirty, tired, sweaty and killed like that. Jesus was a fine man, but just a man. That’s what those two thought. And they almost missed Him. We’re all naturalists at heart. We want the kind of resurrection in the Gospel of Peter. It’s an apocryphal, false gospel, written in the 3rd century, and it reflects a naturalistic view of resurrection. It depicts two brilliantly lit figures descending from heaven. The light causes a crowd to gather. Everybody is watching. The figures go to the tomb, the stone blows out, they enter the tomb and emerge shortly – these two glorious figures with Jesus, the 3rd figure in the center. It says, “The heads of the two from heaven reached into heaven, but him that was led by them, it overpassed the heaven.” That’s the story we want. We hear this and say, “If I was making up a story about a risen Christ, it would be like this. If I was going to make up a story about the risen Christ, it would have sizzle! It would never be ordinary – like Luke’s account.” Which, naturally means there’s a very good chance it’s true. Why would Luke make up ordinary except -- that’s what really happened. So are you missing Jesus because He is too ordinary? Langston Hughes wrote a poem: “Listen, Christ, you did all right in your day, I reckon / But that day is gone now. / They ghosted you up a swell story, too – called it Bible. / But it’s dead now. / The popes and the preachers, they’ve made too much money from it. / They’ve sold you to too many Kings, generals, robbers, and killers, / Even to the czar and the Cossacks. Even to Rockefeller’s church. / Even to The Saturday Evening Post. / You ain’t no good no more; they’ve pawned you till you done wore out. / Goodbye Jesus.” You might not put it in such blatant words, but have you discounted Jesus bc you see Him thru the lens of naturalism – as someone who allowed Himself to be pushed around – a kind but naïve young man who got Himself killed for bucking the establishment. He didn’t do it the way we would have? We think, 5 “If I were God in the flesh, as He claimed, I’d have snapped my fingers and gotten this whole world straightened out now. I’d answer my prayers just like I pray them. I’d do something to show the world who I am.” We want bells and whistles and immediate answers to prayer, lights in the sky and deliverance from Rome. We want something dramatic, and we miss that the most dynamic event in history has already happened. Jesus rose again – but He did it like it was so ordinary. Because in His world, it was ordinary. We miss that since He paid the price for sin He can deliver us not just from Rome, but from the sin that separates from Almighty God. He may have looked ordinary to these two, but He had just completed the most extraordinary thing ever done in the history of the world. He bought redemption! Conc – Beloved, don’t miss Jesus by judging Him through the lens of naturalism. He’s way too big for that. The resurrection proves it. And it proves He can do the most extraordinary thing of all – give you eternal life. The darling of the 1976 Winter Olympic Games was a young American skater – Dorothy Hamill who won the Gold Medal in figure skating. She had a perky hairstyle that flipped just right with every jump and it took the country by storm. Every woman wanted a Dorothy Hamill cut. So Dorothy was at a WH reception one day when a woman was studying her hair intently. She finally said: “That’s almost a Dorothy Hamill cut, isn’t it?” Hamill replied, “It is a Dorothy Hamill.” The woman replied, “Well, not quite. But it’s close.” Beloved, don’t just get close to Jesus, yet miss Him entirely. Don’t stop at Jesus the great prophet. Come all the way. See Him for who He is – the Redeemer who died for you to save you not from Rome or Russia or ISIS or your horrific boss – but from your sin, death and hell. Let’s pray. 6