On the Road To Emmaus

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Our reading is from St. Luke's Gospel, chapter 24. Now, that same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about 7 miles from Jerusalem. They were talking to each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them.

But they were kept from recognising him. He asked them, what are you discussing together as you walk? They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days? What things?

He asked about Jesus of Nazareth. They replied, he was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death. And they crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.

And what is more, it's the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning, but didn't find his body. They came and told us they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it, just as the women had said.

But they didn't see Jesus. He said to them, how foolish you are and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.

As they approached the village to which they were going, jesus continued on as if he were going further. But they urged him strongly. Stay with us, for it is nearly evening. The day is almost over. So he went in to stay with them.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread. He gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him. And he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, were not our hearts burning within us?

While he talked to us on the road and opened the scriptures to us, they got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven. And those with them assembled together and saying, it is true. The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon. Then the two told what had happened on the way.

And how Jesus was recognised by them when he broke the bread. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thank you very much. And good morning, everyone.

It's wonderful to see so many of you here today. As Ben said earlier, my name is Sam, if you don't know me, and we've not met, I'm a member of the church family here at Totley, and it's a real pleasure to be with you here today as we look at this passage from Luke's gospel. We're having a break today from our Exodus series at the moment. And we're back to our series meals with Jesus, where we started in the summer. And we've seen Jesus having meals with many different types of people and really impacting in their lives.

And that's the same in our passage today as we see these two friends completely transformed. And that's what we're going to be thinking a bit more about today as we start. Why don't I just pray? Heavenly Father, we do thank you so much for Luke's gospel. We thank you that you choose to speak to us as one of your many gifts towards us.

And we pray very much that today, as we hear your word and think about you, that your holy spirit would very much open our eyes to see more of Jesus, see more of who he is, and long to get to know him even more. In his name we pray. Amen. Well, before we get to our passage today, let me just set the scene a bit about where we are in Luke's gospel. If we could have the next slide up.

You are going to be treated to a wonderful PowerPoint today, guys, just so you know, I've been let loose. So in chapter 23 of Luke, we see Jesus is crucified. He dies on the cross, and after he's dead, he's taken down and he's buried. This completely devastates his friend. Don't be misguided by that last picture.

We're not at the last picture yet. The tomb picture is where his friends are devastated, completely broken by the loss of their friends. And then in the first part of our chapter 24 today, we see some women. They go and visit the tomb and they see the tomb is empty. And they're told that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

Now, this is the last picture. They're excited. They are overjoyed. They can't believe what has happened. So they run from the tomb and they go and find the other disciples to tell them what has happened.

But it's fair to say they don't quite get the reaction they were hoping for. See, in verse eleven of our chapter, we're told the disciples didn't believe them because their words seemed like nonsense. Too good to be true, perhaps. Well, this brings us to our passage today, where, we're told, some friends were travelling to a village. Now, anyone who is in primary school currently, can you tell me how many friends there were in our passage and where they were travelling to?

Anyone, Sophie?

Not quite. Twelve. It's a good biblical guess. I like that. Anybody else?

Maybe people from secondary school could help them. Any hands? Go on, Sophie. Again, there were two friends. That's right.

And now open to everyone. Where were they travelling to? Emmaus. That's right. So if we could have the next slide up.

Thank you, Ben. So here are our two friends. They're travelling. You might not be able to see it quite on the map there, but it's a big arrow pointing to Emmaus. And these friends, they're travelling to Emmaus, and on the way, they're not spitting at each other, which that picture sort of looks like.

That's them talking to each other. They're going over what's happened over the last few days in Jerusalem and the things they've seen with Jesus. Now, I wonder if we can just try and imagine what these friends are feeling like. Jesus, he had been the great hope for his followers. Jesus was the one who was going to rescue them, to save them from the Romans.

We've seen these friends. They described Jesus later in our passage as a prophet, powerful in word and deed. Jesus was to be the great rescuer. Later, again in our passage, we see the two friends. They say, we had hoped he was the one who was going to redeem Israel, but now that hope is gone with his death, they are at a loss.

The hope of rescue has vanished with Jesus. We are told that they spoke with their faces downcast. So we just have the next slide, Ben. These are the two sad friends. Very sad.

And we see their hope of a saviour, of a rescuer is gone with the death of Jesus. See, these friends, they're sad, but it's more than just sad. They're grieving. They're grieving the loss of their friend, their leader. And heaped on top of that is their loss of hope as well.

Now, there may be people here in a similar situation. If we just bring up the next slide, Ben. That one, I hope is familiar to many of you and was taken earlier in the week and not following yesterday's losses for both teams as well. Of course, I'm referring to the current plight of the Sheffield football teams, both rooted very much to the bottom of the table. All hope is gone.

Now, that's a bit of a silly example. I know. And I know there'll be people sat here today or who have sat here in the past or who will sit here in the future, who will experience that feeling of loss, of grief, of hopelessness, for much more genuine reasons than football. Our broken world is full reasons to feel loss and hopelessness. And kids, I bet you've had this too.

Hands up whoever's had a friend who's moved away to a different school. Yeah, many of you, and maybe you've gone up to a new secondary school and your best friend has gone to a different school. The loss of a close friend is a very, very sad thing. And that's how these two friends felt in our passage today as they walked along to Emmaus. They were sad, downcast and hopeless.

If you just bring the next slide up, Ben. But there you go. There's a childish giggle from my son over there. I do often think it would be a great book to write the great buts of the Bible because the Bible is full of them, full of these transformations, because our story doesn't finish here. With our sad friends remaining in their position of sadness, things change for them.

Things completely turn around as on their journey, none other than Jesus himself comes to walk alongside them. If we just have the next slide up, then there's Jesus there. He's got a mask on, we're told in the passage. The two friends, they were kept from recognising him. I imagine it wasn't a case of he had silly glasses and a moustache on, but you don't know.

We're not told. So Jesus comes and walks alongside with these friends. They don't know who he is, but they talk to him all about what's been happening. They tell him the reasons they're feeling sad and what's happened in Jerusalem with Jesus dying. They tell him all about the women who told them that Jesus had risen.

And in response, Jesus says something quite surprising, I think. He says, how foolish you are and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. Now, that's really our key verse for today.

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. See, here we have something that's often described as the best Bible study there has ever been in history. It's Jesus talking with these two friends. He's going through the whole of the scriptures, the whole of the Bible. Showing them how they all point towards him, showing them that the whole Bible is leading us to an understanding of who Jesus is and showing us that he was the promised saviour, the one to rescue.

If we just have the next slide up, Ben. Well, these friends, they love it. They love what Jesus has been telling them and showing them. They're excited. The passage tells us their hearts were inflamed as Jesus spoke to them and showed them how scripture pointed towards him.

And so they encourage him to stay with them because they want to hear more. They are so eager to hear more from him. And it is when they have a meal together and Jesus breaks the bread and gives thanks, just like he had at the last supper, that their eyes are opened to see who he is. And they realise all along what's been happening. They realise it's been Jesus telling them and showing them how all of scripture points towards him.

Their hearts had burned for a reason, because it was Jesus who has been showing them that everything was pointing to him. That causes a great desire to burn with them, to know more and to get to know Jesus more. And we're going to look a little bit more about those sorts of things in the second talk in a little minute, but just as a little taster. So last week we were looking at Moses. Moses was being called by God in our passage to go and rescue his people.

Now, Moses didn't think he was up to the task. You see, Moses wasn't strong, he wasn't impressive, he wasn't mighty. But already there, just in that little bit, we see the pattern of an unexpected rescuer. And this is a pattern we see throughout the Bible. And again we see, pointing towards Jesus, because Jesus was an unexpected rescuer.

He wasn't weak, he wasn't massively impressive. He didn't die an impressive death. He died on a cross, a weak death, as people saw. And he did it to rescue us. So even in the beginning of the Bible, we see those patterns already pointing towards Jesus.

And we're going to see more examples in our second half of the talk. But today, now, sorry, we are going to pray, and John is going to come and pray for us as we speak to the God who we can know, because Jesus is that great unexpected rescuer. Thank you, John. Two. We have seen in our friends, haven't we, a great transformation.

They started on their walk to Emmaus. They were heads downcasts. They were grieving the loss of, of their friend and their hope. But by the ends, their hearts are full of joy and desire to see more of Jesus and to know him more. They're so full of excitement.

They go and they run and they tell the disciples everything that had happened. You see, our picture here is summarising. That verse we said was our key verse, that the whole of scripture is pointing to Jesus. It wants us to know who he is. In some of my reading for today, I read that scholars think there's anywhere between.

And I don't know why it's such a wide estimate, anywhere between 300 to 570 direct prophecies that are fulfilled in Jesus. And that's on top of the pictures we see, like Moses as well. So I thought today we would play a game. A game. To see some of those examples.

It's a game I was going to practise at home with the family, but didn't get a chance. So it could be absolute chaos. But we'll go for it anyway. So we're gonna play. It's a catchy name.

Old Testament prophecy, fulfilment, bingo. Thank you very much. So what we're gonna do, I'm gonna hand out some sheets.

So I have got some bingo sheets here that I have a three x three grid on. So everyone knows how to play bingo today. So on your sheet here, there are nine old Testament verses, and one by one, I'm going to pull out some verses out of a hat. And if that verse is on your sheet, you can cross it off on your sheet. And if you get three in a row, up, down or diagonal, you are the winner, and you can shout bingo.

So I've got 20 bingo sheets. So I'd like you to get into a team with people around you, and then send a volunteer to come up and grab a bingo sheet and a pen.

You probably need to be in about at least groups of sort of five, six people, I would think.

Chocolate smell. You're going to be a team.

Let me hand them out, guys, look, so I know how we're doing.

You've got a pen, so you need a sheet. Okay, bian, you're gonna grab one.

All right? How many have we got left? Oh, you need a pen. Sorry, guys.

Welcome, welcome.

You got the yellow. It might not work that well.

Now, are you guys all one team, or. How many sheets do you need here? Two? Do you want to take that one? There you go.

Good. Laugh as well.

You don't need a pen. You guys want one?

So you've got a pen already. Just give you guys a sheet. Brilliant. And a pen.

Do you need a pen as well?

There you go. Great.

Brilliant. Thank you, everyone. So Mel reminded me to highlight, there are prizes for the winners. Okay, thank you.

Brilliant. Could I have a volunteer to come and pull out the first verse from the bowl? Isabelle, do you want to come and pick one out?

Tell him what you got.

That one. Shy rich, do you want me to read that? So this is Isaiah 50 312. Just be careful here. Listen to the verse, because I think there are actually two of these.

So the verse we've pulled out says, therefore, I will give him a portion among the great. He will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors. So if you have that verse on your sheet, you can mark that off.

It is, shall I read it again? Isaiah 50 312. But the one that says, therefore, I will give him a portion among the great. And we will see as we go through, we will see on the slide shows that actually we all have corresponding to each Old Testament verse, we have got a new Testament verse which shows us how that verse is fulfilled in Jesus. So this one, the Old Testament passage, talking that a saviour would be killed with the criminals.

And in Matthew's gospel, we see that the verses, two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. So we see there Jesus fulfilling that promise from the Old Testament. Great. Could I have another volunteer? Oh, God, you won the race.

Thank you very much. Let's see what this one is. So this one is psalm 72, ten to eleven. So this psalm says, may the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores bring tribute to him. May the kings of Sheba and Seba present him gifts.

May all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him. And so there we see the Old Testament telling us that at the saviour's birth he is going to be given gifts by kings. And we see in the New Testament, again, in Matthew's gospel, on coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. So again we see Jesus.

The Old Testament is pointing us to who Jesus is, showing us that he is going to be the one, the promised Saviour. So this is where it could end up being a very short game of bingo. Has anyone got two in a row or a few pieces? So this really has a risk of being a very short game of bingo. Dan, you had your hand up before as well.

Make sure you don't pick the winning one for your dad, okay? Otherwise there'll be lots of questions.

Great, thank you, Dan. So this is Zechariah. Nine nine. Bingo. Already?

Yeah. It's amazing.

So this verse says, rejoice greatly, daughter Zion. Shout, daughter Jerusalem. See your king comes to you righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt to the foal of a donkey. And so we see there the promise that the saviour, he was going to be called a king and he was going to ride on the donkey. And we see again in Matthew's gospel above his head, they place the written charge against him.

This is Jesus, king of the Jews. Great. Well, congratulations to Ed's team. You can have the prize.

There will be an element of trust in this game. We believe Ed and his team, but we can see there and we didn't get through them. But I just picked out twelve verses from the Old Testament that we can see up on the screen, that all have a fulfilment in Jesus. They all point us to show us things like the saviour would come from the line of Jacob, that he would be born of the family of Jesse. We see that he would be born in Bethlehem, we see that he would be worshipped, that he would be called the king, that he would speak in parables.

All of these things we see from the Old Testament, and they all point us to Jesus and we see those fulfilments in the New Testament. Well, thank you very much for playing in that game with us. They're just some of the ways that the Old Testament shows us who Jesus is, that he was the promised saviour who would save people from their sins. Now, as we start to draw to a close, I just wanted to highlight quickly three more ways that the Old Testament points us to Jesus, and these ways relate to some promises that we see at the beginning of the Bible. Now, again, if you are in primary school, what is the first book of the Bible?

You're in secondary school, girls. Dan forgot Sam? Genesis. Thank you very much. So in Genesis twelve, God makes three promises to a man called Abraham.

Now, can anyone tell me what any of those promises are? Sophie?

Yeah. So, yeah, it was going to have as many descendants as the stars, so they were going to become a great nation. That was one of them. Anybody else got another one?

Sophie, go on. No one else has got the hand up. Lots of land. Exactly. And the last one, Fiona, what was that to?

What? Sorry?

Yes, a child. Yes. So that one, definitely one of them. He's going to become a great nation and have many descendants. What's the third one?

Does anybody know?

Isabel? Yeah, I'll take that. So they're going to live under God's rule, which is blessing. So they were promised a blessing which comes with living under God's rule, certainly. So these are promises in the Old Testament that were made back in Genesis.

And they're promises that we can see God keeping them throughout the whole of the Bible and throughout the whole of history. They're promises that he's still keeping today and promises that we can claim because of Jesus. Ben, if we could just have the next slide up or a few slides. There you go. This is the wonderful last slide of those three promises.

See the promise of a people we see. They point us to Jesus. They're fulfilled in Jesus because God's people are gathered in Jesus. The New Testament constantly talks about us being in Jesus. All people from every tribe, tongue and nation gathered together in Jesus, both now and in the future.

The promise of a land again we see fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus is the one who gives us a home, a place to belong, a place to live, a kingdom to be a part of where we can dwell with God again, both now and forever. And finally, the promise of blessing we see fulfilled in Jesus. It's in Jesus we have many blessings, but none more so than the Holy Spirit who comes to live within us because of Jesus. God himself living within us.

You see, what our passage is showing us today is that God wants us to know who he is. He wants us to know him and to enjoy him. And he does this by showing us who Jesus is, by giving us a whole 66 books, who all tell one story and all point us to Jesus as the promised saviour. So as we finish, let me ask you, do you want to know God? Do you want to have a desire burning within you to know Jesus more?

I'm sure that's something we would all love to answer yes to. I'm sure a few of you probably nodded your heads. But let me ask you a slightly different question. Do your Bible reading habits back that answer up? Do you read your Bible outside of Sunday at all?

If you do, is it because you feel like you ought to or because you've got that desire to see Jesus? Now I'm not asking that question to heap guilt on people. I don't want any of you to go away feeling downcast and guilty merely to get us thinking about our hearts and where they stand before Jesus. Because even if we haven't been reading our bibles, even if we have no desire generally to, God will still speak to us when we do. He still wants us to know him.

Despite us wandering far from him many times, God will still long for us to come back to him. See, the whole of the Bible is crying out for us to see more of Jesus, to know him more, to enjoy him more as our saviour, to have our hearts burn within us as we see Jesus jumping off of the pages of scriptures. To us, you see, it truly is a wonderful part of being a Christian that we have a God who is not distant, but who wants us to know him, who wants us to enjoy him, and who shows us who he is in Jesus. So let's focus on him. Let's spend time seeing who he is through the Bible and grow in our knowledge and our love and relationship with him.

So let me pray as we finish.

Heavenly Father and gracious God, we thank you so much that you do not keep yourself hidden from us, but you show us who you are in Jesus. We thank you that we have free access to the Bible, that we can read all the things that Jesus has done and see all of those pictures and patterns that point us towards him and all of the ways in which he fulfils the Old Testament promises. We pray that you would just continue to open our eyes to see more of who he is and more of his glory, and that we may desire him and worship him more and more. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Well, thank you very much for listening, everyone. We are going to sing a song now.