The Emmaus Road

The story of Jesus meeting two travelers on the road to Emmaus, a small village seven miles from Jerusalem, is recorded in great detail in the Gospel of Luke Chapter 24:13-35. According to Luke, the story takes place on the evening of the day ( Sunday) Jesus was resurrected. One of the men is named Cleopas and the other remains unnamed. These two men were discussing the events that had taken place in Jerusalem over the recent Passover weekend, and in particular what had happened to the man named Jesus, who was crucified. They had also heard that Jesus’ body was now missing from the tomb and some were claiming that he was, in fact, alive. 

While they were walking and talking, Jesus came alongside them and began walking with them and listening to their discussion. They were prevented from recognizing him and were shocked that he didn’t seem to know about all these terrible things that had taken place over the weekend. They were completely downcast because it seemed that their hoped-for Messiah had now been killed by the Romans. Jesus interrupted them and told these men that they were not seeing clearly and weren’t understanding why all these sequences of events had to have taken place.

The next set of verses in this story, Ch. 24:25-27, are some of the most profound and revelatory words in scripture, but we probably read right over it! ”Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter His glory? And beginning with Moses and the Prophets he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself”. What “scriptures” was he talking about? The Old (Hebrew) Testament!! By saying, “beginning with Moses”, he was saying, the Torah and all the prophets. In other words, he was saying the whole of the Old Testament tells the story of how God’s only son had to come to earth, be crucified on a cross to be our Passover Lamb and then rise again on the 3rd day! Wouldn’t you have liked to have been in on that lesson? He would have shown them all the prophecies that had to be fulfilled to bring him to the spot where the events of the past weekend had unfolded. Can you imagine the look on their faces as everything became clear to them? The text says that after he had explained the scriptures to them, their eyes were opened and they recognized him as the risen Jesus! That phrase, “recognized” meant more than just him as a man-they now knew he was the promised Messiah.

The verses in Luke 24:25-27 are something we just typically overlook, but what he was saying was that Jesus is in the whole Bible, not just the New Testament. From Genesis to Maps, Jesus is on every page, we are just not always seeing him there. The whole Bible is one long thread that wonderfully portrays our Messiah Jesus as our Risen Savior.  Don’t we serve an amazing God?