The Final Understanding – April 7, 2024

Isaiah 53:1-6, Luke 24:13-35
April 7, 2024
The First Sunday after Easter

So, follow me on this.  On Palm Sunday, the sermon was, “The Final Confrontation.”  Then last week, Easter Sunday, it was “The Final Victory.”  Now, looking at this story for today, it seemed totally appropriate to call this one, “The Final Understanding.”  I hope you’ll see why!

The other title I was toying with was “Another Epiphany.”  Because this story was definitely an “Aha moment!” which I think that’s the best definition of Epiphany.  An Epiphany is “A sudden revelation of something,” Or “A sudden understanding.”  It’s that moment of, “Now I remember where I put my car keys!!!”

That’s what was happening that first Easter Sunday.  As I’ve said before, Easter was fraught with disbelief.  (I don’t think I ever used that word before in a sermon!)  Luke tells us what the disciples thought when the women came back from the tomb of Jesus saying he was alive.  They thought it was an “idle tale” – a “fairy tale.”  And considering their grief and despair, it was a sick, twisted fairy tale.  It was a story that was insensitive, even mocking of their grief.  It wouldn’t surprise me if there was even some anger over hearing this story.

In our story for today, one of the travelers said to Jesus, “Some of our women of our company ‘amazed’ us, saying they had seen a vision of angels, who said Jesus was alive.”  I think it would be interesting to do a word study on that word “amazed.”  I think we might find that it was more than just a sense of surprise.  I think people would have been upset!

Remember, this was still that first Easter day.  Luke tells us, “That very day, two of them were going to Emmaus.”  Everybody was still reeling from the brutal execution of Jesus.  They were still filled with that raw grief and emotion you feel right after a death.  To hear such “crazy” sounding stories must not have been easy!

Well, these two men in our story appear to be part of the ‘company’ of Jesus.  They say that.  But they were not his disciples – his “inner circle.”  So theirs may not have been quite the level of personal devastation and grief that his closest disciples were feeling.  Maybe their feelings represented more of the feelings of the crowds.  Because, more than just grief, the crowds in Jerusalem were hoping that the time of the revolution was near.  The had hopes that their deliverance was at hand!  And then… it all ended!

I was trying to think of what that might have felt like.  I think maybe it was similar to the way we feel when our sports team ends a season almost winning a championship – like the 2022 Eagles and Phillies!  You know that feeling.  They’re in the Super Bowl!  They’re in the World Series.  They’re almost there!  You think it might happen!  Then, it’s over!  No more games. No parade!  Just, “There’s always next year!”

Well, take that feeling and multiply it by many times, and maybe we can get an idea of the feelings of the people in Jerusalem that fateful weekend.  And remember!  They didn’t know what we know.  But they were just starting to learn it.  They were just starting to understand!

By the way, I don’t mean to imply that this is a “Final Understanding” in the sense that it is a “Complete Understanding.”  There was certainly a lot more to learn and to understand about what was happening.  But here in this story, they finally understood that Jesus wasn’t just about being an earthly deliverer and king.  They finally understood, as the incognito Jesus told them on the road, “that the Christ must suffer these things!”

As I’ve said before, I love this story!  I love how this unfolds!  These two guys are walking home from Jerusalem, probably after a pilgrimage to the Holy City to celebrate Passover.  And as they’re walking along the road – a seven mile journey, we’re told – Jesus appears, and walks with them, but they don’t recognize him.

Over the years, I’ve heard people try to explain that, by saying their grief was so deep that they didn’t look up, or their eyes were clouded somehow.  I say, nonsense!  I think verse 16 is literal.  “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”  This was a supernatural and intentional thing!  As I’ve said before, I think God has “a great flair for the dramatic.”  And I believe that’s because he doesn’t want just to inform our minds, he wants to touch our hearts.  And isn’t that what these guys would say later?  “Did our hearts not burn within us as he talked to us on the road?”

So Jesus is with them but he’s incognito.  It’s almost like he’s wearing what I’ve called the greatest disguise of all times – Clark Kent’s glasses!  Right?  I think I may have said that before.  Nobody recognized him as Superman when he was wearing his black horn-rimmed glasses!  Just once I wanted to see him take those glasses off to clean them, and hear somebody shout, “Hey, you’re Superman!”  But it never happened.  He must have been very careful about that!

So Jesus is with these two men on the road, they are “kept from recognizing him,” and what does he do?  He listens to them.  And in doing so, he “feels their pain.”  Jesus did that.  And Jesus still does that.  Remember Lazarus?  Jesus knew he was going to bring Lazarus back from the dead, but still he wept.  That’s the shortest verse in the Bible.  “Jesus wept.”  He saw the grief of the people in Bethany and he felt for them.  You know that expression.  “He felt for them.”  In other words, he empathized with them.  He felt what they were feeling!  We do that, too!  Somebody’s hurting and we say, “I feel for you.”  In other words, “I feel what you’re feeling.”  Jesus did that.  And Jesus still does that!

That’s what God does.  He’s always been all about the heart!  We read from Isaiah today.  In prophesying about the coming Messiah, Isaiah says, “He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquity.”  In other words, he would suffer physically for our sins.  But it was more than that.  He says, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”  In other words, in Jesus, God empathizes with us.  He feels our grief and sorrow.  As a parent, when your children are hurting, you are hurting, too.  God, our heavenly father, does the same thing.  And I think he does it more keenly than we do.

I think these men felt Jesus’ empathy.  And they listened.  And they responded.  I believe they had faith that day, a faith that would lead to understanding – like we’ve been saying recently.  But they needed their faith to be informed.  And that’s what Jesus did.  He informed their faith.  He refined their faith.  He showed them from their scriptures that everything that happened was supposed to happen.  Jesus was not to be the earthly king they all hoped for.  He was not to be “the one to redeem Israel,” as these men said, and as everyone was hoping for.

So, they arrived in Emmaus, and Jesus “appeared to be going further.”  There’s that “flair for the dramatic” again!  But they “constrained” him.  They compelled him to stay with them, which, of course he did.  And then, at the evening meal, he did what I often quote during communion.  He broke the bread, and gave it to them, “and their eyes were opened and they recognized him.”  And again, in a dramatic way, he vanished!  That’s when they said, “Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road?”  This whole story touched their hearts!

Their hearts were so touched that they got right up, and went back to Jerusalem – another seven mile journey!  And they went and found the disciples.  But before they could say anything, the disciples told them what had happened since they had left.  They said, “The Lord is risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon.”  And then the two men told their story.

Again, this is an amazing story.  But what about us?  How do we fit into this story – other than the obvious, that we’ve been redeemed by this Jesus, who is the heavenly king, rather than earthly king.  But does this touch our hearts?  And do we ever need our faith in him to be “refined,” like the men in this story.  Again, we choose faith first, like we’ve said for a few weeks now.  And then we seek understanding.  But as we grow in our understanding, is our faith then refined a little more?

I believe that’s how it works!  I believe our faith is always being refined.  The Apostle Paul knew that, too.  In I Corinthians 13, he wrote, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then (someday) face to face.  Now I know in part, then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.”  And if you remember, those words came at the end of his great chapter on love.  So now, in our life, we see in a mirror dimly.  Now, we know in part.  So in the meantime, let us love one another, even though we may have different understandings – as we all see in that dim mirror.

And as we “walk” through this life, with Jesus by our side – like these men, do we need to share our thoughts, our feelings, our grief, and our despair with our Lord?  Yes!  I believe that’s so important!  Because God is all about the heart!  David often wrote in the psalms that we should “Pour you hearts out before him!”  That’s what God wants.  And now, in Jesus, we can do that knowing that “Surely he bears our griefs and he carries our sorrows.”  And I, for one, am glad of that!  And I hope you are, too!

The last thing here, is that, looking back at this story, we know there was a lot more to come!  This story was only just beginning.  It would be played out in the pages of the New Testament to follow.  And it would play out in the centuries of the Christian Church leading up to us.  And I think we need to have the same perspective now.  We need to realize that, even now, wherever we are, there’s still a lot more to come.  There’s still a lot more ahead of us, as our faith is refined and our understanding grows, until we reach “the final understanding” of all things – in the glory of God’s kingdom.

But, in the meantime, as we draw closer to our Lord, as he walks beside us, may our hearts continue to burn within us!

Prayer

Eternal God, help us to hear your voice speaking to us, helping us to understand, helping us to grow closer to you through Jesus, our Lord.  Give us the strength and the inspiration we need to strive to become more like him every day, and to be the light of the world as he called us to be.  For we pray in his name, Amen.