Broken hopes, broken dreams, promises left unfulfilled. They all lay like shattered glass and dishes at the disciples feet. What was left for their lives but to go back to their former jobs and hope that the religious authorities would not come after them as they had for Jesus. But wait, hadn’t some of their women come with messages that they had seen an angel who had told them that Jesus was risen from the dead? And just now a couple who had earlier in the day left Jerusalem to return home came back with words that Jesus had met and spoken with them along their way home. Could it possibly be true that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead, and that all they had earlier believed in about Him was true? This is where we find the disciples as we open our Gospel reading for this week.
As our Scripture passage begins, two of Jesus’ followers, Cleopas and his companion, had just finished telling the others that Jesus had met them and spoken with them as they had journeyed to their home in the village of Emmaus. Just as they finished speaking, Jesus appeared to the group gathered together (vs. 36). Imagine if you were with some of your friends, mourning the death of someone you all loved dearly, and suddenly you see him standing right in front of you! You might think, as they did, that you were seeing a ghost or spirit of your deceased friend (vs. 37). Even after the testimony of the women earlier, and now the testimony of two of their fellow disciples, they were having a difficult time truly believing that Jesus had risen.
As we continue to read though, Jesus didn’t chastise them for their doubts. He gave them reassurance, along with solid, reasonable proof that He was risen (vs. 38-43). Jesus’ body was not a figment of the imagination. When a group of over a dozen people are all seeing and hearing the same exact thing, exactly the same way, it is not just imagination or hallucination. Nor was this a ghost they were seeing. The disciples were invited to come up and touch His body. A ghost is not a solid body. One can see through a ghost, but Jesus had a solid body that they couldn’t see through. Ghosts don’t eat food, yet Jesus ate a fish dinner, with honey for dessert. His body, though, was a Resurrection body, as He could suddenly appear and disappear, but He was alive, no longer dead and in the grave.
Another proof that Jesus gave to the disciples gathered that evening, to show that He was, indeed, the risen Savior, was that He showed them His hands and feet (vs. 40). This was proof that He wasn’t just someone who looked a lot like Jesus, such as perhaps a half-brother or cousin who looked a lot like Him. Jesus had the nail prints in His hands and feet, proving that He was the crucified Savior, risen from the dead. Those scars upon the hands and feet of Jesus are very important to believers. We are engraved as scars on Jesus’ hands. They are the signs of what He did to pay the price for our salvation from sin. The scars are a reminder of God’s incredible love for us. Those scars of love are always before His eyes.
As our Scripture continues, Jesus told them that all which had happened was a fulfillment of the prophecies in the Old Testament (vs. 44). God always succeeds in carrying out His plans. Jesus promised to pay for our sins and deliver us from the penalty of death, which is exactly what He did. Jesus then opened believers’ understanding to comprehend the Scriptures (vs. 45). The things of the Spirit of God are foolishness to the unsaved and lost (I Corinthians 2:14). It is as if they have blinders upon their eyes and their mind, and do not understand the Word of God, which seems like nonsense to them. The Lord’s wisdom, which we receive from the Holy Spirit who indwells believers, helps us understand and accept the truth of God’s Word.
Relationship with Jesus Christ carries the responsibility to proclaim the Gospel to others (vs. 47). Spreading the message of Jesus to others was to start in Jerusalem, and then go forth to all nations. We, too, are witnesses, and have been entrusted with the mandate to spread the Gospel (vs. 48). The disciples there that evening did not just sit on this message, and neither should we. We have a message to bring to the world, a message of hope, a message of how they can have peace with God, salvation from their sins, and an eternity in glory.
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