2022 Wk 17: Lesson 3: EASTER Follow UP
Easter: Our Risen Savior • Sermon • Submitted
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Our Risen Savior
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Generosity Moment
“Glorify God with all your wealth, honoring him with your firstfruits, with every increase that comes to you.”
Proverbs 3:9 TPT
“Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce.”
Proverbs 3:9 NLT
Road To Emmaus:
Opening Our Eyes Once Again
Luke 24:13-35
Luke 24:13-35
We all go through events that we will never forget:
Vacation
marriage
birth of a child
that one big fish
or something you child did in school
“You never get tired of telling people that story.”
In fact, it is so common to you that you might assume that others should know…you might say?
“did you not know?”
Well, Imagine if you had been one of the two disciples the resurrected Jesus had walked, talked, and broken bread with.
The two disciples’ eyes were opened when Jesus broke the bread—even years later, they surely would’ve been able to remember that moment as if it were yesterday. It must have been so clear.
I love what Clopas, Eddie’s character, said in the scene we just watched:
“I’ll never tire of telling people that story.”
It’s fun to imagine how those two disciples may have told their version of the story.
Let’s take a look at what the Bible says happened on the road to Emmaus:
Luke 24:13–35 (NLT)
13 That same day two of Jesus’ followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. As they walked along they were talking about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them. But God kept them from recognizing him.
He asked them, “What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?”
They stopped short, sadness written across their faces.
18 Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, “You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days.”
“What things?” Jesus asked.
“The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth,” they said. “He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people.
20 But our leading priests and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago.
“Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, his body was gone, just as the women had said.”
Then Jesus said to them, “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?”
27 Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
28 By this time they were nearing Emmaus and the end of their journey. Jesus acted as if he were going on, but they begged him, “Stay the night with us, since it is getting late.” So he went home with them. As they sat down to eat, he took the bread and blessed it. Then he broke it and gave it to them.
31 Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared!
32 They said to each other, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” And within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven disciples and the others who had gathered with them, who said, “The Lord has really risen! He appeared to Peter.”
35 Then the two from Emmaus told their story of how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along the road, and how they had recognized him as he was breaking the bread.
There are some clear details from Luke’s account of this story:
On the first Easter Sunday when Jesus arose from the grave,
two followers of Jesus were on their way back to their home in Emmaus.
Although these men were not identified as two of the twelve disciples, they were followers of Jesus who had been in Jerusalem for the Passover
They had firsthand knowledge of Jesus’ arrest, trial, crucifixion, and burial—and they knew about the empty tomb.
One of these two men was called Cleopas.
Unclear as to the
name and even the gender of the other person.
Perhaps the unnamed disciple was a man, as some biblical scholars assume.
However, others believe these two disciples of Jesus were the married couple referenced in John’s gospel who were present at the cross when Jesus died:
Standing near the cross were Jesus’ mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary (the wife of Clopas), and Mary Magdalene.
According to John,
Mary, one of the women present at the cross when Jesus died, was married to a man named Clopas. The two Gospel writers spell the names differently, but some scholars believe Clopas and Cleopas are the same person. Those who believe this is the same person suggest the spellings are a nickname or an abbreviated form of the more formal name Kleopatros.
Other scholars suggest Cleopas and Clopas are two totally different people, because of the different origins of the two name spellings.
In other words, the specific identities of Cleopas and the disciple with him on the road aren’t clear.
What is clear is...
that the resurrected Jesus taught these two the meaning of all the Scriptures that were fulfilled in him.
In verse 32, the passage states that the two disciples’ hearts burned within them while Jesus talked to them, but it wasn’t until they were inside their home that their eyes were opened to his identity.
Matthew Henry writes,
They had found the preaching powerful, even when they knew not the preacher. Those Scriptures which speak of Christ, will warm the hearts of his true disciples.
…I contend it will warm the heart of any who will let His peace and acceptance flow over them.
WHERE DID THIS HAPPEN?
Note what Luke said in the first part of verse 30:
When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them.
At table.
The most sacred place inside the home of a Jewish person was designated “at table.”
The term for this sacred space is mikdash me’at
(pronounced phonetically: mick-dosh me-ought).
Mikdash me’at is translated “little sanctuary” or “mini-temple.”
The saying from the Western world
“A man’s home is his castle” could be said like this in the Near Eastern world: “A man’s home is his little sanctuary or mini-temple.”
And inside the mini-temple is the table or mikdash me’at: a sacred space for heart-to-heart connection with friends and with God.
Brennan Manning eloquently painted a picture of the significance of the mikdash me’at in The Ragamuffin Gospel when he said,
In the Near East, to share a meal with someone is a guarantee of peace, trust, fraternity, and forgiveness—the shared table symbolizes a shared life.
An Orthodox Jew’s saying, “I would like to have dinner with you” is a metaphor that implies, “I would like to enter into friendship with you.”
Even today an American Jew will share a doughnut and a cup of coffee with you, but to extend a dinner invitation is to say, “Come to my mikdash me’at (mick-dosh me-ought), the miniature sanctuary of my dining room table, where we will celebrate the most sacred and beautiful experience that life affords—friendship.”
That is what Zacchaeus heard when Jesus called him down from the sycamore tree as recorded in Luke 19; and that is why Jesus’ practice of table fellowship caused hostile comment from the outset of His ministry.
Within this cultural context,
the most appropriate place in the house to worship Jesus with total devotion and abandon was “at table.”
This was the mini-sanctuary—this was the mini-temple.
In John 12:2-3 we read that it was “at table” where Lazarus’ sister Mary poured her bottle of expensive perfume over Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair.
There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
“At table” was where Mary could serve Jesus and bless him with all she had to give.
This was a sacred space for a sacred act of worship that foreshadowed how Jesus would serve his own disciples and also prepared Jesus for his impending burial.
In John 12, Mary took a servant’s posture.
In John 13, we see our Savior, Jesus, do the same as he took a servant’s posture armed with a towel and water basin, Jesus served his disciples as they reclined “at table”:
Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.
Jesus served his disciples at two meals after Mary anointed him with her perfume:
at the Passover meal when he washed the feet of the twelve in the Upper Room and then again at the home of the two disciples he met on the road to Emmaus.
In Cleopas home we see Jesus assuming the role of host while breaking bread “at table” with Cleopas and the unnamed disciple.
Verse 31 tells us what happened next on that Easter evening.
Now that we understand the context of mikdash me’at, let’s take a look at the story again, beginning with verse 30:
As they sat down to eat, he took the bread and blessed it. Then he broke it and gave it to them. Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared!
Their eyes were opened as Jesus broke the bread.
They realized it was Jesus who had walked and talked with them along the road and who had been in their home, sitting at their table.
As their eyes were opened, perhaps their nostrils also opened up and caught a whiff of a sweet scent that lingered in the air when Jesus vanished from their sight.
Could they still smell the aroma from the perfume Mary had anointed Jesus with a few days earlier at her mikdash me’at?
One can only speculate.
However, what we do know for certain is that for the Jewish people, meals were sacred times; and this meal at Cleopas’ table was the first recorded meal after Jesus’ resurrection.
This first post-resurrection meal in Cleopas’ home paralleled another significant meal spoken of regularly at table by the Jewish people throughout history:
the first time the act of eating appears in the Bible.
Notice a phrase used in Adam and Eve’s story that is echoed in the account of the first post-resurrection meal:
The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.
Eyes were opened at the first meal and at the first post-resurrection meal.
N.T. Wright described the significance of the way Luke paralleled these two meals:
The tale was told, over and over, as the beginning of the woes that had come upon the human race. Death itself was traced to that moment of rebellion. The whole creation was subjected to decay, futility and sorrow.
Now Luke, echoing that story, describes the first meal of the new creation with the couple in Emmaus, probably Clopas and Mary, husband and wife, discover that the long curse had been broken. Death itself had been defeated. ..Hope is here!
God’s new creation...
A new creation brimming with life and joy and new possibility,
A new creation has burst in upon the world of decay and sorrow.
Jesus himself, risen from the dead, is the beginning and the sign of this new world.
The opening of Adam and Eve’s eyes in the garden led to a curse and the sacrificial death of an innocent animal in order to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness.
What a powerful foreshadowing of another sacrificial death that would come when Jesus the Messiah gave his innocent life on the cross as the perfect, sacrificial Lamb of God.
His substitutionary death of atonement enabled his shed blood to cover the sins and shame of all humanity. All who receive this sacrificial gift of freedom from our Risen Savior can once and for all be clothed in the righteousness of Christ!
The meal at Emmaus was the first time humans could celebrate their freedom from the curse of sin and death that resulted from that meal of forbidden fruit.
The cross of Christ was payment for our debt.
The cross led to the empty tomb, and the resurrection on that first Easter Sunday was a new awakening of a new creation no longer under the power of the original curse.
The cross of Jesus led to Eyes being opened to new possibilities, because of the sacrifice God made on behalf of his creation.
The Passover Lamb had been sacrificed once and for all. It all made sense to these followers of Jesus once he broke the bread and their eyes were opened to who he was and to what the Scriptures really meant.
As Jesus remarked to them while on the road:
Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?”
The Greek word for the phrase “was it not necessary” can also be translated “did you not know?”
The same word is used when twelve-year-old Jesus responded to his anxious and sorrowful—yet relieved—mother about where he had been for the past three days:
And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
“Was it not necessary . . . ?” “Did you not know . . . ?”
The same word in the Greek is used for both phrases in both places.
Both times Jesus uttered the word as a way to help people gain a clearer understanding of what was unfolding in their midst.
Both times Jesus uttered the word just after Passover had taken place. In Luke 24, this took place at the first Easter dinner.
In Luke 2, this took place after Passover was complete and Jesus’ family was headed back home to Nazareth from Jerusalem.
N.T. Wright said about this:
The whole gospel story is framed between these very human scenes as Luke invites us to accompany him on a journey of faith… a new Exodus that Jesus would accomplish at Jerusalem. . . .
Jesus had led God’s new people out of slavery, and now invites them to accompany him on the new journey to the promised land.
The road to Emmaus is just the beginning.
Hearing Jesus’ voice in Scripture,
knowing him in the breaking of bread, is the WAY.
Welcome to God’s new world.
This is a sacred story of hope and truth that Luke intended to be told for generations “at table.”
What would our lives look like if we approached mealtime as sacred?
Protect your table time and your table talk with family and friends.
Establish mikdash me’at in your home, and do life with your family and friends around the table.
As we gather regularly as the people of God,
may we remember what the early church did during their corporate gatherings:
All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.
They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.
For the early church, breaking bread together was a significant part of being a follower of Jesus, and the place they broke the bread was “at table.”
May we gather around our table today as a church family.
May we remember who Jesus is and what it means to be one of his disciples.
May we break bread, open the Scriptures, and pray.
May we ask Jesus to continue to open the eyes of our hearts and minds to who he is and to who he wants us to be.
OPEN OUR EYES TO...
His saving power
His hope for our future.
His constant leading through the Holy Spirit
“Did you not know?”
this is part of what it means to “remember him” until he comes again?
COMMUNION--