“Easter Fire!”
(Luke 24:13-35)
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson
- Let me invite you to open your Bibles to Luke Chapter 24, Luke’s gospel, chapter 24.
While you are finding that, many of you have seen these little wooden crosses. We had them placed inside the special “Enjoy Bags” last week and we have some again today. These are wonderful little gifts and we invite you to take one or two as you leave this morning. They’re in baskets there at the doors and also at the Connection Center. These are hand crafted wooden crosses with a magnet on the back, crafted by an artisan in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and donated anonymously by one of our members. Isn’t that great? So pick up one or two as you exit this morning as a special Easter gift.
Have you found Luke 24? The chapter opens by telling us how the women went to the tomb where Christ had been buried and they found it empty. And then Peter runs to the tomb and finds it empty. And then, a couple disciples who were not numbered with the 12 “Famous Disciples,” a couple other disciples are leaving Jerusalem headed home to a town called Emmaus. And we’re going to read about these two guys this morning.
- Please stand in honor of the reading.
13 Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was [e]seven miles from Jerusalem.
14 And they talked together of all these things which had happened.
15 So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them.
16 But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him.
17 And He said to them, “What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you [f]walk and are sad?”
18 Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, “Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?”
19 And He said to them, “What things?” So they said to Him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,
20 and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him.
21 But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.
22 Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us.
23 When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive.
24 And certain 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.”
25 Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
26 Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” 27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He [g]expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
28 Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He [h]indicated that He would have gone farther.
29 But they constrained Him, saying, “Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And He went in to stay with them.
30 Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.
31 Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight.
32 And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?”
33 So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together,
34 saying, “The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!”
35 And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was [i]known to them in the breaking of bread.
- Let’s pray: “God, help us hear from You today, in Jesus’ name, amen.”
I told you I love this story. How would you like to watch a modern re-telling of it? We’ve enjoyed the “Skit Guys” videos in the past—Christmastime, last week with the dramatization of Barabbas. Pretty serious one last week. How about a lighter one this morning? Imagine these two disciples sitting on the front porch talking about what we just read in Luke 24.
Listen to these to guys the way you might hear a couple gifted Jewish comedians, a Billy Crystal and Larry David. Or, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. Let’s make sure the volume is good and high. Alright, let’s just enjoy this.
VIDEO CLIP [5:20]
Well, that’s exactly how it went in Luke 24, right?! A little levity for you this Easter Sunday morning. No it didn’t go exactly like that, but those two guys captured the joy, wonder, and splendor of what it must have been like to be walking along the road with the resurrected Christ that first Easter Sunday.
What’s going on in this story?! Why is it here and what is it teaching? Well, without going back through every single verse, let me just give a simple, descriptive three-point outline to summarize the three moves of the narrative:
- Mystification (13-24)
- Illumination (25-27)
- Realization (28-35)
Let’s talk about these three headings and then I want to give you a couple points of application that I think convey why this particular resurrection appearance occurred and why it is included in Luke’s Gospel. So first:
- Mystification (13-24)
These two disciples are unquestionably mystified by the events that had transpired in Jerusalem. They are especially perplexed about Jesus. They weren’t expecting Him to be crucified and they don’t at all understand the empty tomb. None of that made sense. Totally mystified!
And as they are talking about Jesus, who appears to them? Jesus Himself! Do they recognize Him? No. Look at verse 16:
16 But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him.
Their eyes were “restrained,” passive verb tense. In other words, something or someone else was acting upon them, acting in such a way as to restrain their eyes. Theologians call this a “Divine passive,” verb tense because it is God Himself who keeps them from recognizing Him. Kind of cool, isn’t it? Just like Jesus to do this.
The Lord has a reason for this and we’re going to see what it is, but first remember this: if if we ever do see the Lord it will be because God opens our eyes to see Him. This is why we say that salvation is by grace, by God’s amazing grace. Because I am dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), I need to have my eyes opened to see Christ. So the Christian sings, “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” God opened my eyes to see Christ! Amazing grace.
So Jesus comes up to these two disciples, and they don’t know it’s Him, and He asks, “Why the long faces?”—and He’s speaking metaphorically (remember the video!). “Why are you sad?” And then the disciple whose name is Cleopas says, “Don’t you know what’s been going on in Jerusalem?! Jesus of Nazareth, the Mighty Prophet, the One we thought was to redeem us was crucified!”
These two disciples were mystified because they thought of Jesus as only a political messiah, someone who would redeem them or save them from Roman oppression. They were not thinking of Jesus as saving them from their sins. So they’re totally mystified and they add that they have also learned that the tomb is empty and that some angels have said that Jesus is alive. And none of this makes any sense to them. Now, this leads to the next key word:
- Illumination (25-27)
25 Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
26 Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter His glory?”
27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded (or explained) to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
So Jesus takes the two disciples from mystification to illumination. He helps them see that Jesus was supposed to die. He helps them understand the Scriptures.
Verse 27 says that Jesus began “at Moses and all the Prophets” and expounded to them in “all the Scriptures” the things concerning Himself. Put another way: Jesus showed them how the entire Bible points to Him!
Wouldn’t you like to have been there to hear that seven-mile Sunday school lesson?! We often say that the Bible is a “Him Book,” it’s a book about Him. It contains a total of 66 books from Genesis to Revelation, composed by more than 40 different authors writing over a period of some 1,500 years in three different languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek—written from different settings and locations, covering a wide array of topics—yet one major theme runs throughout the entire Bible: how sinful man is reconciled to a holy God through the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Mystification. Illumination. And now:
- Realization (28-35)
The disciples draw near to the village of Emmaus and they still don’t know who Jesus is. He acts as if He’s going to keep on going—good manners in the ancient near east; don’t want to impose—but the two invite Him over to the house. And while they’re at the table breaking bread, what happens? Realization! Verse 31:
31 Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight!
I just love that! So “their eyes were opened,” and that’s another “Divine Passive” verb tense. In other words, God opened their eyes. And so their eyes were opened and they knew Him, they recognized Him, realized this whole time that it was He who walked with them on the road, and then He vanishes! Now I really like verse 32:
32 And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?”
These two disciples are like, “Ah, that explains it! Man, when He led us in that seven mile Sunday school lesson, did not our heart burn within us?!” They’re not talking about heartburn when you’ve eaten too many Easter eggs or too much ham. They’re talking about that feeling when you are in the presence of the resurrected God Himself and your very heart seems to catch the flame of Easter fire! It’s the best way to describe what happens when you are in the very presence of God, your soul is set on fire with the fire of God! Your heart burns within in joy and satisfaction in the fullness of God!
So they realize it is Jesus. And then He just vanishes! So they’re both excited and get up that very hour and high-tail it back to Jerusalem, back another seven miles, back to see the other disciples so they can pass along the encouragement.
Now again, why is this story in the Bible? Well, because it happened. But why did it happen? What in the world is going on with the Lord’s “restraining their eyes” so they couldn’t recognize Him? What is it teaching us?
Let me suggest that it teaches at least two things about our relationship with the Lord. Number one:
1) To See Him,
—is to Know His Word
Jesus rebuked these two disciples back in verse 25. Remember that? Why did Jesus rebuke them? Look at verse 25:
25 Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
Jesus rebuked the two disciples for their failure to know and believe the Word. Then He opens up the Word to their understanding.
Think of it: He is showing them that their outward inability to see the Lord mirrors their inward inability to know and believe His Word. Put another way, their inability to see Jesus revealed in the flesh mirrors their inability to see Jesus revealed in the Word.
To see Him is to know His Word. Jesus is going to be leaving them soon. He’s going to be ascending to the right hand of the Father. He’s been with them physically now for three and a half years of earthly ministry: living, dying, rising from the dead, and then He will ascend into heaven where He will remain until He comes again. Until that time, until He comes again physically, how will believers see Him and know Him?
To see Him is to know His Word. Jesus is helping us understand what Paul writes later in 2 Corinthians 5:7 that we walk by faith and not by sight. We have God’s Word which is, Acts 4:12, “alive and powerful,” living and active, to guide us as we walk along our “road to Emmaus” every day. To see Him is to know His Word.
Jesus says in John 5:39, “Search the Scriptures, for these are they which testify of me.” You want to see Jesus? Read His Word. Ask God for illumination. Pray, “God, open up Your Word to me and open me to Your Word.” To see Him is to know His Word.
I heard about a preacher who was talking about seeing the Lord. He was a country preacher and his grammar wasn’t so good. He was saying in his message over and over: “I seen this” and “I seen that” and there was this kind of snooty person who set out to correct him. He said to him, “You ought to be like pastor so-and-so who says correctly, “I have seen.” And that country preacher knew pastor so-and-so and he knew he was one of those pastor’s who had a dead orthodoxy and didn’t even believe in the resurrection and that country preacher said: “Well, I’ll tell you what: I’d rather say, ‘I seen’ when I’ve seen something than to say ‘I have seen’ when I ain’t seen nothing!”
I like that! I’ve seen the Lord. Have you? To see Him is to know His Word. Do you read His Word?
People all the time are like, “Man, I’d believe in God if He just appeared!” Well, He did appear. God came to us 2,000 years ago, took on flesh, lived for 33 years, fulfilled all the laws we broke, died on the cross taking the punishment we deserved for sin, absorbing the wrath of God as He died to keep us from hell, rose from the dead as the Father’s ‘stamp of approval’ on the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement for our sin. He arose! He appeared alive from the dead. And after 40 days, He ascended up to the right hand of the Father where He reigns right now. He did appear.
Unlike every other major religion, God appeared to us by coming down to us. Every other major religion is about man’s attempt to get to God, work our way up to God, to earn God’s favor. Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, are all about trying to get to God. Christianity is God’s coming down to us, appearing to us. Living, Dying, Rising for us. He did appear.
To see Him today is to know and believe His Word. You want to see Jesus? Read the Word. Dads, read the Word to your children. Tuck ‘em in at night and read the Bible to them. Teach them from an early age how to see Jesus. Husbands, take your wives by the hands and read the Book together. To see Jesus is to know the Word.
You’re a single mom, you’re divorced, you’re going nuts and you’re needing God to just open up the heavens and make His presence known to you to encourage you?! Open up the Book! You want to see Jesus? To see Him is to know His Word.
The disciples marveled, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?”
We were created by God so it makes sense that our hearts burn brightest when set on fire by the Lord Himself. Too often we try to set our hearts on fire in other ways. Rather than opening the Word we open a bottle. Rather than getting into the Word, we get into a relationship. Rather than looking at the Word we look at screens, phones, tablets. We try to ignite our hearts in ways that avoid the Lord, earthly substitutes for divine fire. Often we do it in ways we know are wrong—going the sin route in the hopes we’ll feel some kind of “spark” in our heart, like cheap lighter fluid and a match we’re trying to mimic the fire of God’s burning in our hearts.
Listen: there’s no way to mimic it! You were designed to love the Lord with that heart! God made you for relationship with Him. Don’t settle for cheap substitutes. To see Him is to know His Word. Read the Book! Take time this coming week and just begin to read. Start in the New Testament if you like. Read Matthew 1 tomorrow. Read Matthew 2 on Tuesday. Just keep going like that. God will honor your efforts and your heart will begin to burn with the white hot Easter Fire of the presence of God!
Now if that’s true and it is—to see Him is to know His Word—then the second truth follows:
2) If We Lose Sight of Him,
—He’s Still There
This is important! Our not being able to see Him does not mean He isn’t still there walking with us along the way. He is the One who said, “I am with you even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20),” and “I will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5),” I will never abandon you.
The two disciples didn’t recognize Him on the road to Emmaus, but Jesus was there every step of the journey. When they were confused and couldn’t make sense of God’s will, when they were “foolish” and “slow of hearts to believe” the written Word, the Living Word was no less present in their lives!
It’s like that time in the Book of Genesis when Jacob slept and dreamed of the ladder with angels going up and coming down and the Lord saying to Him, “I am with you” and Jacob awoke from his sleep said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it (Genesis 28:16).” We may lose sight of Him, but He’s still there.
When we can’t make sense of God’s will or plan and when things don’t turn out the way we’d hoped, when, like these two disciples “we walk and are sad,” Jesus is still there!
Our doubts and discouragements are times we are most vulnerable to stop reading the Word. To turn away from the Lord. But those are especially the times we need to dig in and read because “we serve a Living Savior Who’s in the world today. He walks with us and talks with us along life’s narrow way.” He’s still there!
This is why the church is so important in our lives. The church gathers together in big group worship like this and small group worship centered upon the truth of God’s Word. These two disciples are encouraged when they share with one another and the Word of God is opened to them. That’s what we do in church. We gather to study and to sing of the truth of the resurrected Savior.
Sometimes we expect to see Jesus only in the extraordinary things: a powerful worship service, an awesome time of public revival, a miraculous occurrence of some kind or other, but Jesus is with us in the ordinary, too. Jesus appeared to these two men while they’re just walking along the road.
I wonder whether Jesus may be right there with us in the ordinary things of life but we’ve lost sight of Him because of doubts or discouragements, engulfed in the seemingly meaningless activities of our workaday world.
Jesus is with you in the ordinary of your daily commute to work. Jesus is with you in the ordinary of your walk to school. Jesus is with you in the ordinary of your doing laundry, feeling like no one appreciates your separating whites from darks and turning clothes right-side out—Jesus is there! Do you realize that? Do you talk to Him? He is there.
And He is here. Right now. Working in this place. Christian, stop trying to set your own heart on fire through sinful substitutes. Repent and turn to the Lord, feasting upon His Word in the coming days. Get connected deeply to the church. Get connected with other disciples—sharing with one another and then gathering together with the entire group as they ran back to Jerusalem that first Easter Sunday. May God grant us the wisdom to do the same, gathering together weekly with God’s people.
If you’re not a Christian this morning, listen: to See Him is to Know His Word. The written Word points to the Living Word, Jesus Christ. God loves you. He has a made a way for you to be forgiven from sin and be reconciled to Him through faith in Christ. Pray God grant you the grace of “open eyes” to see Jesus clearly. That’s a prayer He will honor! Pray, “God, open my eyes to see Jesus” and follow Him today.
We’re going to sing and respond to the truth through song. While we sing, I’m inviting you this morning to turn to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. You have spiritual questions, not sure you’re saved, you have questions about baptism or church membership, I’ll be available to you right after the service this morning. I’ll be over here in the Response Room. You can come as we sing or right after worship and I’ll meet with you there. Don’t leave today without being sure of the condition of your soul.
Let’s pray. “God, we thank You that to see You is to Know Your Word. Thank You for what we read in Your Word, that You lived for us and died for us—and rose victoriously from the grave for us—paying our sin debt, bearing our punishment that we may escape hell, and offering forgiveness. We turn from sin and turn to Jesus as Savior. May each and every one of us be able to say with truth, “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
Stand and let’s respond to the truth in song.
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