On The Highway

Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they... came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. And they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus... two men stood by them in shining garments... "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen..." Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus... And so it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained so that they did not know Him... "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!"... And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself... He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. (Luke 24)

Like a stone cast into a still mountain lake, the resurrection sent ripples through history that still reach us two thousand years later.

The Ripple That Altered History

Have you ever stood by a pond high in the mountains, so still it's like a freshly cleaned mirror reflecting the hills and trees? If you're anything like me, you've wanted to pick up a rock and throw it into the middle just to see what happens. When it hits the center, the edges stay calm for a moment, but ripples begin spreading from the point of impact until the whole glassy surface is disturbed.

The events of Luke 24 are like that rock cast into an undisturbed lake. Two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, the resurrection began that impact, and it has rippled out every year since. It still has effect today. More than two billion people throughout the world—nearly a third of the entire population of the globe—are commemorating and celebrating the life, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

This event has completely altered history. Even those who are not among the two billion celebrating today still live under a calendar that fixes its dates according to the birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection of one man. My prayer over these last several weeks has been that the truth and reality of the resurrection would have a greater impact in your life.

The Pivotal Event of All History

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the pivotal event of all human history. That may be a big statement, but examine history and you'll see it's true. It is most certainly the central event of Christianity. Writing to Christians in Corinth, the Apostle Paul makes this plain:

Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?... And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty... your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!... If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. (1 Corinthians 15:12–19)

I was recently listening to a man on a podcast who, by his own admission, is a Christian minister. Yet as he talked about the events of Luke 24, he said, "I don't believe the resurrection actually happened." He still finds meaning in the teaching of Jesus and the traditions of the church. I hate to break it to that man, but Paul knew two thousand years ago that this is not true. If Christ didn't rise from the dead, what we're doing here is completely worthless. You might as well have an Easter egg hunt and eat some ham.

The whole point of the Christian faith is that the tomb is empty and Jesus is alive. If Christ is not alive, there is nothing in his life that can deal with the problem of sin in your life and mine. Those who die in Christ simply perish, and we who still believe are to be pitied.

On the Loser Bus

Have you ever been a loser? I once read an article following the team that had lost the most recent presidential election, chronicling them at headquarters the day after. It was a sad, somber, sorry place. Everyone had lost their jobs; everything they had worked and sacrificed for was over. The whole demeanor was total depression and lostness.

It reminded me of my last football game, my senior year of high school. Don't get it in your head that your pastor was something amazing—I was a second-string O-lineman who didn't play much. But I suited up for the CIF semifinals down at Torrey Pines High School, and the Union Tribune had written that our team was expected to win. By the end of the night, the bus ride home was quite different. We had lost, and we lost bad. Not a word was said on that bus ride home. There were some tears. It was the loser bus. Has anyone ever been on the loser bus?

Point number two: without the resurrection, we are pitiful losers. On the morning of the resurrection, before they knew the tomb was empty, before they had seen the risen Jesus, the disciples were dejected, depressed, and dispirited. They were on the loser bus. Imagine the height of emotion just a week before, marching into Jerusalem as crowds cried, "Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" And now they were planning their next move—back to fishing, back to collecting taxes, back to their old lives.

The Road to Emmaus

Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. (Luke 24:13–14)

I think it's fitting they were going to Emmaus, which means warm baths—there were hot springs there. Maybe they were going to drown their sorrows and kick back in the sauna, trying to figure out what's next. That walk was the loser bus ride: a somber talk of dispirited disciples recounting all the missed plays and fumbles.

So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him. (Luke 24:15–16)

Something about his post-resurrection appearance was different, or their eyes were miraculously restrained by God. Jesus asked, "What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?" This was Passover—a time of feasting, joy, and rejoicing, remembering deliverance from Egypt. Yet here came these two with heads hung low and shoulders slumped.

Cleopas answered, "Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?" Where have you been? Have you slept through everything? Jesus asked, "What things?"

Hope Deferred

They told him: "The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people." Notice the past tense. No doubt they told Jesus how they had seen him feed multitudes with next to nothing, cast out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead. Just weeks before, in Bethany, his friend Lazarus had been dead and in the tomb four days, and Jesus stood and said, "Lazarus, come forth," and Lazarus came waddling out alive.

"But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened." We thought he was a prophet. We had hoped he was the Redeemer. We gave up jobs, left home, walked away from everything to follow him because we thought he was the Messiah. But it's been three days, and he's dead. So we're going back to our normal lives.

Proverbs 13 says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick." They had hoped he might be the Redeemer in the midst of Roman occupation and national ruin—and hope deferred makes the heart sick. Maybe you are here today and have experienced the loss of hope.

Death Without the Resurrection

Point number three: death without the resurrection is pitifully sad. In eighteen years of pastoring I've done many funerals. Sometimes we receive a call from someone who doesn't attend church but had a loved one die and needs someone to officiate. I've stood at funerals for people who clearly had no trust in God, where those remembering them have little hope of anything beyond the grave. To share from the Scriptures there and see the tears and the loss of any hope is heartbreaking.

It's an incredible contrast to officiate a funeral for someone who had a vibrant faith in Jesus, surrounded by people who know that same Lord. There is still sorrow, but not the same kind. The Scriptures say we do not sorrow as those who have no hope. And what gives us that hope? The events of Luke 24, celebrated on this day. Though there is sorrow, there is a joy within it that says there is victory over the grave.

As the disciples laid out their whole story, they finally added: "Yes, and certain women of our company who arrived at the tomb early astonished us. When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive." Some of the men went to the tomb and found it just as the women said, "but Him they did not see."

Jesus answered, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?" And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. What a message that would have been to hear. No doubt he referenced Psalm 22, written a thousand years before—a perfect prophetic chronicle of the crucifixion. And surely Isaiah 53, written seven hundred years before, of the suffering servant who bore our griefs and sorrows, by whose stripes we are healed.

Abide With Us

Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther. But they constrained Him, saying, "Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent." And He went in to stay with them. (Luke 24:28–29)

This was a message they didn't want to end, a meeting they didn't want to see go away. "Would you just stay with us? It's late; come in, we'll get a bite to eat, we'll treat you. Abide with us."

Point number four: Jesus died and rose again that we might abide with him forever.

Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. (Luke 24:30–31)

Their blindness departed. We don't know how—only that the eyes which were restrained were restrained no longer. Just days before, Jesus had taken bread, blessed it, broke it, and given it to his twelve at the Passover. These two apparently weren't there. In the very same fashion, he takes bread, blesses, breaks, and gives—and their eyes are opened. Perhaps for the first time they noticed his hands. We know the scars remained, because a week later Jesus told Thomas, "Touch the scars on My hands; put your hand on My side."

That Jesus vanishes tells us something about his body after the resurrection. He has a glorified body, and the Scriptures declare that those who trust in him will receive one too. This corruption will put on incorruption; this mortality will put on immortality; in the twinkling of an eye we shall be changed. That sounds good—I'm not even forty yet, and everybody tells me it's downhill from there. The first five hundred steps every morning feel like I'm going to fall apart. I don't want this body forever. But Jesus died and rose again that we might abide with him forever.

Life and Joy Forever

They said to one another, "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?" So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven... saying, "The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!" (Luke 24:32–34)

These men had just walked seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and it was nighttime. Yet they got up and ran back. When they found the disciples, they didn't find a teary-eyed bunch despairing and wounded. They found a group filled with joy and rejoicing—because they had seen the risen Lord Jesus, and the resurrection had changed everything.

Point number five: the resurrection means life and joy forever. Jesus died, but he did not remain dead. Death could not hold him. You may be thinking, "That's a great story, but how do we know?" Just before the passage I quoted earlier, Paul writes:

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present... After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also. (1 Corinthians 15:3–8)

Where in the Scriptures? I think of Psalm 16: "You will not leave my soul in the grave, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, and at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

How do we know? Because the evidence is there. The tomb is empty, and there were more than five hundred eyewitnesses—many of whom went to their deaths as martyrs, thrown to beasts, crucified, beheaded, stoned, run through with swords. All they had to do to escape was say, "It didn't happen; he's still dead." But they didn't. They said, "He's alive, and I have seen Him," and they were put to death for it. To disprove the claim, all anyone needed was to produce the body of Jesus of Nazareth. But the tomb is empty, and the witnesses speak on. He is alive, and because he lives, anyone who believes in him shall never perish but have life everlasting. That is the great news we celebrate on Resurrection Sunday.

Closing Prayer

Father, I thank you that you loved us so much that you gave your Son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. You who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might receive righteousness—because you didn't remain dead. You overcame death and sin, and were victorious. Therefore we are not on the loser bus. We are more than conquerors through you who loved us. We thank you for the life, the hope, and the joy we have. Though we will experience the pain of an earthly death, because you live, we shall live with you forever. We praise you, Jesus.

It may be that you don't have that hope or joy this morning—instead you have loneliness, emptiness, guilt over the wrong things you've done, and fear of what comes after this life. Jesus came to take away our emptiness, loneliness, guilt, and fear, and to give us joy through his forgiving grace. It's a free gift, received as we put our trust in him for salvation. Because of the truth of the resurrection, these prayers don't disappear into the air—they go to the risen Jesus, seated on a throne in heaven.

Dear Jesus, I know that I have sinned and failed, and that I can't fix my sin myself. I thank you that you died on the cross for me, and that you rose victoriously over sin. I pray that you'd come into my life, that you'd forgive me of my sin, and that you'd help me to follow you by faith. In Jesus' name, amen.