Easter is really glum!  The women were sad.  The apostles were scared, sad, and unsure, not knowing what to think.  These two walking to Emmaus are also downcast.  Easter is supposed to be happy, bright!  Something has to happen.  Until it happens, it doesn’t matter what day of the year it is.  What must happen?  It isn’t just being told that there is an empty tomb.  It isn’t even being told that Jesus is alive and appeared to his followers.  You see why none of that would be enough, I hope: being told about something is not the same as experiencing it.  Someone can tell you all about skydiving, but it’s not the same as going skydiving, and all the talk, no matter how excited and eager, all the talk can’t give you the other person’s experience.

An experience of the risen Christ . . . all I can do for you is talk about it.  Faith is an experience, even the experience of conviction.  An experience is not the same as a feeling, though feelings are certainly involved.  The Bible can tell us, in a certain sense show us, but these words cannot give us the experience.  Something more is needed to make these words come alive in us, so that we may come to life.

We’re told the two on their way to Emmaus “were talking with each other about everything that had happened” (24:14).  I wonder what Luke includes in everything.  Like the apostles, these two don’t know what to make of what they’ve heard.  It feels like maybe they don’t believe it, can’t accept it.  I mean, yes, it would be nice, if it was true.  There is that in them that wants to believe.  But it’s their own experience that is uppermost in their minds and heaviest on their hearts that Easter afternoon.  They had hoped.  They had prayed.  They had even begun to believe that their hopes and prayers were about to be answered, and then everything went wrong.  Jesus died on the cross, so did their hope.  It wouldn’t be too much to say that the cross had dealt their budding belief a crippling blow.  Why bother?  What’s the use?

Have you ever felt as if life has dealt your faith a crippling blow?  We’re not supposed to talk about that, are we?  We’re not supposed to talk like that.  Certainly not this time of year.  No, no.  Faith is just strong and getting stronger.  Bright and getting brighter.  Big and getting bigger.  But what about when it doesn’t feel that way?  Are we, then, just rotten, terrible disciples who ought to feel ashamed of ourselves?  Well, I think there is something helpful for us, spiritually, in feeling ashamed of ourselves—we ought to feel at least a little ashamed of ourselves.  We live in a shameless age, and it shows.  What was it the old hymn sings: my sinful self my only shame?  And the very next words are, My glory all the cross.  If we don’t feel at least a little ashamed of ourselves, we’re not giving Jesus much with which to work.  Jesus can help only those who know they need Jesus, that they can’t do it, can’t make it, without Jesus.  Do you need Jesus, really?  If so, why?  If Jesus is just a nice add-on or upgrade, in what sense does anyone really need forgiveness, salvation?

Those two walking glum on the road to Emmaus probably were talking about victory in Jesus and how nothing came of it.  If we don’t feel their disappointment, we’re not going to be able to experience their thrill.  What is Jesus doing with these two?  Of all the places Jesus might be, that afternoon, of all he might be saying or doing, Luke tells us Jesus chooses to walk with two dispirited, disappointed, downcast would-be disciples (24:15).  I mean, they aren’t even apostles.  Who are these guys?  Why do they matter?  Well, they matter to Jesus.

Luke tells us that the two “were kept from recognizing” Jesus (24:16).  Prevented by what?  John reminds us that Jesus, risen, was truly Jesus and also different, so that some had difficulty recognizing him right away.  It was Jesus, with something new, something different about him.  What do you suppose that was?  Was he kind of glowing?  That doesn’t seem likely.  The apostles would have remarked about that.  Did he have a different haircut, no beard, new accent?  I don’t think that was it.  Maybe the closest we can get is what John tells us: Jesus, risen, is now glorified, in his glorified body.  I don’t know what a glorified body looks like, or how it differs in quality from the bodies we have now, but there seems to be a real difference.  We can look forward to that.  I think it’s a good thing.

I’m glad the two on their walk show hospitality to this latecomer, this stranger.  Yes, they are depressed, but they don’t want to be rude; they are open to company.  Maybe, at heart, they want someone who will walk with them.  Maybe they need somebody willing to walk with them.  It’s when we’re lowest that people seem to shy away from us, yet it is exactly then that we most need someone who will be there for us.  It’s hard, being lonely alone.

This mystery man asks the two what they’re talking about (24:17).  That was a natural and obvious question, but it stops them in their tracks, as if they didn’t want to talk about that, or didn’t know how, or were afraid of what this new companion might think if they told him what was really on their hearts.  Isn’t it funny how, when we’re sad or down and someone asks us how we’re doing, we say, “Fine.  I’m fine.  It’s fine.  I’ll be fine.”  I don’t want to talk about it, but please don’t leave me.  I don’t want to talk about it, so when I start talking about it, please just listen.

Luke tells us the name of one of the two, Cleopas.  Well, it’s nice to know the names of people, especially in a story.  We can’t just keep saying “the first one” or “the other one.”  My guess is, though, that Luke names Cleopas because those for whom Luke was writing knew about Cleopas, maybe had known him personally.  They would have remembered when Cleopas himself talked about that day, and they would have recognized that Luke was telling it just like Cleopas told it.  Cleopas says to Jesus, not knowing it is Jesus, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” (24:18).  Luke has a sense of humor, too.  Cleopas was a little incredulous, maybe even a little miffed: hey man, how could you be so ignorant?  Have you been under a rock for the past three days, or what?

Jesus plays along—he is patient and mild, gentle like that.  “‘What things?’ he asked.  ‘About Jesus of Nazareth,’ they replied. ‘He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people’” (24:19).  Let me pause there a moment.  “Powerful in word and deed before God”: I like that.  That sounds right, sounds like the Jesus I know.  Jesus could really make an impression.  Jesus said and did things that reminded people of God, and that all-important relationship God called them to have with Him.  It takes two!  God is holding His arms out, open.  It’s like coming home from work and, rather than hugging your spouse standing there with arms open for you, you go straight to the snack cabinet or the liquor cabinet.  Oh.

I like the power part.  People did.  “He was a prophet,” they tell Jesus.  Many people thought so.  Even some of the religious officials acknowledged that much.  They also all knew what happened to prophets in Israel.  The apostles didn’t think Jesus was a prophet.  A prophet reminds people about God’s Word.  Jesus is God’s Word.  A prophet called the people to return to the love of God.  Jesus is God’s love.  These two had seen Jesus, but they did not see.  That’s hardly surprising.  Something has to happen.  Until it happens, Jesus isn’t Jesus.

But he continues on with them, listening.  “The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel” (24:20-21).  They were grieving.  It was the same old thing, all over again: hope rises, power quashes hope.  Where was all the power of word and deed, then?  It wasn’t just disappointment they felt.  What they saw, what they had been through, caused them to question everything they believed.  Their most dearly cherished hope had been bound up with Jesus.  He was going to save them, set them free.  What was the point of faith, if this was what it got them?  Maybe trust was just a waste of time.  Maybe God, if there was any such thing, didn’t care after all.  Eat, drink, and be merry.

Yes, you and I can see the irony of what they are saying, considering who it is walking with them, but they can’t see who is walking with them.  All they can see is their disappointment because they thought salvation would look like something they could recognize.  They wanted a victory that looked like something!

But it’s not as if they hadn’t been told the staggering news.  They tell their new companion that some of the women of their group “came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive” (24:23).  Ah, crazy women, talking out of their head.  Who knows what they’re going on about?  “Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus” (24:24).  Yes, the tomb was indeed empty.  The burial wrappings were still there.  Bizarre.  Incredible.  But no Jesus.  Where was he?  Where was the body?  If he was alive, why hadn’t anyone seen him?  Seeing is believing, after all.  The experience!

Their new companion now seems a little frustrated with them: “He said to them, ‘How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” (24:25).  Gee, Jesus.  What is he saying?  We have this book.  We’ve had it all along.  We have a hard time understanding what it’s telling us.  We don’t know even half of what it says.  We barely believe what we do remember.  Why do we prefer not knowing to knowing?  Why do we prefer less to more?  Well, we can’t commit to what we don’t know.  It takes a lot of faith to have faith!

“‘Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’  And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (24:26-27).  God’s word makes plain that victory comes only through suffering, hardship, reversal, then the glory.  Glory, I’ve been wanting to help us see these past few months, glory is the revelation of God’s character, the fullness of God.  Just when God seems furthest, farthest, most silent, most powerless or unconcerned—the sudden overwhelming fullness of His love for us; love that has always been and will always be, because it is God’s love.  God has always been near.  God has always spoken to His people.  God’s power and compassion are boundless: the Messiah is the surest proof of this.

But this wasn’t the Messiah they had wanted or been looking for.  They did not want to face suffering with perseverance, faith, and prayer.  How was that victory?  They wanted a David—without the moral failures.  They wanted an Aaron, without the crumbling to convenience, the caving to the crowds.  They wanted an Elijah—without the running for his life.

As they walk along, Jesus explains the Word.  Beautiful!  Beloved, we do want to understand, and there are things in the Bible we love: tell them over again to me.  If we’re going to be candid, there are also things in the Bible we do not love, do not understand, and with which we firmly disagree.  No.  Not that.  That’s not true; that can’t be true.  My Jesus would never.  My God would never.  That’s not God’s way; that’s not God’s love.  Yes, God has heard all this many times before.  We need God to explain God’s Word.  We need the Spirit.  The Spirit opens our eyes, illumines us.

I hope you remember what happens next: the urging Jesus to abide with them, the three sitting at the table to eat, and Jesus, their guest, taking the role of the host, taking, thanking, breaking, giving.  It was then that “their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight” (24:31).  Jesus gives all he has to give; he gives himself.  He was no longer physically there, once their eyes were open.  Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.  Blessed are those who have not seen (with their eyes) and yet have believed (Jn 20:29).  Cleopas and his friend now see because their eyes have been opened; the spirit of Christ risen is at work.  Let us continue to pray that God would open eyes, open hearts, open lives to his glorious, healing Word.  Have boldness to pray God might be pleased to use you as a blessed part of His way of helping those around you to see who has been there all along.