Côte des Neiges Presbyterian Church Sunday, April 19 th, 2015 On the road to Emmaus Text: Luke 24:13-35 Rev. Joel Coppieters, B.Th., M.Div. Sometimes, the most significant thing about a text isn t what it says but what it leaves out. What it doesn t say. We did a lot of hiring for several new departments when I was working with Quebecor, so the human resources department trained several of us to conduct interviews. One of the things they insisted on was that when you considered somebody s resume, instead of focusing on what was there, you had to learn to look for the things that were missing. You look for the gaps in somebody s work history. Sometimes they don t list one of their employers because they had trouble there and they don t want you to find out about it. Or maybe they list that they attended a certain university, and it looks impressive until you realize that they don t tell you that they actually graduated they started the degree and never finished. One of the recent TED talks on National Public Radio looked at some of the big public confessions of well-known politicians and businessmen. The speaker noted that you can usually judge the truthfulness of the one confessing by considering what they leave out what they don t say. The words they choose not to use in affirming their innocence often says a lot about the truth of their confession. But dishonesty isn t the only reason things get left out. Sometimes, material is left out for a good reason. Sometimes, when a story is told, particularly in the Bible s narratives, things are left out to make a point. Our text for this morning in Luke 24 is so well known that I have lost track of how often I have preached from it, but as I prepared this time, I realized that I have always overlooked several very important things that it leaves out things that it does not say, on purpose, to make a point. There are at least five things that are missing in the text. Things that we think should be there, but just aren t. The first missing detail, and probably the most striking, is the fact that when Jesus approaches these two sad and downcast disciples, he doesn t come right out and tell them that it s Him. This is kind of strange for Jesus.
In several of his key teachings in the Gospel of John, Jesus begins by telling them who he is. I am the bread of life. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth and the life. When he confronts the Pharisees, Jesus insists on His identity as the Son of God. Even in the garden when His enemies come to arrest Him, led by Judas, He asks the mob who they are looking for and he tells them. It s me. I m the one you re looking for. When the members of the Sanhedrin and the Pilate the governor question Him about who He is, He tells them outright. But here, on the road to Emmaus, it seems that Jesus tells them everything but His identity. In fact there is a moment of ironic humour when He asks the disciples why they are so sad, and they answer Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? Far from being the only one in Jerusalem who doesn t know what happened, He was actually the only person in Jerusalem who understood exactly what was happening. But why doesn t Jesus come right out and identify Himself as He does on so many other occasions? The first question is evidently why they didn t recognize Him, and what had happened to His body that they couldn t tell it was Him. We ll talk about this a little more next week, but there were two things at work here. One was the changes that had happened in Jesus glorified and resurrected body and the other is that the text tells us explicitly in verse 16 that the two disciples were kept from recognizing Jesus. Somehow, something happened to their eyes, or to Jesus appearance, so that they couldn t tell this was Him. So why doesn t Jesus come right out and identify himself? Many of the earliest commentaries on this passage suggest that this was a kind of test of the disciples hospitality. Would they show openness and hospitality to a stranger who shared the road with them? We mustn t forget that this could have been dangerous. There was a reason why Peter denied so vehemently being associated with Jesus when he was questioned. There was a reason why the other disciples were all hiding out behind locked doors in the upper room. And presumably it was for the same reason that these two disciples had decided to leave the very dangerous city of Jerusalem. It was not safe to be implicated as close friends of an executed criminal. It made you suspect, and it opened the possibility of your getting in trouble. What if this stranger on the road was a spy, or an informant? What if the religious leaders or the Romans were trying to flesh out the disciples of the man they had just killed? Maybe it
wouldn t be safe to admit that you knew him or worse even to admit publicly that you were upset that he had been killed. But these two brave disciples appear not to be worried about that risk and they extend hospitality to this stranger. It is striking that when the book of Hebrews discusses hospitality, it notes that by entertaining strangers, some have actually entertained angels unaware. This happens several times in the Old Testament. Remember the story of Abraham and Sarah and the three strangers who suddenly appear at their tent? As Jesus keeps His identity from them, there is a powerful reminder that we need to practice hospitality to strangers because we have no idea who these strangers might be. But the sense of the text in Hebrews, and the story in our text today, takes things a step further. As God comes to us, as God speaks to us and reveals himself to us, there are times when he does it in the most surprising way. And sometimes He has to do that so that we will listen properly. I think that Jesus met these disciples with a specific goal in mind. They had heard Him teach about His death and His resurrection while He was alive with them, but they hadn t listened properly. It hadn t sunk in. Now that these things had happened, Jesus wanted to take the time to lay it out before them again but He wanted to be sure they would listen. I am pretty sure that if they had known it was Him, if He had appeared and startled them with the full glory of His presence, they would have been so overjoyed to see Him, they would have had such an emotional response, that they very likely would not have listened properly. So Jesus delays their response, He delays their recognition so that they will pay attention. I know there are times when we wish that God would show Himself. We wish Jesus would just appear and talk to us, but if He did that, we would be so overwhelmed, that it would be hard to listen, to hear properly and to understand what He s saying to us. So Jesus often chooses to come to us gently and unexpectedly, in the midst of our pain and our despair and He whispers gently so that we can hear and understand. But the surprise isn t just that Jesus doesn t tell them outright who He is. There is something else that I m surprised Jesus does not say. If I had been Jesus, and admittedly that s a very very big if. If I had been Jesus, and if I had just spent the last three years trying to teach these disciples about my upcoming death and resurrection, and if the disciples would have been as obtuse and as slow to understand I guarantee that on my first meeting with them, the conversation would have been a little more intense. How could you have been so stupid? I taught you this so clearly, and I said it so many times, in so many different ways, how could you miss it? I would have given them the biggest I told you so! speech they had ever heard.
But Jesus doesn t do that. I m not comfortable with the word the ESV uses here in verse 25. O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? There is in Greek a very harsh word for stupid. The New Testament uses it only once. It appears in Luke 12 in Jesus parable of the rich farmer who had accumulated all this great mass of wealth. He filled his barns with huge amounts of goods and he thought he was set for life, but God says You fool this very night your soul is required of you! Jesus uses some relatively harsh words in several instances when he s talking to the Pharisees and those who oppose Him. And there are several instances where he s pretty direct with the disciples. At one point, when Peter tries to dissuade Him from fulfilling His costly sacrificial mission, Jesus actually calls Peter Satan! That s pretty direct. There is a time for that. But this wasn t. There is softness to the tone with which Jesus speaks, and there is care in the words that He chooses. He comes across these two very sad disciples. They express their feeling with one of the saddest expressions found anywhere in the New Testament. When they tell the stranger how sad they are about what had happened to their friend, they say We had hoped. We HAD hoped. I m not sure if Shakespeare was right that it is better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all, but I do know that when it comes to hope, it is better not to have once hoped and to have those hopes crushed and destroyed. This is what had happened to them. And Jesus approaches them very softly. Very gently. He understands their pain. Instead of blowing them away with the glory of His risen presence, which he could have done, He gently walks the road with them as a stranger. Instead of berating them and giving them the I told you so speech, He patiently explains it to them again. And He takes time to do that. He takes the time it takes. The third thing we aren t told is exactly where this village of Emmaus is. It has disappeared. We have a few guesses and there is an ongoing controversy among archaeological digs that we think might be the spot where this village used to be. We wish the text would tell us more about Emmaus, but it gives us the only two details we need. I know this might sound obvious, but the first thing we need to know is that Emmaus wasn t Jerusalem. The disciples were leaving Jerusalem. Many of the other disciples were still there hiding out, but these two had decided to leave. I don t think they left just because they were
scared. If they were scared and cowardly, they clearly would have avoided talking to this stranger along the road. It wasn t fear that led them to leave Jerusalem. It was their broken hearts. After my Father died, there were several things my mother found very difficult. He worked from an office at home, writing and translating and preparing to preach. After he passed away, it took Mom several months before she would even comfortably go into his office. It was just too painful. For these heartbroken disciples, Jerusalem had become the place of pain. The place where the one they had loved and placed their hope in had been brutally treated and executed. It was too hard. Every place they saw reminded them of Him. They couldn t be there anymore, and Jesus meets them, lovingly, gently, comes alongside them as they are literally walking away from their best dreams and from their greatest hopes. I can imagine them not even wanting to look back as they leave the city behind them. You can hear the pain in their voice when they ask him Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? So Emmaus is not Jerusalem, but there is one more thing you need to know about it. The text tells us that it was about seven miles away from Jerusalem, and they made it all the way there. This is significant because it tells us that this wasn t just a short conversation with Jesus. The average adult male at a comfortable pace can walk about 3 miles in an hour. I think they were walking a lot more slowly than that because they were so deep in conversation. When you are that deeply into discussions, it slows you down a little. My guess is that the journey would have taken the best part of three hours. Now think about this for a minute. What day is this story happening? Verse 13 says that it was that very day. We are still on Resurrection Sunday. The Lord Jesus Christ has just risen from the dead. He has conquered death and triumphed as the Prince of Peace. He has been vindicated as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He has fulfilled our redemption and His work has been affirmed by God who raised Him from the dead. Imagine all the important places where Jesus might have been on this day of all days. And yet, Jesus knows these two heartbroken, weary disciples walking the long dusty road to Emmaus. Even though they should have known better, they had given hope. And Jesus takes three hours to slowly, gently, graciously walk with them and talk with them and to explain it all again. What a gracious compassionate Savior we have! Every time I read this, I am struck by the kind deference of Jesus to take the time to walk them through this. And then I get jealous. I would have loved to have been there. I would have
loved to have Jesus Himself walk me through the Old Testament book by book and explain to me all those prophecies, all those passages that speak about His coming. But unfortunately, this is the fourth thing that seems to be missing in the text. This is so unfair. I would love to have another couple of chapters added to the Gospel of Luke with the transcription of what Jesus told them during this three hour walk. But it s not there. There is just enough here to whet your appetite. Luke doesn t give it to you because he wants you to find it yourself. As we read and study the Bible as disciples of Jesus, this is the thing that motivates us. This is the thing that keeps us going. We are deeply in love with Jesus who is our only hope, and we want to see Him, we want to know more about Him and we find ourselves just digging and searching through the Scriptures because we want to pick up every little bit about Him that we can. Jesus. This is the reason for my passion for the Word of God I am always ever looking for This is always and ever at the heart of our searching the Scriptures and reading the Bible. In the words of those Greeks who approached the disciples. We want to see Jesus. I just want to point out one more thing that is missing in our text. Did you notice that we are only given the name of one of the two disciples? Luke calls him Cleopas, but we aren t given the name of the second disciple. Does he specifically name Cleopas because he knew that there were several people in the early church who would read his Gospel and who knew Cleopas? Maybe he was known to Theophilus for whom he was writing. Some suggest that Luke didn t want to name the other disciple because she was a woman and he was hesitant to name a woman as another eyewitness of the Resurrection, but this doesn t make any sense. Luke has been openly identifying women all along throughout the Gospel there is no reason why he wouldn t do so now. In John 19:25, we are told that one of the Mary s standing at the foot of the cross was Mary the wife of Clopas. Early church tradition has suggested that these two disciples on the Emmaus road were in fact Mary and Clopas, heading back to their home on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Several documents tell us that when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70AD, one of the leaders of the Christian church there was a man named Simeon, the son of Clopas. Several suggest that his pair of disciples on the Emmaus road were in fact father and son, Simeon and Clopas. If this was indeed him, it s intriguing that this Simeon would soon die as a martyr for faith. But there is another more intriguing possibility. I think that Luke has not told us on purpose.
He wants us wondering who that second unknown disciple is. You see, above all, the Easter story is an invitation. Each time we hear the Easter story, we are confronted again by the facts of the Resurrection, but we are not simply invited to reflect on the Resurrection itself. The Easter story is an invitation to come and meet the Risen One. To walk the road with Him. To discover Him in the Scriptures. To recognize him in the Sacrament of Communion as He breaks the bread for us. I wonder whether that second unnamed disciples might not be you. The risen Christ invites you to come. To see him. To recognize him. To recognize in Him not just the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, but the fulfillment of all your best hopes and dreams. He won t overwhelm you with his power and glory. He hasn t come to dazzle you. He has come to walk the dusty road with you. To gently teach you along the journey. Won t you walk the Emmaus Road with the Risen Lord this morning?