Not Recognising Jesus

The Washington Post, a newspaper in the States, a few years ago reported on a violinist who went and played. We have a brilliant violinist here who played at a metro station in Washington DC. And he played for forty-five straight minutes wearing shabby, drab clothes, but he played beautifully. And in these forty-five minutes, only six people stopped to listen. In the forty-five minutes, he made $27 in tips. And at the end of the forty-five minutes, he packed up and went home.

The Washington Post wrote that the violinist's name was Josh Bell. No one knew it, explained the Washington Post reporter Gene Weingarten, but the fiddler standing against the bare wall outside the metro station in an indoor arcade at the stop at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. Normally, Josh Bell would play to sold-out audiences who would pay over a hundred dollars per ticket to see him. It's an interesting experiment, isn't it? How do you think you'd go?

I mean, Lisa was nodding, recognising the name, I'm guessing. But how would one of us go walking by violinists playing a song? Would we pick up on it? Would we hear the quality? Would we recognise?

Would we understand the character and the talent and the quality of the music? Or would the pressure of getting home, getting onto the train or the subway, drown out this music? Or even if you did pick up that this guy is pretty decent, how much of his daggy appearance or the daggy train station surroundings would have affected your opinion of him? We might have thought that he's good, but he's not great. He's almost got it.

You know, like that song was nearly perfect, but I think I heard a false note there somewhere. This morning we're going to look at a story of Jesus sharing a meal with two disciples after the resurrection in Luke 24, who had no idea who they were breaking bread with. They did not recognise Jesus Christ, the saviour, the resurrected Lord while they were sitting with Him, while they were talking with Him. We find it in the last chapter of Luke's account of the gospel, and we're going to read that now. Luke 24 and we start from verse 13.

Luke 24, verse 13. Now that same day, two of them, two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus Himself came up and walked among them, along with them, but they were kept from recognising Him. He asked them, what are you discussing together as you walk along?

They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them named Cleopas asked him, are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days? What things? he asked. Well, 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 is the third day since it all 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 that 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 him they did not see. He said to them, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Christ 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 acted as though He was going farther. 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, 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 we talked, while He talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us? They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. They found the eleven and those staying 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. So far our reading.

This was Resurrection Sunday. They had heard from these two gentlemen, from the women who had seen the angels who had told them that Jesus was not dead anymore, somehow. But they had been in Jerusalem for three days, and it was time for them to head back home. One of the men we assume was from a town called Emmaus about eleven kilometres away. But we don't really know.

We assume. Luke doesn't tell us explicitly why they were going back there. Some have suggested that it was because of the Passover that they had gone to Jerusalem at the time, and perhaps they couldn't stay in Jerusalem very much longer because there were so many people there at the time. But on their way back to Emmaus, a traveller joins them. He seems absolutely oblivious to the commotion that had been going on in Jerusalem.

I don't think we can stress enough how disruptive this event would have been on that particular Passover weekend. The crucifixion would have been on the six o'clock news if they had such a thing. The traveller says to them, you guys seem a bit thick to me, but after they've told him the story, he says to them, I can't believe you don't understand this, but this makes a lot of sense. What has happened makes a lot of sense. God's Messiah was meant to have gone through these things.

Don't you understand? And he starts quoting parts of scripture. He starts explaining to them aspects of the Old Testament that show that this was meant to happen. He might have gone to Isaiah 53 and the suffering servant. He may have gone to Psalm 22.

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? The words that Jesus uttered. He goes to Deuteronomy and all these places, and he puts it together for them. And they're both left in some sort of contemplation while they continue walking these eleven kilometres silently and thoughtfully perhaps. But soon they get to Emmaus, they get to the highway exit, and they have to go home. And Jesus pretends, He makes as though He's going on further, and they urge Him to stay and they say, it's getting dark.

Come and stay with us. And that night, after washing up and getting ready and finding a bit of food, they put their bags down, they settle at the table, and they sit around the table. And while they're sitting down, the guest stands up in the role of a guest of honour, and he takes the bread and he breaks it. And he thanks God for the food. And then all of a sudden, it clicks.

All His knowledge of the scriptures, the way that He taught them, the way that He spoke, the way that He prayed, this was Jesus in the flesh. But before they get a chance to ask Him, He's gone. He disappears without a trace. Now, has it ever happened to you that you're in a grocery store or a shopping centre, someone comes up to you, all eyes beaming, a big smile on their face, and they say, hey, it's you. How are you?

And your smile fades as you recognise that you do not recognise them. You have absolutely no idea who this person is. Now, I wonder how terrible they felt that night, not recognising Jesus, being called one of His disciples. Many people have written that these two men must have been perhaps so traumatised, so wracked with grief at all the things that they had been through in those three days, that they were so depressed they were not able to recognise Jesus.

Or others have suggested maybe Jesus in His glorified body was different, was somehow transformed. But Luke and the Bible doesn't give us a simplistic answer like that at all. Verse 16 says, but they were kept from recognising Him. They were kept from recognising Him. The Holy Spirit is involved in this.

And we see in this moment the providential, sovereign hand of God playing a role in this, and we can cast our mind back onto so many different examples of this in scripture. We think of Job, who by God's hand and intervention is given so much and then taken away instantly. Instantly. We see examples of King Saul, who by the hand of God receives an evil spirit that enters his heart and mind. We see examples of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, whose heart is hardened by the working of God.

Something significant is happening here. And we have to ask the question, why? Why would the Holy Spirit be involved in keeping minds from recognising Jesus? Why delay the joyful delight of seeing and recognising their raised saviour? Why, on the other hand, lengthen their grief?

Well, it's because Jesus had a point to make. Jesus needed to teach these disciples in the scriptures about Himself. See, people didn't expect a crucified Messiah. They didn't expect that the promised saviour of all of Israel would die, and even fewer believed that He would be raised from the dead. So Jesus took the opportunity of a three-hour discussion to carefully lay out the scriptures to them.

Nathaniel spoke about a friend who laid out the scriptures for him. And we see God providentially keeping minds dull, and instead of, you know, going into questions that would have been unhelpful, how was death like Jesus? Where did You go? How did it feel like? Jesus gives something that is far more worthwhile, that is far more comforting for the disciples. These disciples who would now go on through life bearing witness to a saviour who would turn everything upside down.

He was reciting to Jesus Isaiah 53, that the saviour would be pierced for our transgressions, that He would be crushed for our iniquities, that the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, that by His wounds we are healed. Jesus would have been telling them about Deuteronomy 21, verse 23, that anyone who is hung on a tree is cursed by God. He would have taken them to Deuteronomy 18, verse 15, where Moses said that there is a prophet, even greater than himself, who would be coming and that we would have to listen to Him, that we should listen to Him. Perhaps He took them to Zechariah 9, verse 9, which happened only a week before, where Zechariah the prophet foresaw a king coming on a donkey into the streets of Jerusalem.

Three hours of unpacking and explaining these short passages, one by one. Jesus takes and He explains and He teaches them, and He had all this uninterrupted time, a captive audience for three hours, so hungry, so desperate for answers, so ready for the good news of a risen saviour. But now came the curtain raiser, the meal time. And it happened so quickly, but as soon as Jesus is done praying for the meal, they recognise that the hand of God is lifted over their eyes and they know.

Their eyes are opened and Luke says verse 31 that they instantly know it is Jesus Christ, their master. But in that moment also He disappears. Now we know, later in this chapter, He appears just as instantaneously to the eleven disciples. He comes to them in verse 36, and we see Jesus all of a sudden standing among them. And theologians, again, we wrestle with this idea of Jesus' resurrected body somehow being able to disappear and teleport like this.

This new, glorified body was able to pass through doors, locked doors. Jesus miraculously appeared behind closed doors, and between His resurrection and His ascension, appeared to 500 witnesses of Him. The apostle Paul would later write, we can't explain this. We can't explain how this happens, other than to say it is as miraculous as a blind man born blind being able to see by Jesus. It is as miraculous as telling a paralysed man to get up from his mat, to pick it up and to walk.

It is as hard to understand for us as it is for the first eyewitnesses of that time. Luke and the disciples don't try to give an explanation. They just say, He was there, and then He was gone. But freaking out His disciples is not Jesus' priority either. Jesus' priority was doing what He was doing with them before they recognised Him.

Later in chapter 24, we again see Jesus teaching and eating with His people. Jesus meets the eleven disciples again, and He asked them for something to eat. They give Him, in verses 42 and 43, they give Him some broiled fish, and He ate it in their presence. Verse 43 says Jesus then goes on in verse 44 to explain to them: everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms.

He does exactly the same thing now with the eleven. He has to explain what His death meant. He has to explain what His resurrection meant. And in this moment, He is beginning to equip them for the ministry ahead. But then He eats with them.

He eats with them. He spends time with them. He comforts them with His presence. His eating of the broiled fish, theologians again say, proves that He wasn't a spirit or a ghost. You know, you watch Casper movies or something, He tries to eat an apple, it will just fall straight through.

This is flesh and bone, physical. Real, physical Jesus is here. So Jesus has risen. He indeed is alive. And so, friends, we are so encouraged this morning that we don't worship a good man who died a long time ago.

We don't follow the teachings of a man who was just a human like you and me. We see and we experience and we have testimony of an immortal God, an undying God, eating with and comforting those people who really needed to see Him. Who really needed to know that their hope hadn't been shattered. That in fact, their hope had been strengthened a hundred times over. Jesus is the real deal, the promised king, the fulfilment of scripture.

Just as it was always intended to have happened. This last meal that Jesus presided over with the two disciples from Emmaus and then later the bit of broiled fish that Jesus ate not only gave the context for Jesus to explain why He had to die, it's not just a random event, but these moments, eating with His disciples, enacted, I believe, something even more significant. It enacted and it showed a promised future glory. With Jesus sitting there in the flesh, He gave His disciples the confidence that all that Jesus had taught and said during His ministry now had some real authority to it.

But Jesus sitting there eating with them, breaking bread with them, I think pointed to something that is far more exciting. We see in Matthew 22 and Luke 14, Jesus telling a story of a great banquet, a great wedding feast where all sorts of undeserving people are invited and brought to sit with Matthew 22 says a great king. Luke 14 says just a wealthy man. And they eat a lavish feast.

And then Jesus says, the kingdom of God is like this. Fast forward from those parables to this moment, and for the first time, these few men and women, these first believers of Christianity, came to grasp the unimaginable truth, the unimaginable joy of the gospel, that a great reversal had taken place. That their hero was alive. That death, even eternal death, had been conquered by a death. That life itself had been restored by the life of a perfect man.

The king of the universe had died a thief's death on a cross. And all of a sudden, these puzzle pieces are falling into place from the Old Testament. And yet here Jesus is, sitting, eating a piece of fish, breaking bread. Why? Because Jesus is pointing forward as well.

Instead of pointing backwards and explaining the prophecies and explaining the truths of His death and resurrection, Jesus is saying there's something yet to come. Yesterday, we had this great wedding ceremony, and if you were here, you would have seen food for Africa. It was just lavish, over the top. And it was a precious day, beautiful, two gorgeous people, seminars physically, but I'm talking more, you know, emotionally.

A young couple who had met here in this church coming together, being married in a church where they had grown up. The wedding service was beautiful, the celebration was joyful, and the food, ridiculous. But there's something funny I recognised as I was here and then later at the reception. Something that I have noticed a few times at weddings. You'll see someone every now and then with a distant look in their eyes, sort of just staring into a corner of a room somewhere, or into the distance, or with a vague smile on their face.

You see wives becoming gooey and giving their husbands spontaneous kisses all of a sudden. You see husbands putting their arms around their wives and squeezing them just a little bit tighter than usual. You see single people, girls especially, cooing about how cute the married couple look when they dance together. Why does this happen at weddings? Why do people get sentimental like that?

Because the married couples think back on their wedding day and the bliss and happiness of that moment. And the single people look forward with anticipation to that time. It's a moment marked with wonderful joy. And we find this metaphor, this scripture, this truth in the Bible. The book of Revelation gives us this language of a wedding feast, and it illustrates the moment when Christ welcomes every believer into His kingdom at last. Revelation 19, verses 6 to 9, talks about that moment where Jesus celebrates the final victory with His church.

Have a listen to these words. There's a loud chorus. There's a loud singing. It is like what we do here on Sundays, but just multiplied by a million. Multitudes singing with these words: Hallelujah, for our Lord God Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory, for the wedding of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean was given to her to wear. Then the angel said to me, write. Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb. Blessed are those, lucky, fortunate are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.

Why does Jesus break bread in the last moment with His disciples? Because He's pointing forward to something to come. That He would eat with them again. But this time a celebration feast and an inauguration of a world where every tear is going to be wiped away. Where there will be a joy without end.

The violinist, Josh Bell, at the start of the sermon wasn't recognised by people even when he played beautiful violin music. And they didn't recognise him because of his messy clothing or his drab context. But in the spotlight of the concert hall, he captivates imaginations and hearts and minds. Likewise, a time is coming for those who will place their trust and their faith and their commitment in a humble saviour who died, who suffered, who didn't get a kingdom by force. And then the time is coming where He will be a groom and He will enter a banquet hall in God's kingdom, dressed in splendour and in victory.

And He will fill the hearts of His disciples, those undeserving ones that have been called into the banquet hall with unspeakable joy, with a joy that knows no bounds. A joy that will, the Bible says, not be comparable to any heartache we face now, to any loss or frustration we go through. Friends, this is the Christian's hope. This is what will carry us through everything. It is a beautiful image of what this church is called to be.

It is a beautiful image of what will motivate us as a church to be what God wants us to be. Because in the end, it will all be worth it. Amen. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, it would not be right for us to begin by praying anything other than to say, Lord, come quickly.

We want to experience that moment. We want to experience unending joy. We want to taste a world, a life that is without frustration and heartache and loss. But we know Lord that there is work to do, and as You equipped and encouraged and strengthened Your disciples before You would go away by spending time with them, by breaking bread with them in anticipation, as a foretaste of what is to come, Lord, we know that we have been called into service as well.

But Lord, our motivation is a motivation of joy and hopeful anticipation. It is not out of fear. It is not out of guilt. It is not compulsion by manipulation. It is because of an unspeakable joy, a great confidence that our groom is waiting for us.

So we ask Lord, in this waiting, in this in-between time, Lord, that You will equip us and empower us and give us great courage to be the men and the women, be the young people You have called us to be. To work very diligently and constructively in Your kingdom, to extend and expand it the way that You are calling us to, to work acts of service, good works in those things that You have prepared in advance for us to do. So we ask Lord that You will give us the giftings, that You will lead us by Your Spirit, that You will use us mightily and powerfully. Father, refine us where we stand stubbornly against Your will. Break our backs if we stand up against You.

But father, graciously, graciously, mercifully guide us to experience wonderful joys in service of our King. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.