April 26
“And they (the Emmaus disciples) said to one another, ‘Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scripture to us?’ So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, ‘The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!’ And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread,” Luke 24:32-35.
After the Lord Jesus had suddenly withdrawn His visible appearance from the two Emmaus disciples, they did not complain or bemoan the fact that He was gone. The first thing that they spoke about to each other was the effect that His Scriptural enlightenment had on them. Their hearts burned within them. Their hearts were warmed as they listened to Jesus open and explain the Scripture for them. Now they understood what Moses, the psalmist, and the prophets had written with reference to the promised Messiah and the Savior of the world. Now they knew what and why Jesus had suffered and endured in order to redeem all people.
Earlier in the day, the death of Jesus Christ still filled them with sadness and mourning. However, having walked along the road with one who seemingly was a Stranger, but who had touched their hearts and opened their eyes to an understanding of Scripture, they now realized that they had seen the resurrected Jesus!
Why the two disciples had come to Emmaus in the first place, we are not told. If originally they had some good reason for coming to Emmaus, it appears that they might have forgotten why they came. The fact that they had seen the living Jesus moved them at once to return to Jerusalem to tell the eleven disciples that they had walked and talked with Jesus along the road to Emmaus and that their eyes were opened to recognize Him as they sat at the table to eat. Of course, the eleven disciples reported to them that Simon had also seen Jesus, and that indeed the Lord was risen!
When we believe that Jesus suffered and died to redeem us and that He came forth victoriously from the grave and conquered sin, death, and the devil, we cannot silently sit by. We must rise to our feet to go and tell and share the Good News with others! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! We worship a living Savior, who is the Son of God and the Son of Man, whom the heavenly Father sent as He had promised. God’s Son died on the cross and shed His blood to wash away our sins, and on the third day He walked out of the grave as the Victor over death.
We who believe and trust in Him have His promise that our bodies will also be raised from the dead and be reunited with the soul to live in the halls of heaven forever. May that faith and hope be strengthened in the heart of each of us.
“Christ the Lord is ris’n again;
Christ has broken death’s strong chain.
Hark, the angels shout for joy,
Singing evermore on high: ‘Hallelujah!’
He who bore all pain and loss,
Comfortless upon the cross,
Lives in glory now on high,
Pleads for us and hears our cry: ‘Hallelujah!’” Amen.