There is an amazing scene in the book of Luke that reads like something out of a spy novel. After Jesus’s resurrection, He appeared to a pair of His followers as they were traveling from Jerusalem to Emmaus (a 7-mile walk)—but they did not know who He was. He asked what they were talking about and they said, “How do you not know? These things are all anyone is talking about!” (I’ll include the whole story because it’s so good.)
And He said to them, “What things?”
And they said to Him, “The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death, and crucified Him.
But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened. But also some women among us amazed us. When they were at the tomb early in the morning, and did not find His body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive.
Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also had said; but Him they did not see.”
And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart 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?”
Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
And they approached the village where they were going, and He acted as though He were going farther. But they urged Him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is getting toward evening, and the day is now nearly over.”
So He went in to stay with them. When He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.
They said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?” And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them, saying, “The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.” They began to relate their experiences on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.” Luke 24:13-35.
Can you imagine that conversation on the road? A seven-mile walk with Jesus and He spends the whole trip explaining the Old Testament, and all the prophecies and how they were fulfilled in this first coming of Christ, and the other prophecies foretelling a future second coming of Christ. (He came first as the Suffering Servant, the Son of Man who is the Sacrificial Lamb of God; He will come a second time as Reigning, Conquering King.)
What an amazing conversation! Oh, to have been a fly on the wall! Imagine how many sermons have been built on truths He explained that day. Surely Paul and Peter and John and all the apostles studied for the rest of their lives the truths Jesus explained during that one hour.
Pray. Ask Jesus to give you more love for the Bible, a hunger for His Word. Ask Him to help you read it, study it, love it, and memorize it. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you to submit yourself to the authority of God’s Word.
Ask Him to teach you the same way He taught those two men on the road to Emmaus.
What an amazing story!
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