Burdened Hearts Turned to Burning Hearts

I want to turn your attention to the Gospel of Luke, chapter twenty-four, verses thirteen through sixteen. Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.

By this point in his Gospel, Luke has already taken us through the birth, the teachings, the life, and the death of Jesus, and now we have come to the resurrection chapter. In chapter twenty-four there are three units you cannot miss. The first, verses one to twelve, tells of the angels appearing to the women who came to the tomb early on that Sunday morning. The second, verses thirteen to thirty-five, our text, follows two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And the third, from verse thirty-six onward, recounts Jesus appearing to the gathered disciples.

What perplexes me is the placement of this middle unit. In verse two the women find the stone rolled away. They had not come to see a risen Jesus; they came to finish embalming his body, because on Friday it had all been done in such a hurry. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had buried him, but with the Sabbath bearing down they could not do it the way they wished. So the women come Sunday morning to pay their last tributes, and they get the shock of their lives. The stone is rolled away, and two men, most probably angels, ask them, why do you look for the living among the dead? That would have made a fitting conclusion: the tomb is open, he is not here, he is risen.

But Luke keeps going. He adds these twenty-two verses about two men, and he will not even give us both their names. We are looking at a passage set between an open tomb in verse two and an open heaven in verse fifty-one, where, while Jesus is blessing them, he is taken up into heaven. Between that open tomb and that open heaven, Luke devotes twenty-two verses to two travelers walking to an obscure village seven miles away.

Now Luke is a careful historian. In his opening he tells us he has carefully investigated everything and is writing an orderly account. He knows how to record names and dates. He names Herod the ruler of Judea, Caesar, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar. He knows Bethany is the village of Mary and Martha. In this very chapter, verse ten, he names the women at the tomb: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. Surely it would not have been hard for him to find out the names of these two travelers. Yet one is named Cleopas in verse eighteen, and the other is left unnamed. I think Luke leaves that second name blank so that you and I can write our own name there. It could be your story. It could be my story.

It would be easy to look at these two leaving Jerusalem and pass judgment: how naive, how lazy, how uncommitted, off to Emmaus when they should have stayed. But look at them more carefully, and you find they are nothing of the sort. First, they are Judeans, and in the first century that carried a certain pride over Galileans. Of the twelve disciples, eleven were Galileans, and only one was a Judean. Any guess who? Judas. That is most probably why the money bag was entrusted to him, the Judean. Judeans did not easily trust the Galilean way of life.

Yet listen to how these Judeans speak about the Galilean believers. In verse twenty-two they say, in addition, some of our women amazed us. Not their women, our women. And in verse twenty-four, some of our companions went to the tomb. Who went to the tomb? Look back to verse twelve: it was Peter, a Galilean fisherman. A proud Judean calling a Galilean fisherman our companion. These are not men ashamed of the disciples; they have broken the barriers and gelled with them. They are committed people.

Can they preach? Open our pulpit to them and they could. We know it from verse nineteen, where they describe Jesus of Nazareth as a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. That is no shallow opinion; it is spot on. It is the very thing Peter declares at Pentecost in Acts chapter two, verse twenty-two, that Jesus was a man accredited by God with signs and wonders. And their grasp of Friday is just as precise. In verse twenty they say the chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. Ask almost anyone in Jerusalem that Sunday who killed Jesus, and they would say the Romans, Pontius Pilate. But these two have the discernment to say it was our chief priests, our own people, who handed him over. These are men of understanding.

And here is what goes through me. These committed, discerning men had also heard the women's testimony. According to verse nine the women had come from the empty tomb and told the disciples and all the others. These two were in that room. They heard that the body was gone and that angels had said he was alive. And yet, that same day, verse thirteen, they are leaving Jerusalem.

When Jesus asks in verse seventeen what they are discussing, they stand still, their faces downcast. They are sad. Why? Verse twenty-one gives the reason: but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. We had hoped. Cleopas stands here for multitudes across the history of the church who feel that when their one hope is not fulfilled, there is no hope left at all. He may be standing for the very thing you are walking through. I have faced it many times myself. I prayed for certain things, I was sure they would happen, and they did not, and the immediate reaction is, now there is no hope. They even add that it is already the third day, which in Jewish thinking is when the body begins to decay. That is a failure of faith in the promises of God, for Jesus had told them he would be raised on the third day.

Notice verse sixteen: they were kept from recognizing him. That does not mean someone covered their eyes and forbade them to see Jesus. It was the state of their faith that blinded them. Their lack of faith had so overtaken them that, as the old hymn says, when darkness veils his lovely face, they could not see the very One walking at their side. He was right there, and they knew how to sing and shout and preach, but darkness had veiled his face from them.

And where are they going? To Emmaus. Biblical archaeologists still argue over its location, north of Jerusalem or south. Luke gives us only one fact about it: it is seven miles from Jerusalem. That is all we need. Emmaus is simply not Jerusalem. Jerusalem represents the plan of God, the mission of God, the purpose of God over your life. Emmaus is the familiar, secure, comfortable place. It is an escape place. It draws us back to ourselves, where we plan our own life, build our own house, grow our own career, make our own money. It is all about me, me, me. Many believers live there. By God's grace the children are studying, there is a new car, a house, a yard, everything is fine, but on the missional side the contribution is zero out of ten. Christianity becomes a Sunday affair, and a life full of the Holy Spirit that touches and impacts others is nowhere to be found.

We so easily assume that being in the will of God means smooth sailing and full rest. But remember that at the very center of God's will for Jesus was the cross. God's will does not always take us to places of ease and comfort; often it takes us to places of discomfort and of being let down. It is enough that Jesus is there in the journey. These two forgot that. They concluded they were out of God's will, so let us leave Jerusalem, let us start a comfortable life in Emmaus, husband, wife, and children all settled.

Now imagine you were their leader, and on resurrection day two of your people walk away like this. What would you do? Honestly, I think I would have said, leave them. In Hindi we say chod do. There is no point chasing after them. They know the Scriptures, they know about Jesus, and the women's testimony is barely a day old; let them go to Emmaus, learn their lesson, and God will bring them back. But watch what Jesus does instead. I see three things.

First, Jesus extends companionship. Verse fifteen says that as they talked, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them. Luke adds that word himself for emphasis. That Sunday morning, when the women came to the tomb, it was not Jesus who met them; it was two angels. But for these two wavering, fearful disciples, Jesus himself comes and walks with them. What an assurance. God does not waste his resources. Cleopas and his friend had been with Jesus, and now anxiety and fear and lack of faith have crippled them, and God is still watching over them. Whatever has veiled your eyes, the death of a loved one, the abandonment of a friend, a misunderstanding that wounded you, see today with the eyes of faith that Jesus is walking with you.

Second, Jesus initiates a conversation. In verse seventeen he asks, what are you discussing together as you walk along? The Greek behind the words for talking and discussing carries the sense that their discussion had turned into arguing. When fear takes over, when godliness slips away and we start thinking only of ourselves, discussion becomes argument; it happens in family life too. And the conversation Jesus begins is not the seeker-friendly, feel-good message we are so used to. He does not ask whether they are feeling happy today. In verse twenty-five he looks at them and says, how foolish you are. That is correction, even rebuke, not mere encouragement. Will you let that word come and hit you today? How foolish I am if I am living away from Jerusalem, away from the plan and purpose of God, no matter how large my bank balance, because in the light of eternity that balance does not count. Where I come from, every Sunday there was a testimony time, and people would stand up and read the verse that had made them happy that week. But Cleopas did not need a verse that made him happy; he needed the verse that confronted him and disturbed him. He had prioritized his own mission over God's mission, and he needed that shock treatment. We must allow the confronting word of God to invade our lives.

Third, Jesus offers communion. The next place we see him, in verse thirty, he is at the table with them. He takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and at that moment their eyes are opened and they recognize him, and then he vanishes from their sight. If you had been at that table you would have wanted to run and embrace him, and so would they, but he is gone. His immediate presence was given only to restore them from their lack of faith. We now have the Scriptures, and the Scriptures are enough to guide us; hold on to the Scriptures.

See how the chapter frames it. It opens with an open tomb in verse two and closes with an open heaven in verse fifty-one. But in between, these disciples walked with closed eyes in verse sixteen, with a closed Scripture, and with closed minds, which is why verse forty-five says Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. That is what discipleship can look like. On one side is the open tomb, on the other the open heaven we are waiting for, and yet in between it is entirely possible to walk with closed eyes, a closed Bible, and a closed mind. But Jesus walks, Jesus talks, Jesus breaks the bread, and their eyes are opened.

And the moment their eyes are opened, verse thirty-three says they got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. Earlier they were going from Jerusalem to Emmaus; now they go from Emmaus to Jerusalem, and at once, not even waiting for the night to pass. Ask them to rest and travel in the morning and they would refuse, because they belong to Jerusalem. That is why the Holy Spirit is given to us, that we would be missional and not waste a single day. Life is uncertain and fragile; we do not know what a day may bring. So the call to all of us is to return to Jerusalem, to the plan and purpose of God over our lives, rather than drifting back to lethargy and the same mundane things. Let us wake up. I want to be in Jerusalem, where the plan of God is over my life.