-- Luke 24:37
The fate of human history had just been cast a remarkable ray of hope, and those closest to Jesus were still desperately trying to grasp the meaning of the empty tomb.
There seemed to be various stages of disbelief and guarded hope among His disciples, but to a man, it seemed they were only able to grasp what had happened once they encountered the Risen Christ.
This continued into the early church with the Apostle Paul's conversion and it continues into the modern church.
You can give someone chapter and verse of the entire Gospel, but until someone personally encounters the Risen Christ, it's just a lot of words.
Fortunately, every word of Scripture points toward that Christ, so it's only a matter of time once a seeking heart enters into His word.
Luke gives an encounter of two disciples (their names are never mentioned) who venture from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus about seven miles away on that same Resurrection Day.
As they tried to make sense of everything they'd heard, Jesus approached.
They did not recognize Him, but after they explained the events of the day, He rebuked them for not understanding what the prophets had spoken about Him.
He then launched forth into what has to be the best exposition of the Old Testament ever heard on this earth. And he delivered it to an audience of two.
Now, it takes the average man about an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes to walk seven miles, so these two had a front row seat to a virtuoso master class from the Author of the Faith for a considerable amount of time.
And after almost two hours of this, they still had not recognized Him.
He went to stay with them in the village, and sat at a table for dinner with them. He broke bread for them, blessing it first, and gave it to them. In that act, their eyes were opened. In the same moment, He vanished.
How significant is it that in the act of breaking bread -- the same act He'd used just days prior to give an example of how His body would be broken and offered for the many -- His identity was revealed?
I'd say very much so.
They'd heard the teaching of the Master Teacher for a good portion of the day and only in His act of service, in the example of His offering, was He known.
Marveling at what had just happened, the two exclaimed, "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?"
I used to think it was such a shame that the gospels did not give an account of what had been said on the way to Emmaus.
But, reading just a couple verses further, it says that the two returned to Jerusalem, found the Eleven and told them everything that had happened along the road, starting with "The Lord is risen indeed ..."
What Jesus had taught the two, undoubtedly became a basis of the early church's teachings for the many.
The men who penned the New Testament books by the leading of the Holy Spirit had those Emmaus teachings to draw from. They could go back through the Old Testament -- Moses and the prophets -- and see where the Lord had revealed Himself.
And it all started with an encounter with the Risen Christ.
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"You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come Me that you may have life." -- John 5:39-40
"For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?" -- John 5:46-47
What I'm Reading Now: Revelation, Numbers, Luke, Proverbs, Psalms.
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