Luke 24:13-35 records the story of two disheartened disciples and how the Lord met them in their need. There are many times in our lives when we may feel like the two forlorn travelers walking the Emmaus Road. We thought we had a handle on things. We believed we were being led by the Lord Himself. Then one single event, a calamity, shatters all we thought we knew. All at once, everything changes, and we’re forced to question assumptions we once held.
One thing we can learn from the story of the Emmaus Road is that the Lord can use these moments to teach us more about Himself. He uses these opportunities to help us see that our vision of His will and His plan is so often distorted by our own limited understanding. We fail to grasp the big picture, and His picture is so much bigger than we can imagine.
These disciples were suffering from some false assumptions. First, they thought that Christ’s plans while here on earth could not possibly have included His crucifixion at the hands of His enemies. Their second error was in thinking that He could not possibly have risen from the dead. Our Lord gently dispels these assumptions. Using Scripture, He brings them to a more complete understanding of Himself.
An unexpected guest
The Lord Jesus found these men wandering down the road discussing current affairs. They were distraught since they had pinned all their hopes on Jesus. Now He was dead. They were at a point where their faith and their plans did not coincide. In verse 24, one of them says, “We trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel.” Rumors were swirling that His grave was empty and He had risen from the dead. How could this be? It was impossible. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Were these women, who reported that Jesus had risen, misled by their emotions?
As the Lord spoke with them, He challenged their preconceived notions of what the Christ should do and what He should be. He turned their thoughts to the Word to show Himself to them. He explained the big picture to them—a beautiful tapestry woven throughout Scriptures. There we learn that the Law, with its sacrifices and offerings, points to Christ. We find the prophets spoke of Him, as we would expect. However, I have a feeling that the prophecies Christ pointed out that day had more to do with a suffering Messiah than those disciples had ever considered before.
What I find most interesting about this story is how the Lord does not reveal Himself to them until the very end. He started by joining them on the road and asking questions. The travelers were surprised to find someone that apparently had not heard of the developments in Jerusalem. In verse 18, one of them asks the Lord, “Are you a stranger to Jerusalem?” That is like a saying we have in the southern United States when we encounter someone who is unfamiliar with something. We say, “You ain’t from around here, are you?” But our Lord was using this to cause these men to open up. He was moving and positioning them for what He was going to say next. He was setting them up for a learning opportunity.
As they opened up to Him and told Him things He already knew, our Lord used their own account of the events to explain to them the picture that is painted of Himself throughout the Old Testament. He prefaced what He was about to say with the loaded question: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?” (v.?26). This gave Him the open door to explain God’s plan and how it was foretold in Scripture.
Oh, what I would give to have been at that Bible study! To have the Lord Jesus Christ Himself give an Old Testament survey of Messianic symbolism and prophecies. To have the One who put the plan together and executed it walk with you and explain it all would have been superb! Through it all, the Lord was correcting their vision of the Christ and who He is.
Other wandering disciples
How often do we find ourselves on life’s road with a broken dream? We have had our bubbles burst by some event. We feel God should have acted in a certain way. We have our own preconceived notions of the direction our lives should go and ultimately how we think God should act in a particular situation. When things don’t go that way, or when the props are knocked out from under us, we can find ourselves, like the disciples, questioning what is going on. We come to a place where our faith and our plans do not coincide.
It is at this point that God will speak to us and instruct us. God uses these times of disappointment and sorrow to draw us closer to Himself and teach us more about who He is. He may reveal more of His plan to us. C.S. Lewis wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
On the road, the Lord found His own people struggling with His plan for the salvation of the world. They could not understand how the death of the Messiah could be a good thing. He found their hearts opened by their pain and He poured His truth into them.
A final revelation
As always, once someone responds to the revelation that has been given them, our Lord reveals more of Himself to them. When Jesus acted as if He was going to continue on, they pressed Him to stay with them a little longer. I don’t think they were done with their Bible study.
It is after this that the Lord revealed His true identity. I think it is significant that “He was known of them in breaking of bread” (v.?35). How many of us, as we sit and reflect on Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection every week, find that He reveals more of Himself to us. When we meditate on His person, He in turn ministers to us. We are there to worship Him, and yet we go away having been ministered to.
When we look back at the times in our lives when God has used our pain and grief, we can often see His leading and prompting as well. These are the times that we can say, “Did not our hearts burn within us?” as we sense His guiding and ministering to us. As He corrects those false assumptions that we have of Him, He teaches us more of His true self. At those times when our faith and our plans don’t coincide, we need to ditch our plans and find out what His plan and purpose is. It is then that He will reveal more of Himself to us.