Easter Sunday is a special day for Christians. But in some sense, it
is also just another Sunday for us. You see, we do not come together just once
a year to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus. Every Sunday, we
gather to commemorate, to celebrate, and to communicate that we serve the
death-proof King who has saved us by His grace. Still, there is something uniquely
special about this particular Sunday for most Christians. Even for some
non-Christians, Easter is a special day for dressing up, gathering with family
or friends, and maybe even that annual sojourn to church. But not everyone
understands or appreciates Easter Sunday. Some think it is about rabbits that
lay chocolate eggs. I am not a biologist or a zoologist, but I know enough to
know that if you ever see a rabbit lay a chocolate egg, you do NOT want to eat
it! Easter is ultimately about the historical fact that some 2,000 years ago,
the tomb of Jesus was empty because He had conquered death through His
resurrection. He proclaims victoriously, “I was dead, and behold, I am alive
forevermore” (Rev 1:8).
There are, of course, many who do not believe that the
resurrection of Jesus explains the empty tomb. Since the first century, one of
the most often repeated “alternative suggestions” is that the disciples of
Jesus stole the body. If we read the New Testament’s honest depiction of the
disciples following the crucifixion of Jesus, we find that this was not a
clever band of con-artists scheming to find a way to pull off history’s
greatest hoax. The resurrection of Jesus, even though He Himself had foretold
it numerous times, was the farthest thing from their minds. On Thursday night,
most of them completely defected and abandoned the Lord when the mob came to
arrest Him. Peter denied even knowing Him to save his own skin. John kept a
safe and silent distance. After Jesus died, most of the disciples all seem to
have just gone their separate ways. When Jesus did appear to them, most of them
didn’t recognize Him, because He was the last person they expected to see.
Every single one of them was surprised by their encounter with Him following
His resurrection. They were hardly the kind of people that could pull off a
very convincing hoax.
Following Friday’s crucifixion, they were dismayed, discouraged,
and disillusioned. In a word, they were depressed. That’s how we find the two
on the road to Emmaus in our text. Who were they? Well, we know one of them was
named Cleopas. The other one was almost certainly his wife, whose name was
Mary. The whole family were devout followers of Jesus; one of their sons was
the apostle known as James the Less. Mary was with those who watched Jesus die
on Friday. And now, on Sunday morning, she and her husband are walking the long
road back to their home in Emmaus. And they are depressed.
Can you relate? Have you ever had your hopes dashed on the
rocky shore of disillusionment? Have you ever held to something by faith and
found in the end that it was all empty and in vain? Has Jesus ever not done something that you fully
expected and trusted Him to do? Have you stood with your head in your hands and
thought, “I never thought it would turn out like this!” Waves of discouragement
are crashing over you, burying you, and you can feel the flame of faith dying
slowly in your heart. If you haven’t ever felt that way, you most likely will
one day, because it happens to us all. If you find yourself walking along the Emmaus Road
depressed and discouraged, there is Someone who wants to come along side of you
and change your perspective. That someone is the Risen Lord Jesus. In our text,
we find the characteristics of depressed disciples. We will probably find some
encouragement as we see those characteristics because we will see that we are
not alone, and our situation is not new or unique. But, thanks be to God, we
don’t just see the characteristics, we see the cure for depressed disciples as
well. We can be changed through a fresh encounter with the Risen Lord Jesus.
I. The Characteristics of Depressed Disciples.
Can you envision Cleopas and Mary as they walk this seven
mile journey from Jerusalem to Judea ?
Maybe they are walking slowly, shuffling their sandaled feet, kicking a pebble
every few steps, shoulders shrugged, head down. And the Bible says that they
were talking with each other about “all these things” which had taken place.
You know how it is, when you have seen an unspeakable tragedy, those images
stain your mind for a long time. Maybe Mary is telling Cleopas, “You should
have seen it. They tortured our Jesus! I have never seen anything so horrific!
They drove nails into His hands and feet. There was so much blood! There was so
much agony and anguish. He was crying out as He died. It broke my heart to hear
Him say, ‘My God, My God why have You forsaken Me?’ You should have seen His
mother. What will she do now? Who will care for her?” Maybe Cleopas is saying,
“The fellows are all confused. I didn’t know what to tell them. Peter said he’s
going to take up fishing again. I don’t know what we will do now.” And on and
on it would go, seven miles, seven hours (so the scholars tell us), all the way
back to Emmaus.
You might have walked that road before. Your head hung low,
kicking stones along the path, rehashing over and over again the depressing
circumstances that engulf you. Let’s observe what the text says about these
depressed disciples. Notice that they have surrendered. They have just given
up. What direction are they walking? Verse 13 tells us that they are walking away
from Jerusalem ,
away from the center of Christian fellowship. Depression will do that to you.
When the thing you need most is to surround yourself with godly encouragers, something
within you says, “They don’t know what you are going through. They can’t help
you. Just give up and walk away.” And so you do, just like Mary and Cleopas did
on that day. You might be sitting here in church today, but your heart is
already seven miles down the road. Maybe you’ve been so disappointed by God’s
failure to do for you what you expect Him to do that you are already planning
to take your first steps along that road. It is a well worn path. We can still
see the footprints of many of our friends and family members who have walked
that road before us. They were walking with the Lord, then the bottom fell out
in their lives, and they gave up and walked away from Christ and the Church.
That is essentially what Cleopas and Mary are doing here in the text.
Verse 17 tells that they were looking sad. They were so sad,
they could not even perceive the presence of the Risen Lord Jesus as He joined
them on the journey. Verses 15-16 says that Jesus Himself approached and began
travelling with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him. Jesus
says to them (v17), “What are these words that you are exchanging with one
another as you are walking?” And they stood still, looking sad. Everything in
them probably wants to say, “Look Mister! This is an A and B conversation, so
‘C’ your way out of it and mind your own business!” In verse 18, Cleopas speaks
up from his sadness and says, “Are You the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which
have happened here in these days?” Do you see the irony of that question? In
point of fact, Jesus is the only One who
is fully aware of the things which have taken place! He knows better than they
do what has happened in Jerusalem
this weekend. But their countenance is so downcast in sadness that they fail to
perceive that it is Him. Friends, as you walk this depressing road to Emmaus in
your sadness, you need to know that you are not walking alone. Jesus is coming
along side of you, and He wants in on the conversation. You might want to tell
Him to just butt out and mind His own business, but you see, you are His business. Your hurts, your
sorrows, your sadness is very much His business. Would you say to Him, “You
wouldn’t even understand. You don’t even know what is going on?” But friends,
what we must understand is that Jesus is the only one who truly understands the
hurts of our heart. He knows what you’ve been through. He knows where you have
been. He knows where you are going. The Bible tells us that He is “a Man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa 53:3). Hebrews 4 promises us that “we
do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.” Why don’t
you talk to Him about the things that have made you sad? He already knows all
about it. In fact, He knows more about it than you do.
Not only are they surrendered and sad, but also notice that
these depressed disciples are shattered. They began to rehearse to the Stranger
on the road all that they had observed over the weekend: how this One called
Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet might in deed and word in the sight of God
and all the people, had been sentenced to death and crucified by the chief
priests and rulers (vv19-20). And then notice these heartbreaking words in
verse 21: “But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel .” Have
you ever spoken of your hope using past-tense verbs? We were hoping. That means that they aren’t anymore. Their hopes
have been shattered. So shattered are they that they have abandoned their hopes
in spite of numerous evidences that Jesus is alive. They have been told by two
different groups of people that the tomb was empty (v22, 24). They have been
told that there was an angel who had proclaimed that Jesus was alive (v23). They
didn’t listen. They just kept packing their bags for Emmaus. What’s more than
this even, they don’t even recognize that the Living Lord Jesus is walking
right beside of them and talking to them. How much more proof do you need that
Jesus is alive?
Maybe that is where you are today. You are absorbed in the
sadness, the sorrow, the shattered hopes that life has stolen away from you. But
Jesus is alive. “Yeah, yeah,” you might say, “I am not so sure about that now.”
But, what about the time that He first drew near to you and saved you? What
about the time that you were in a desperate circumstance and Jesus came to you
and brought you through it? What about the time that you opened the Bible and
it came to life on the page as you encountered Him in His Word? What about the
countless times you have seen Him radically transform the lives of others? He
has proven it to you over and over again: He is alive! But you just ignore
that, block it out of your mind, and keep packing. Keep walking. That is what
so many are doing.
These are the characteristics of depressed disciples. They
are so surrendered that they walk away from the center of Christian fellowship.
They are so saddened that they cannot perceive the presence of Jesus with them
in the midst of their suffering. They are so shattered that they are oblivious
to the many convincing proofs (Acts 1:3) by which He has proven that He is alive
forevermore? We’ve all been there. Or else we all will be one day. Some might
be there today. You might ask, “Can a Christian really ever feel that way?”
Certainly. No one is immune to these things. Cleopas and Mary were as much
disciples of Jesus as any other has ever been. And they were not alone. This
sense of despair had affected every follower of Jesus on that weekend. And
still today, it can infect entire churches. For any number of reasons, a church
can find itself just going through the motions of religiosity without any real
hope, any real faith, or any real living passion for the Living Lord Jesus. At
times it is pandemic. I think of the words of G. Campbell Morgan who, in his
preaching on this very text of Scripture, characterized the condition of
churches across England
in the early twentieth century as “everywhere an appalling flatness.” He says
that there was “a marked cooling of enthusiasm, a lack of passion, an absence
of fire.”[1]
What of us today? What is there but an appalling flatness when we count the
seconds until we can break out of the church doors to fill our bellies on
Sunday afternoon? What is there but an appalling flatness when we are not
driven by a sense of burning desire to gather with the saints to pray or to
come along side them in their suffering? What is there but an appalling
flatness when evangelism, mission and ministry are engaged by but a tiny
remnant of the congregation? What is there but an appalling flatness when the
work of the Lord is put on hold because we have no concern to be involved in
discussions related to the church’s business affairs? Have we become like those
depressed disciples who are so immersed in our own shattered hopes and frozen
faith that we forget that Jesus is alive and walking with us on this road to
Emmaus? If we are not already depressed, the very appalling flatness of it all
(to use Morgan’s words) is enough to depress us. What do we need? How can it be
remedied? Thank God there is an answer here in this Easter text of Scripture!
II. The Cure for Depressed Disciples.
What would it take to rekindle the fire that has gone out in
the hearts of depressed disciples? What would it take to return vitality to
that appalling flatness that affects so many of Christ’s followers? Let’s look at two people who found that flame
rekindled and see how it took place. It wasn’t a vision, a voice, a ritual or
an experience that rekindled the fire of faith and hope within these depressed
disciples. It happened as the Lord Jesus, before they ever recognized Him, opened
to them the Word of God and began to point them to His truth that it contains.
At the root of their woeful condition was a failure to grasp by faith the full
truth of the entirety of God’s Word. How do we know that? Look at how the
conversation turns in verse 25.
Cleopas and Mary had rehearsed all that had taken place over
the weekend. But in verse 25, Jesus says to them, “O foolish men and slow of
hear to believe in all that the
prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary
for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” They had
read about the coming Messiah, and how He would bring people out of bondage and
into a time of peace and prosperity. Like most people in their day, their
assumption was that He was going to raise an army and storm Jerusalem
to throw off the shackles of Roman oppression and restore Israel to its
former glory. But Jesus didn’t do that. He went in and got Himself killed. And
their hopes were shattered. They knew the Scriptures, but they had selectively
chosen which parts of it to believe. Jesus says that they were foolish for
being slow of heart to believe all that
the prophets had spoken. The prophets had clearly spoken of a Savior who was
coming to redeem humanity from the curse of sin through His own suffering.
Therefore it was necessary for Jesus
to suffer these things and to enter into His glory. Verse 27 says, “Then,
beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things
concerning Himself in all the
Scriptures.”
It must have been the greatest Old Testament Bible Study
lesson ever taught. Jesus taught them how He fulfilled every single promise God
had made from the beginning, from the Seed of Woman in Genesis 3:15 to the
suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 and everything between and beyond. It all
pointed to Him. Now, this is the interesting part. It was this careful,
detailed exposition of Scripture that rekindled the fire of faith in their
hearts. Notice in verse 32, after they had realized that it was Jesus who had
been with them, and after He had vanished from their midst, they said, “Were
not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while
He was explaining the Scriptures to us?” It was the word of God that lit the
fire afresh within them. If it is to happen to us, it will happen the same way.
You might think, “What we really need today is a new church program or a
weeklong revival service. Let’s sing some new songs! That will excite us
again.” You might think, “What we really need is for Jesus to come and make
Himself visible to us, or to speak audibly to us. Then we would be on fire for
Him.” But is that what it took for Cleopas and Mary? No, before they ever knew
it was Him, their hearts were set ablaze by the page-by-page and verse-by-verse
exposition of the Word of God. He showed them how the whole biblical
metanarrative centered on Him as promised Redeemer who would rescue us from sin
and death by His own sacrificial death and His glorious resurrection. And here
is the wonderful truth of that – it can happen to us today. Every time we open
this marvelous book, the flint is struck, and sparks fly toward our cold hearts
to set them ablaze with a white-hot passion for His glory.
The Psalmist said, “The unfolding of Your words gives light”
(Psalm 119:130). Look how it happens. Cold hearts are fanned into flame by His
truth. Once that fire really burns in you, you will mourn the thought of it
ever growing cold. As they arrive at their home in Emmaus, still unaware of the
true identity of this stranger, Jesus “acted as though He were going farther.”
But, they could not bear the thought of cutting their time with Him short. They
invited Him in to stay. And He did! And He will for us too. He will not barge
through doors that we have barred and double-bolted against Him. He will walk
on to another place, looking for doors that are opened by hot hearts of faith.
But if you invite Him in, He will come, and He will pour gas on that fire and
stoke into a towering inferno.
Notice what happens next. Once those hearts are set on fire
by His truth, notice how that flame illuminates their darkened eyes to His
presence. Cold hearts never open blind eyes. But once the heart is burning,
Jesus is seen clearly with the eyes of faith. This Stranger who had walked with
them suddenly becomes recognizable to them as they watch Him break and bless
the bread around their table. But before the opened eyes, there had to be the
hot heart. You say, “Yes, that is what I want. I want to see Him and know that
He is here with Me. Why doesn’t He show Himself?” Well, notice what happens. As
soon as they recognize that it is Him, He vanishes from their sight (v31). In
nearly every appearance that the Risen Lord made to His disciples, He vanishes
from sight at some point. Morgan writes, “The chief value in each case was not
in the appearing, but in the vanishing.”[2] He
was teaching them in His vanishing that we need not see Him with our eyes to
know that we have been in His presence, that He is alive, and that He abides
with us still. As hearts burn with His truth, eyes of faith are opened to His
presence to know that He has not left us nor forsaken us, and we refuse to let
our circumstances dictate otherwise.
But there is more. When the Word of God is unfolded and
light breaks forth from it, tired feet are set in motion for His mission.
Notice in verse 33 that “they got up that
very hour and returned to Jerusalem .”
That very hour is important. Go back
to verse 29 when they pleaded with the Lord to tarry with them. They said,
“Stay with us, for it is getting toward evening, and the day is now nearly
over.” By this point it was late evening. They had walked for seven hours and
seven miles that day. Have you ever walked for seven hours or seven miles? I
did that on multiple consecutive days while I was hiking on vacation. After one
very long hike, Donia said, “Why don’t we walk over to this place,” which was
quite a ways away. I said, “Why don’t you go and come back and tell me about
it.” Oh, but that is not what these
disciples said. Their tired feet are quickly set in motion and they set out to
travel seven more miles to return to tell the others what they had seen and
experienced with the Risen Lord. Are you tired? Are you weary? Shoulders ache
from burdens carried, hands throb from hours serving, bodies are exhausted from
much labor. But when our hearts are set ablaze by God’s truth, our feet are set
in motion for His mission. If your feet are set in motion for the mission of
Christ, you are waiting for the benediction today, not so you can go eat your
Easter ham, but so that you can go and report to others that Jesus is alive and
tell them what He has done for you!
And that brings us to the final result of the rekindled fire
of faith: silent tongues are set loose to proclaim His glory. As soon as they
got back to Jerusalem ,
they gathered together with the other disciples and said, “The Lord has really
risen!” and they “began to relate their experiences on the road and how He was
recognized by them in the breaking of bread.” They told them two true stories –
they told the objective story of the Risen Lord Jesus. They told how He had
really conquered sin and death, how He had really done all that the prophets
had foretold, and how He had really secured salvation for His people through
His sinless life, His sacrificial death, and His glorious resurrection! Then
they told their story – they subjective account of their own personal encounter
with Him. Al Mohler has recently said, “At the end of the day, the greatest
obstacle to evangelism is Christians who don’t share the Gospel.”[3]
But you might say, “I don’t know what to say to another person?” You have a
great example right here in the text: tell the objective facts of Jesus’ story
– His life, death and resurrection; and tell your story of how you came to know
Him and walk with Him by faith. When our hearts are set on fire with God’s
truth, our tongues will be set loose to proclaim His glory. We won’t be able to
not tell it. We will be like the
prophet Jeremiah who said, “If I say, ‘I will not remember Him or speak anymore
in His name,’ then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my
bones; and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it” (Jer 20:9).
My primary aim on this Easter Sunday is to address the
Church of Jesus Christ – particularly those disciples of Jesus who have given
up, who have become sad, whose hopes have been shattered, and who are kicking
rocks along the road to Emmaus in a state of appalling spiritual flatness. I
want you to know that the living Lord Jesus is walking alongside of you, trying
to join the conversation and unfold the truth of His word to you to rekindle
the fire of faith set you ablaze for His glory so that you might burn in your
hearts, see with your eyes, run with tireless energy and proclaim the excellencies
of Him who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light. Jesus is
alive. That ought to make a difference in how you live, how you worship, how
you fellowship with other believers, how you pray, and how you serve Him. It
seems incongruous for Jesus to be the living Lord over a dying church. Meet Him
afresh in the pages of the Word of God and allow Him to bring your smoldering
embers back to a burning flame.
Maybe you are here today, and you aren’t a follower of
Jesus, you have never personally trusted in Him as Lord and Savior. You surely
know that we have not come to church today to celebrate fuzzy bunnies who lay
chocolate eggs. We have come because we believe that some 2,000 years ago, God
became a man in the person of Jesus Christ and He lived a sinless life of
perfect righteousness, yet was condemned to die on the cross. But His death was
no accident in the purpose and plan of God. It was the very reason He came, for
in His death, God was dealing fully and finally with the sins of the human
race. He became your substitute under the just judgment and wrath of the
Father. He bore your sin and its penalty, and He conquered it forever through
His resurrection. Jesus Christ is alive forevermore, and we come not on this
day only, but on every Lord’s day, to celebrate this truth. Because in Him, our
sins have been cleansed and forgiven, and we have received by faith His very
righteousness so that we might be saved and reconciled to God. I want to ask
you today to consider that He might be coming alongside of you along life’s
road. You weren’t looking for Him, but He came looking for you.
That was what Malcolm Muggeridge found. He was one of the
most well-known cynical agnostics in all of England in the middle of the
twentieth century. Muggeridge wrote, “I never wanted a God, or feared a God, or
felt under any necessity to invent one. Unfortunately, I am driven to the
conclusion that God wants me.”[4]
What happened in his life? Muggeridge was dispatched by the BBC to the Holy Land to produce three documentaries on the New
Testament. He says that as he toured the various sites from Christian history,
he was convinced that it was all a fraud. That is, until he saw “a party of
Christian pilgrims at one of these shrines, their faces bright with faith,
their voices as they sang so evidently and joyously aware of their Saviour’s
near-ness.” Muggeridge says, “I, too, became aware that there really had been a
man, Jesus, who was also God. I was conscious of His presence.”[5]
Where did it happen? It happened along the road to Emmaus. Muggeridge says,
As my friend and I walked along
like Cleopas and his friend, we recalled as they did the events of the
Crucifixion and its aftermath in the light of our utterly different and yet
similar world. Nor was it a fancy that we too were joined by a third presence.
And I tell you that wherever the walk, and whoever the wayfarers, there is
always this third presence ready to emerge from the shadows and fall in step
along the dusty, stony way.[6]
Muggeridge says, “On every walk, … whether to Emmaus, or
Wimbledon, or Timbuktu ,
there is the same stranger wanting to accompany us along our way, if we want
Him.”[7]
I close today by asking you this question: “Do you want
Him?” He ever lives to save you and set you free from sin and set you ablaze
for His glory in the world. He will not beat down your door. He will walk on
farther, because somewhere there is a door that is open to Him. But if you want
Him, He will tarry with you as you receive Him by faith as your Living Lord and
Savior today.
1 comment:
Absolutely beautiful! Thank you for posting this message!
RETA@ http://evenhaazer.blogspot.com
Post a Comment