In the name of the father and of the son, holy spirit. Amen. People can say what they want about the resurrection, the broken tube. 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? 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 quite shadow of a doubt. There is no argument about its authenticity and all of that.
There's no doubt about the translations. It's all very simple. It couldn't be simple. 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.
And it's very ingenious, very ingenious. And you see much of what he has to say there is extremely 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 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 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?
First, 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 were 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, 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 text 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, 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 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 going to be on a Mount Tabor. It's going to 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 have plenty to say and he was recognized by the breaking of bread.
Name of the father, and of the son, and holy spirit. Amen.