A reading of the holy gospel according to Luke. Glory to your glory. Now this is a very significant passage. This is the story of the disciples meeting Jesus to Emma. And every detail here, I think, has great meaning, especially the attitude of the apostles.
Two of the disciples of Jesus on that same day, the first day of the week, were making their way to a village named Emmaaus, seven miles distant from Jerusalem, half hour's walk, discussing as they went along all that had happened that previous week. In the course of their lively exchange, lively exchange, they were keyed up about it. Jesus approached them and began to walk along with them. However, they were restrained. Very curious.
They were restrained from recognizing. So he said to them, what are you talking about as you walk along? They halted in distress. Notice they were so taken back by somebody saying, what are you talking about? That they stopped.
And one of them, Cleopus by name, asked Jesus, are you the only resident of Jerusalem who doesn't know the things that went on there in the last few days? Absolutely astonished that there could be anyone ignorant of it. But Jesus said to them, what things? And they replied, all those that had to do with Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet, powerful in word and in deed in the eyes of God and all the people. How our chief priests and leaders delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him.
We were we were hoping, notice, we were hoping that he was the one who would set Israel free, kick out the Romans. Besides all this, today, the third day since these things happened, some women of our group have just brought us most astonishing news. They were at the tomb before dawn and failed to find his body, but returned with a tale, notice they don't believe it, but returned with a tale that they had seen a vision of angels who declared that Jesus was alive. Some of our number went out to the tomb and found the tomb to be just as the women had said. But him, Jesus, they did not see.
And then Jesus said to them, what little sense you have. How slow you are to believe all that the prophets have announced. Notice Jesus is going back to the Old Testament now and saying, look, you don't even know your Old Testament. Did not the Messiah over 200 references to him, at least that in the Old Testament. Did not the Messiah have to undergo all this to enter into his glory?
And then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus interpreted for them every passage of scripture which referred to the Messiah. Well, by this time, they were near Emmaus. That was the village to which they were going. And Jesus acted as if he was going to continue on farther. But they pressed him, stay with us.
It is nearly evening. The day is practically over. So Jesus went in to stay with them. When he had seated himself with them to eat, Ghosts don't eat. Jesus took bread, pronounced the blessing, then broke the bread and began to distribute it to the dis disciples.
And with that, their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus, whereupon he vanished from their sight. As soon as they recognized him, he disappears. And then they said to one another, were not our hearts burning inside of us as we talked as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us, the Old Testament. They got up immediately and returned to Jerusalem, even though it was night, where they found the 11 and the rest of the company assembled. They were greeted by the assembly.
The Lord has been raised. It is true. He has appeared to Simon. And then they recounted everything that had happened to them on the road to Emmaus and how they had come to know Jesus in the breaking of the bread. And this is the good news of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and holy spirit. Amen. People can say what they want about the resurrection, the broken tomb. What matters to me is did it happen physically? As I said Sunday, this new and poetic downgrading and discounting of the resurrection of our Lord isn't my cup of tea at all.
Did it happen or didn't it happen? Now anybody who tries to answer that question has the same basis of evidence. It depends on what you do with it. Now this text is beyond all shadow of a doubt. There is no argument about its authenticity and all of that.
There's no doubt about the translations. Is all very simple. It couldn't be simpler. And yet so revealing, so utterly revealing and convincing. Now listen, it doesn't have all the answers.
There are plenty of problems here, but it has some answers. It has some answers. First of all, if you say that this resurrection of Christ was just some kind of a spiritual thing, that the physical part of it doesn't matter, does that correspond with these facts? Of course it doesn't. And secondly, you see one of the big arguments, I don't say it's so big, but about 1965 Schoenberg got brought out this book, you know, The Passover Plot.
It's very ingenious, very ingenious. And you see much of what he has to say there is extremely helpful helpful to our position because many of the facts of the case, which had been denied, he accepts because he's got some sense. But you see, see, the idea that something that Christ was not supposed to die and that the the disciples had this all set that they would get the the the apparently dead body and then resuscitate it and all that. You see, where are the facts to substantiate that? Did these disciples think Jesus was dead or didn't they?
Of course they thought he was dead. Secondly, did they have an idea that Jesus had come to restore a spiritual kingdom? They definitely did not. They were in despair. They had lost all hope.
They were downcast, depressed, forlorn, faint, and stark. That's what they were. Because their great hopes that Jesus was the Messiah, notice, the conquering Messiah, the triumphant Messiah. Oh, yes. That's what they thought he was going to be, and they were all going to be vice presidents, you know.
At least that. One of them might be even a prime minister, and that was all squashed. Notice what a misconception they had of his kingdom. Is that real? Of course it is.
It's plainly stated there. Now the next point. Notice this. Jesus does not appeal to what he did and to what he claimed to be. This is important.
In arguing to the true nature of the Messiah, Jesus goes back to the Old Testament, to the prophecies. But the prophecies he takes into consideration are not the prophecies of the triumphant and glorious messiah who would restore the physical kingdom of Israel. Oh, no. He brings up on those texts from Isaiah. Of course, Isaiah has texts about the triumphant messiah too.
But he brings out and shows how false their conception was of the Messiah that he was. He was not the triumphant. He was the suffering Messiah, which of which there are plenty of texts in the Old Testament, but they had been overlooked. They had been forgotten. They were ignored just as we ignore them.
We like to think of Christ as the triumphant messiah who will bring joy and peace into our lives. It ain't that way, folks. It is not that way. Christ our lord was the was was the suffering messiah, the son of Mary who landed on the cross, abandoned almost by everybody. And so our blessed lord, to win their ascent and to show how they were erroneous in their conception of the Messiah, he goes back to the Old Testament because they knew the present.
They knew Jesus. He didn't have to tell them. And then they began to see the light. And even so, we don't know what their reaction was. We don't know how much they were convinced or not.
We're not told. All we know is this, that when they went into the house, somebody's house, and started to eat, then only did they recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread. In a very physical, commonplace, ordinary thing. And breaking of the bread is far more ordinary in the Orient than it is here. You do it at least three times a day.
Bread is still one of the basic foods. And so in that most ordinary, commonplace, you can't exaggerate how ordinary it is to break bread. In that simple action, that nondescript action, they recognize Jesus Christ. To me, this is absolutely powerful. Absolutely powerful.
Because if we're going to recognize Jesus Christ, it's not gonna be on a Mount Tabor. It's gonna be in the valley of death, in the darkness. When we can barely see the last ray of a dying sun, that's when we have to recognize Jesus. He came not as the triumphant messiah. He came as the suffering messiah of which the prophets had plenty to say, and he was recognized by the breaking of the bread.
Name of the father and of the son and holy spirit. Amen.