Luke 24 (Part 1)

Luke chapter 24. We're beginning at verse 1. It says,

(Now, this is talking about the women who were coming to bring the spices and ointments and things to finish anointing the body of Jesus. And it tells us here that)

(ESV) Now we're told in the other Gospel accounts that the women were actually talking among themselves as they were walking along to the area of the tomb. And they were actually discussing how they were going to get that big stone rolled away from the mouth of the tomb because it was too big for any of them to move. And no doubt they just hoped to meet someone along the way who could give them a hand. Perhaps they reasoned the soldiers that had been put in charge of guarding the tomb were still there and wouldn't mind them going in if they were watching the whole time what was happening and so forth. But when they reached the tomb, they found their problem had been solved because the stone had already been rolled away. And yet, when they looked inside the tomb, to their horror, they found it to be empty and the body of Jesus was nowhere to be found. You have to wonder what was going through their minds, all the different possible scenarios at that moment. But in verse 4, it says,

I love this section of the resurrection narrative because the angels make some pretty good points as they're talking to the women here. And there's a couple things that I want to bring up about what they're saying to the women, and we're going to look at them in reverse order. Alright? The first is what we saw in verse 6. Look with me again there. They say to the women, “remember how he told you.” And then they went on, of course, to remind the women exactly what Jesus had said about all these things that we're going to happen. And, for some reason, remembering the Word of God is so difficult when we find ourselves in situations that cause us anxiety, or fear, or frustration. And these women were probably feeling all of those things, and they were so fixated on doing what they had come to do, which was their simple task of finishing the anointing process, which was according to their Jewish burial customs, that they had completely forgotten everything Jesus had told them. Everything He had predicted concerning His rising again and the promise that He made. Can you imagine being so fixated on your particular task that you forget the promise of God? Well, I think we can relate to that. I think, in fact, all of us can relate to that whole idea. It is just so crazy how life can creep in sometimes and begin to crowd out all that we know and believe. I find it in my own life. I bet you do too. I know things. I mean, I've read the Bible. I'm even on my third time teaching through the whole Bible. I know these things. And yet I can forget them. I can forget them quickly, as a matter of fact, when I'm going through a situation or a circumstance that is pressing me. Needing a reminder I've found in my life is very important. I think we all need to be reminded of everything that God’s Word has to say, all the promises that it makes to us. We are in constant need of hearing those things over and over and over again. And I love what the apostle Peter said about this and I'm going to put this Scripture up for you so we can see it together. Here's what, and I'm going to quote this out of the NIV because I just like this wording. Peter said, 2 Peter 1:12-13 (NIV) “…I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body,” “…I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. (but he says) I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body,” ---

What Peter is saying here is, I don't have any problem reminding you. In fact, I'm going to continue to remind you. You know these things. He says, you're established in them. And yet I'm going to remind you anyway. I'm going to keep telling you anyway. I'm going to keep telling you what God said. I'm going to keep telling you what His promises are. I'm going to keep reminding you of these very and vital important things because it's just so easy to forget. And that’s what the angels, speaking to these women, call to our attention here when he says to these women, don't you remember? Don't you remember what He said? The second thing I want to look at, as far as what came to the women from these angels, came in the form of a question. And the question was very simple. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” What a great question. That is an excellent question. Here Jesus was alive He'd been raised from the dead and these women were looking for Him in a graveyard. Graveyards are filled with dead people, and they went looking for Jesus. And that's what the angels are saying in almost this sort of an ironic statement. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” And what we're seeing here is that these women were going on conducting their lives, in this case, it was, we're going to take care of the corpse of Jesus, we're going to bury, we're going to go through all the traditional sort of things that go along with our rituals of getting a body ready for final burial. And they went on, they're just conducting their lives as if Jesus was dead. All the while, when He was alive and well. And I’ve got to tell you something. I see Christians doing this today. I've done it myself. What I mean is, we know that He's alive. Every Christian I've ever met, if you were to ask him, is Jesus Christ alive today? They'd say, oh yeah, of course. Hey, He was raised from the tomb, right? Yeah, of course He's alive. Yeah. Jesus is alive. Here's the real question. Are we conducting our lives every day, everything that we do, are we living like He's alive? Or are we Christians who know that he's alive, but we're conducting our lives as if He's not? And we would never say that as Christians. I mean, we would never verbalize that. We'd never say, well, I don't think Jesus is alive. But we act that way sometimes. And what I mean by that is sometimes we make decisions as if Jesus isn't there to help us, as if He's not there to talk to, and that we have to just do it on our own. I got to do, nobody's going to take care of this except me. I got myself into this, I’ve got to get myself out of it. I've heard Christians say that. That sounds more like something that ought to come out of the mouth of an atheist than a born-again Christian who knows that Jesus is alive. Here's another question for you. Is your heart at rest, knowing that Jesus is by your side every day through any situation? Or are you fearful as if Jesus has no active presence in your life? Do you find yourself falling more easily into fear or do you find yourself falling more easily into faith? Well, if we're falling more easily into fear, then we're probably acting like Jesus is dead. We're going about our business as if he's dead rather than walking in the ever-present reality of His life. That He is alive. And so, I guess I would take this question, that was given to the women here by the angels, and I would rephrase it maybe something a little bit like, why are you living your life as if Jesus isn't alive? Because that's what they're asking when they say, why are you looking among the dead for somebody who is alive? There's a well-known passage that people often quote. I think it's one of the most well-known passages in the Bible. But I think that there's often a lot of people who don't fully understand it. I'm going to put this up on the screen for you. It's Proverbs 3:5 and 6. You know this verse. It says,

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. All right, I want to ask you a question. What does it mean to acknowledge Him in all of your ways, to acknowledge God? Well, let me put it like this. Have you ever been at work or maybe in a store and you're walking along, and you see someone that you know, and you're not really sure if they've seen you or not but they don't acknowledge that there's even anybody else there?

They don't acknowledge you. Maybe you're at work in the break room and somebody walks in and gets something out of the refrigerator and you're sitting there having your lunch and they don't even acknowledge you. They walk in, they get something out of the fridge, they take it, they walk out the door, they don't say hi, they don't say goodbye, they don't say boo, they just completely ignore you. Well, that is the opposite of acknowledging someone, alright? And that's probably happened at least once in all of our lives. Can you imagine walking into a room and failing to acknowledge the Lord? Acting as if He wasn't in the room. I think any Christian would have to say, well, I would never do that. I would never, if I walked into a room and the Lord was physically present in that room, I would acknowledge Him. I would say, wow, you're here, sort of a thing. And yet, He is with us, guys. Brothers and sisters in Jesus, He is with us. His presence is with us. He promised He would be with us always, even to the end of the age, and yet, you know what? We fail to acknowledge Him. We fail all the time to acknowledge His presence. You see, to acknowledge the Lord in all of your ways means to recognize His presence and His Lordship in every situation and in every circumstance of your life. It means to acknowledge Him in your relationships. It means to acknowledge Him in every opportunity that you have in life. To acknowledge Him in every difficulty, in every tragedy, in every victory, in every failure. Acknowledge the Lord, acknowledge His presence and His forgiveness and His power. Acknowledge Him in all of your ways, in everything you go through, and He will direct your paths. Verse 8 goes on and it says, “And they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.” And the women hurried back. They heard the angel speak, they run back to the other disciples, particularly to the eleven and I'm sure there were other disciples there as well. And it says here, that it was in verse 10, “Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles,”

But in verse 11, it says) but these words seemed to them an idle tale, (in other words, it sounded like nonsense. And it says) and they did not believe them.” The disciples, who heard Jesus say repeatedly over and over again, I will be given over to the Gentiles. I will be put to death. I will rise again on the third day. And the women come, not just from an empty tomb, but from the testimony of angels, and they tell the disciples what they have seen and heard, and it says they did not believe them. We'll talk more about that here in just a little bit when we get out on the Emmaus Road. But it says in verse 12, “But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; (Curiosity, I suppose, got the best of him and it says) stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; (And that would be that which was wrapped around the body of Jesus) and he went home marveling at what had happened.” He was amazed. We're told, by the way, from John's own Gospel, that John accompanied Peter to the tomb, but when John got there, and he was a bit younger, he outran Peter. When he got there, he didn't go in. He just sat at the entrance and Peter just busted right through the entrance and went in and looked and saw those things as they were, and we're told that he marveled. He marveled. Then we go on here and it says in verse 13, “That very day (so we're still on Sunday, which is resurrection day) two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” I think that's a fascinating comment, isn't it? That their eyes were kept by the Lord from recognizing who Jesus was, and yet they're walking and talking with Him. And it says that, 17“he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,”

Now I want you to stop there for just a moment. Did you notice how Cleopas described, or even defined Jesus there in that verse? Notice he referred to Jesus as a mighty prophet, or excuse me, “a prophet mighty in deed and word.” That's fine as far as it goes, but what's missing from that description? Well, first of all, it's nothing like the description Peter gave when he confessed Christ during the Lord's earthly ministry and said that he was the Messiah, the Son of the living God. But Cleopas obviously hadn't been given that kind of a revelation. To Him, you'll notice Cleopas just simply says, He was a prophet. He was a mighty prophet. He was mighty in word and deed before God, but He was a prophet. And what he's missing here is, he's missing the further revelation that comes about Jesus that the resurrection gives us. The resurrection puts Jesus on a completely different level altogether. Because there were a lot of mighty prophets that rose in the land of Israel over the years and over the history of those people. But the resurrection of Jesus Christ is what sets Him apart and that's missing from his understanding. Well, Jesus is about to fill in the blanks here. Verse 20, look what else he says about Jesus. He says, “and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him.” And then he says this. Look at verse 21, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel…” Did you notice that? “We had.” He puts it in past tense. We had hoped. We'd hoped he was the guy, but now He's dead. Cleopas represents, no doubt, what was probably at that time a large population of Jews who saw and heard the things that Jesus did and wondered, could this be the Messiah? And then when they all sang and ushered Him into the city one week earlier on Palm Sunday, a lot of those people were convinced this is the Son of David. But they had particular expectations about what the Messiah was going to come to do. They believed that the Messiah would come and liberate them from their captivity. Right now, they were captive to Rome. Rome was currently occupying Israel. They had conquered Israel, and they were in charge, and the Jews believed that Messiah was going to come and throw off their captors, liberate them, give them freedom. But now this man who they thought might possibly be the Messiah, well, He didn't live up to their expectations. And honestly, I find this to be somewhat common also among believers today. We have certain expectations that we've developed.

They're in our mind. They're ours. They're not necessarily anything that the Lord promised us, but we have expectations nonetheless, and when those expectations don't turn out to be fulfilled, just like Cleopas and this other unnamed person our hopes get dashed. Yeah, we thought this is the way it was going to end. Yeah, I guess God let us down here a little bit in this one. Have you ever been let down by God? Have you ever been disappointed? Was it maybe because you had advanced an expectation of something that He would do or not do apart from any kind of a promise of the Word? Or maybe it was a misunderstanding on your part, but either way, you had an expectation, and it wasn't fulfilled. And we can become very disappointed, and hope becomes a past tense thing. And one of the characteristics of having, what I call, self-generated expectations, meaning they're not from the Lord, it's just something that I want. And I really would like God to do for me, but He'd never promised me. But I have an expectation that He will, is that we tend to camp on those expectations so much that we will sometimes ignore the realities that God is showing us, that He's truly showing us that are all around us. Check out what Cleopas says here in the middle of verse 21 again. He says, “… yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. (He says) 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. (And) 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb (Now they're talking about Peter and John) and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” This is crazy. Do you hear what's going on here? These men have had such hope taken away from their own expectations of what Messiah was going to come and do that they're not even really seeing all of the evidence that is right in front of them that is speaking of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They don't really have any place in their hearts for it because it doesn't fit. It doesn't fit with their prior expectations, you see. And that's the danger of having expectations that we hold onto that are not given to us by the Lord, but they’re of our own making, and this is what I want God to do. And so, when God begins to show me things about what's really going on in life, I don't really have any place for it. There, there's not a shelf in my heart for me to put that, to store it, because my expectations are filling that area instead.

And that's what our expectations can do sometimes. They blind us to what's right in front of our eyes. I want you to listen now to how Jesus responds to these men. First of all, he says, He said to them, verse 25, and this is important.

Now, personally, I believe this is a loving remark by the Lord, but it's a wake-up comment, make no mistake about it. Jesus begins by calling them foolish. And then He says, they're slow of heart to believe. Interesting terms, right? Have you ever thought about the fact that it's foolish not to believe the Word of God? He says, how foolish you are not to believe, how foolish you are not to believe. When you and I talk about our faith in Christ, our belief in the Bible is the Word of God and so forth to people who are outside of the kingdom of God, they think we're foolish. But the fact of the matter is, according to what Jesus is saying here to these men, it is foolish not to believe what God has said in His Word and that's the first thing that He's saying. But then He goes on to say that they were slow of heart to believe. Slow of heart. Think about that term. Slow of heart to believe. And here's why I think that's significant. I think when people struggle to believe, most people believe it's an intellectual problem. They think it has something to do with like facts, and if you'll just tell me the facts again, what's going on here again? Because if I can just, if I can just understand it. But Jesus says that it's really not a matter of intellectual understanding as much as it is a heart issue. He says, you're slow of heart. It's not something that you can't embrace with your mind, your heart just won't embrace it. In fact, I think a lot of issues are heart issues that we think are head issues. I have an intellectual problem with Christianity. Well, more than likely it's a heart issue and you just really like your sin, and you don't want to turn away from it. Jesus goes on in verse 26 and He says,

27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

Wouldn't you have loved to have been a part of that Bible study? I mean, good grief, to have Jesus interpret all the Scriptures and show how they pointed to Him. How incredible. But that last question that Jesus asked is pretty significant. He said there again in verse 26, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things…?” You see, this is the reason why these disciples were suffering from misaligned interpretations of the Word and expectations. They hadn't understood the necessity of the cross. They didn't have room for the cross. When the cross came, it was, to them it was an intrusion in their expectations. This isn't the way it's supposed to go. They don't crucify Messiah. He's the anointed one. There's no place for the cross in this whole scenario of how things were to go. They saw the Messiah as one who would come and liberate them from their physical enemies and they didn't understand that Messiah had come to liberate them from their spiritual enemies, from Satan, from sin, and from death. Verse 28, “So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, 29 but they urged him strongly, saying, “(No) Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. (at that moment) 32 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” 33 And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. (Seven miles back to Jerusalem. They were so excited, so full of energy and excitement. They hoofed it back to Jerusalem without any trouble) And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, 34 saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.” I love this narrative. It's beautiful the way Luke gives this to us. It's such an incredible account. What joy these disciples must've experienced having now made this seven-mile journey back to Jerusalem from Emmaus just to give the news. I'm sure they talked the whole way back, and their excitement must have grown with every step as they thought about the realization that was now taking hold of their hearts in greater and greater ways.

Jesus is alive. He's been raised from the dead. He's been resurrected. He's alive. Before, their hopes were dashed. Their expectations were unfulfilled. And now, Jesus is alive! This changes everything. The resurrection of Jesus is so critical, so vital to our understanding of eternal life, that it has now become a key to that life. Look what Paul says to the Romans, chapter 10, verse 9. He says,

…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. What an amazing promise. How we understand through what Jesus did for us and what God did by raising Him from the dead, we can have eternal life. But I want to just, wait just a second here. What does it mean here when Paul says, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead? What does that mean exactly? I mean, Satan believes that God raised Jesus from the dead. He knows it happened. So, what exactly does it mean when it tells you and I that if we believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead? Well, you see, it's different. It’s different for you and I, because it's all about understanding that the resurrection is proof that God has accepted the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf. Jesus died bearing our sin, but His resurrection is that punctuation, that exclamation point, that proof of acceptance. The apostle Paul wrote to the Romans talking about how He, through His resurrection, has given us so much. Let me show you this from Romans 4:25. It says that,

who (Jesus) was delivered up for our trespasses (Okay? That speaks of his death on the cross) and raised for our justification. In other words, through His resurrection, we are now justified) Now justification and justified. Those are legal terms. And they're used in the New Testament. And they mean, it means acquittal. When you hear the word justification, it means to be acquitted. So, the resurrection of Jesus is proof positive that you and I have been acquitted of all charges against us by the Law. Jesus bore our penalty and now, because of His resurrection, we know that the verdict has been handed down. We are acquitted. We're absolved. We are exonerated. We've been cleared of any charges. We're released, liberated, vindicated. Do I need to go on? Yeah, I think you get it. Because of the resurrection, we know that we have been acquitted. We've been released. What exactly does that mean in terms of our daily life? It's one thing to say, all right I believe Jesus was raised from the dead and because of that I have been exonerated. Now, how do I take that into my daily living? How do I take that knowledge, that understanding, and move forward with it? How should it make me live? What hopes should I now have predicated upon that acquittal that comes as a result of His resurrection? Well, the apostle Paul does a beautiful job of explaining all of those wonderful benefits in Romans chapter 5. I'm going to put this up on the screen for you. Here's what it says.

There's a lot that we can get out of this passage, but I'm going to close out here today by just sharing with you four quick things that we bring out of this passage that speak of the benefits of our justification. And remember, justification or acquittal is what we have through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. First thing that Paul says, we'll put these up on the screen here as bullet points. We have peace with God. Boy don't underestimate that. Do you remember your life before you had peace with God? Do you remember what that was like? A life that is not at peace with God is a tormented life because there's no rest in that life. And so, that person will seek to fill the void where that peace otherwise should exist, and they try to fill it with money or pleasure or power, or maybe even just busyness or whatever. But none of those things can ultimately satisfy because what they need is peace with God and they don't have it because they have never bowed the knee, accepted what Jesus did on the cross, and received the benefit of that justification, which is peace with God. The only way you can get it is through Jesus. He's the Prince of Peace. And so, the resurrection of Jesus, first and foremost, gives us this peace with God. There's no more problem. There's no more difficulty. There's no more tension. We're at peace. Our hearts are now at rest. Next, Paul says, we have access by faith into God's grace. Now this is very meaning and his actual words are, “through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.” Paul speaks of grace, which means that we have a life of God's favor now that is upon us. That we didn't earn and can't earn, in fact. It's a glorious thing to have God's favor. And we now have that because of our justification. We don't have His disfavor. That doesn't exist anymore. We only have His favor, which is grace. But grace is an incredible term because it can also refer to power. Did you know that grace is what Paul also refers to when he speaks of the power of God to live a righteous life and to serve the Lord. We also have grace through our faith, where God enables us to be, and to do more than we could ever be and do on our own. God has given us grace. Grace to live. Are you in a difficult situation in your home, in your marriage, in your work? God gives us grace. Are there people in your life who just rub you the wrong way? God will give you the grace. It's a benefit of the justification that we have through Christ's resurrection. The next benefit is, he says, we have the hope of the glory of God.

And the apostle speaks of this in more detail elsewhere, but he's talking here about the hope of believers to share in the glory of Christ one day. And yeah, this is something that's in the future. It's not something that we're dealing with and holding onto or laying hold of right now, and that makes it difficult. You talk to a believer today about how Christ is our hope of glory, and they go yeah, yeah, but they can't relate to it. It's like, the glory that we're going to share with Christ. I don't even know what that's like. I don't know what it's going to be like. But it's ours, nonetheless. And it's a hope. It's a hope for something that we have in the future. Finally, Paul lists the fourth benefit of justification that comes through resurrection by saying, we now have a new understanding of suffering. Paul says here in the latter part of this passage that we know that suffering now has a higher purpose than we could have ever imagined because now we've been justified through the resurrection of Jesus. And, now he says, now we understand that our suffering produces endurance and then like almost like a domino effect, endurance then produces character, and character produces hope, and hope, hope is wonderful. It doesn't put us to shame. Those two disciples on the Emmaus Road, they'd put their hope in their own expectations and their hope had been dashed. But our hope can never be dashed because God has promised to use whatever situations, whatever circumstances are going on in your life to build you up and not tear you down. You and I know that whatever we go through, God's going to use it in our lives for good because that's His promise. And it comes to us because we've been acquitted, and that comes to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, death has been conquered. We're now at peace with God. We have access into His Grace. We have a hope of future glory along with Him. And we now understand that there's purpose in suffering and that God won't let any of it be in vain. All because of the resurrection of Jesus. And you know what that means? That means this changes everything. Whatever we thought, however we lived before we knew Christ, now, knowing what we know, knowing what happened, knowing that Jesus is alive, this changes everything.