Luke 24:13-18
Well, let’s turn in our Bibles to Luke chapter 24, where we’ve come to one of the great passages in Luke’s Gospel, that is one that is unique to Luke’s Gospel. You’re not going to find this in any of the other Gospels, anywhere else in Scripture, but here in Luke’s Gospel, this is when the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, a little village of Emmaus, have an encounter with the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
We’re going to be spending a few weeks in this account, and so I’m going to begin by reading the entire section Luke 24:13 to 35. But this, this account of what happened on the Road to Emmaus, you’ll see, is not just a bear record of the facts. It is, a, as I hope you will see and discover, this is the work of the master storyteller. It’s very carefully written, expertly crafted, not crafted in the sense of an invention, this is the true record, but the way it’s woven together in a narrative is clearly a work of loving devotion by the Gospel writer Luke.
Luke here in Luke 24:13 to 35 is bringing us back to a journey narrative, and that is the same setting that really dominated the majority. The largest section of this Gospel, which is the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, started in Luke 9:51 and ended in Luke 19:45 when Jesus entered into the temple. Luke brings us back to that journey setting once again, but instead of these disciples entering into Jerusalem from somewhere else, they leave Jerusalem for a small village and Jesus joins them and then retrieves them and in the end brings them back to Jerusalem. Which is kind of interesting because Luke is setting up, here at the end of Luke’s Gospel, he’s setting us up for Acts chapter 1, where the gospel goes forth from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and then to the uttermost parts of the earth.
Jerusalem is a key setting for Luke. In fact, that’s where he starts his Gospel, and that’s where he ends his Gospel as well, in Jerusalem. The account flows along easily enough, kind of like an afternoon walk. But the risen Jesus draws near to these two friends who are walking and talking on their journey. He enters into their conversation in verses 13 to 18. He draws out their thoughts in verses 19 to 24. And after he draws out their thoughts, that’s where things get really interesting.
Let’s read starting at verse 13. “And behold, two of them were going that same day to a village named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia from Jerusalem. And they were conversing with each other about all these things which had happened. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself approached and was going with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.
“And he said to them, ‘What are these words that you are discussing with one another as you are walking?’ And they stood still, looking sad, and one of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to him, ‘Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?’ And he said to them, ‘What things?’ And they said to him, ‘The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a mighty prophet in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to the sentence of death, and crucified him.
“But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel.’ Indeed, besides” all these, er, “all this, it is the third day since these things happened. ‘But also some women among us astounded us.” And, “when they were at the tomb early in the morning, and not finding his body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. ‘Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also said, but him they did not see.’
“And he said to them, ‘O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?’” And, “then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures. And they approached the village where they were going, and he acted as though he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, for it’s toward evening, and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them.
“And it happened that when he had reclined at the table with them, he took the bread and blessed it, and after breaking it, he was giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us on the road, while he was opening the Scriptures to us?’ And they stood up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found gathered the 11 and those who were with them, who were saying, ‘The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.’ And they were relating their experiences on the road and how he was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.”
The journey ends where it started. It ends in Jerusalem, where it started. And so Luke is really setting a framework here for the really the spiritual journey that they’re to take. These men start out in relative blindness, but they end in full sight, full recognition. They begin in ignorance, but they end up in the fullness of knowledge. These two encounter Jesus, this familiar stranger who seems ill-informed and quite ignorant at first glance, but in the end he turns out to be very well formed, informed indeed. Some have recognized in the literary structure that there is a chiastic pattern here.
A chiasm, as we’ve said before in our study of Luke’s Gospel, is the Greek letter Chi looks like an X. And so there are there are points at the extremities of the X that work into the middle to the most important central truth. Bookended at the extremities of that chiastic structure are the leaving and the returning to Jerusalem, and they leave Jerusalem in a state of ignorance and sorrow because of the weakness of their faith. They return to the city in a state of knowledge and great joy, strengthened in their faith.
I’m not going to go through all the elements of the chiastic structure, but any guess as to what occupies the very center point of this structure? It’s the message of the angels in verse 23 who said he was alive. As we’d expect, it’s the risen, living Christ who is the hinge point on which everything turns. And that is the case for every single one of us, isn’t it? For all who named the name of Jesus Christ, for all who have trusted in God and have found salvation in Jesus’ name. Our own personal encounter with the risen and living Christ is the turning point, the hinge point for all of our lives as well.
We are all like these two disciples, you could say, on the road to Emmaus, but until the Lord opens our eyes, until he illuminates the truth, maybe truth that we have heard for years, until he teaches us by his Spirit and instructs us from his Word, we’re just like them, aren’t we? Ignorant, discouraged, confused, perplexed. We can go a long time finding no benefit by our exposure to the truth, no change in our lives, no transformation from the inside out, from sound teaching, without the illuminating grace of God, the one who, by the Spirit, opens our eyes, allows us to see, enables us to interpret evidence correctly, accurately, and to understand.
And when that illumination happens, do not our hearts burn within us as we see him for who he is, as we see the pages of Scripture come alive, as the what we know and understand actually has effect in our hearts and changes us so that we no longer think or speak or do as we’ve always done, but we’re different. It happens when we encounter him as he is, as we see him for who he is, as the Spirit illuminates the truth to us and we discover Christ and we do that again and again and again throughout our Christian lives.
It’s really my prayer for you, Grace Church, that God will fan into a flame the faith that he has placed there, that by his Spirit and by his Word, you’ll be strong in believing. You’ll be steadfast in your obedience. You’ll be encouraged and steady. You’ll take up the joyful responsibility that all Christians have to be occupied and preoccupied with this great task of preaching the risen and living Lord Jesus Christ.
If what I’m saying doesn’t appeal to you at all, and you have no experience of grace, you have no experience of illumination, your life isn’t changed. You’re not any different than you were a year ago or two years ago, or five years ago, or 10 years ago, well then, my prayer for you is that you’ll be saved, that you’ll come to experience him maybe for the very first time. You’ll be recipient of his grace. You’ll be transformed, given a new nature by the new birth, and from the inside out, you will be a very, very different person.
So as we move through these verses, just always have this question in your mind as you walk through the text. As we do this together over the next couple weeks, consider and reflect on why Luke, who is, as I said, the only author to record this account, why he included this account in his Gospel. We’re going to have several answers to that. But why did he include this? Think about what would be missing from our Bibles if this weren’t here. We’re gonna tackle the, this section of verses in several chunks. And today we’re going to cover verses 13 to 18. Just the, the introduction really. I think there’s enough here for today to meditate on and to be of profit.
Let me give you a two main, two main points today. I’ll just give you the first for now and that’s this, that Jesus draws near the broken-hearted. Jesus draws near the broken-hearted. We got two broken-hearted men here in the text. Who are these broken-hearted men? Luke tells us in verse 13 there are two of them, two of whom? Well, they are two from the group in verse 9. Verse 9 mentions the company of the 11 to whom the women reported their encounter with the angels. They report all these things to the 11 and then there’s that group, to all the rest.
If you recall the 11 and all the rest have not had too stellar of a spiritual track record lately. They are the same ones, verse 11, who upon hearing the report of the women who returned from the tomb upon hearing the news of the resurrection from the angels, they thought these women were suffering some kind of hysteria. That’s the word that’s used there. It’s a, it’s a maybe they’ve got too much stimulation on too little sleep. These women are babbling and giving idle tales. That’s how they judge the message of the angels.
By the way, these are the angels that told these women to go remind these men and the apostles of Jesus’ teaching in Galilee as per verse 7. They were saying and all that in verse 7, “The Son of Man must be delivered in the hands of sinful men, be crucified, the third day rise again.” All that stuff they’re saying is just on the level of fables, tall tales, don’t bother us with that. And they were not believing them, the text says.
This is how those in verse 9 and verse 11, and these two as well, that’s how they started the morning. That’s their initial frame of mind as they head out on their journey. But let me add something to that. We saw last time that at the end of those verses, verse 12, something piqued Peter’s interest in what the women were saying. There was a spark that lit off in his heart. And so in verse 12, he shot up to his feet, ran to the tomb. He, along with his close friend John, that’s recorded in John chapter 20. And Peter discovered at least part of what the women had said turned out to be true.
There’s the stone rolled away, no body inside. More than that, he found evidence that contradicted any explanation of an empty tomb other than a resurrection. Goes in and sees there’s no body. So if Joseph and his servants had moved the body, or if maybe something more macabre and nefarious happened, like a grave robbery, well, why would those who move the body or those who stole the body, why would they remove the linen wrappings from the corpse? Makes no sense. Why take off the head covering as well, the wrapping and leave that neatly folded in the tomb? That makes no sense. So something about the women’s testimony was starting to settle in on Peter, have the ring of truth.
So we saw at the end of verse 12, Peter had to get away by himself, he had to think about all this. His mind is reeling. He’s marveling over what’s happened, but he has not put it all together yet. He too, being weak in faith, is not seeing the evidence clearly. This is the same frame of mind that Luke establishes for the two of them in verse 13 as they set off from Jerusalem.
Luke tells us it’s the same day as everything that had happened in verses 1 to 12. They come from the same place as the 11 and all the rest. They’ve heard the report of the women. They just, they too dismissed it as way too fantastic, incredulous. And yet they know that Peter and John have been to the tomb and back. The impulsive Peter is now left wondering. The more sensitive, pensive John is now believing at some level. And these two disciples, as per the summary of their conversation in verses 19 to 24, which we read, these two travelers, they seem to be caught in two minds. Because they’re not strong in faith, they’re not convicted, they’re not in the right direction, they don’t have an accurate understanding of the evidence.
They’re waffling between opinions and they’re debating with each other. Their departure from Jerusalem tells us something else, that this once tight group of disciples is now in disarray. In fact, you see with them leaving, these people are fractured now. The apostles of the Lord are no longer leading the group. I mean, they have kind of abdicated their role. They’ve all fled. So these people are fractured, not united. They’re separated. They’re not together. This discouraged group starts to break apart and these two start heading home.
Perhaps if things turned out differently, they’d have stayed in Jerusalem for the duration of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but that didn’t happen. Something terrible had happened. So getting out of the city where these things had happened, all the reminders of the horrible things that had happened that weekend, they’re up for a welcome change of scenery. Let’s go to Emmaus. Emmaus, the name means warm baths or thermal springs. It’s located somewhere in a valley of foothills northwest of Jerusalem.
There are about four sites that are suggested and argued over as the original location. But after two millennia, the little village has been, it’s proven, kind of hard to find. It’s buried under layers of stuff and building on top of it and all that. So the one that seems to best fit the evidence near Lifta, Israel is because of its location, its distance, and also it having those thermal springs. That area’s kind of swallowed up now by the suburbs of modern Jerusalem. But the ancients did seem to know the place.
Josephus speaks of Titus Vespasian, who before he’d become emperor was General Titus Vespasian and he once pitched his camp at Emmaus, which he says, quote, “If it be interpreted, may be rendered a warm bath for therein is a spring of warm water useful for healing.” End Quote. If you’ve ever spent time with troops on campaign in the field, you if you find a place to give them all a really hot bath, you need to take it. Let’s just say that’s good for morale. It’s good for the general smell.
And so after an eventful morning following this tragic, horrific weekend that ended in deep sorrow, and that weekend was preceded by an exciting week for them of hopeful anticipation, great messianic expectation, zeal, joy, rejoicing, everything ended with a crash sunk lower than the earth itself. And so these two friends leave on this seven-mile walk, 60 stadia from Jerusalem. Alfred Edersheim does a great job painting a, a picture to help us imagine the scene. I’ll read it. It’s a little bit long, but I think it’ll help paint a picture for your imagination.
He says, we have, “We have leave of that city by the western gate, a rapid progress for about 25 minutes and we have reached the edge of the plateau. The blood-stained city and the cloud and gloom-capped trying place of the followers of Jesus are behind us and with every step forward and upward the air seems fresher and freer, as if we felt it in the scent of the mountains or even the far off breezes of the sea. Other 25 or 30 minutes, perhaps a little more passing here and their country houses and we’re now getting beyond the dreary rocky region or entering on a valley.
“A short quarter of an hour more and we’ve left the well paved Roman road and are heading up a lovely valley. The path gently climbs in northwesterly direction, with the height on which Emmaus stands prominently before us. About equidistant are on the right, Lifta, on the left, Colonia. The roads from these two meet about a quarter of a mile to the South of Emmaus. What an Oasis this, in a region of hills.
Jesus himself approached and was going with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. Travis Allen
“Among the course of the stream which babbles down and low in the valley as crossed by a bridge, are scented orange and lemon gardens, olive groves, luscious fruit trees, pleasant enclosures, shady nooks, bright dwellings, and on the height, lovely Emmaus. A sweet spot to which to wander on that spring afternoon. A most suitable place where to meet such companionship and to find such teaching as on that Easter day.” End Quote.
So at the end of this afternoon’s journey are the comforts of home for these two. First, maybe a dip in the thermal springs for warm bath. Washing off the dust of the journey, soothing the tired muscles, then they can enjoy a simple but unhurried meal, relaxed continuing conversation before winding down for the evening and getting some long-awaited much needed sleep. That’s what these two disciples are expecting as they set out on their journey. It’s a three to four hour walk that would pass rather quickly as these men are engaged and engrossed in the most stimulating subject.
Verse 14 says, “They were conversing with each other about all these things which had happened.” They’re talking about it an afternoon. We’ve taken I don’t know how many weeks or months to cover it. So we understand there’s a lot here to talk about. They were conversing the word homileo, from which we get the word homily, or the study of homiletics. That’s applied usually to preaching. But the original word simply meant spending time with someone engaged in conversation. So picture these two friends walking and talking. That’s how it started. And after all that had happened, I mean, what else would occupy their minds? What else would they be discussing, talking about?
We read it earlier as we opened our time together, but we see what’s on their minds, but what is revealed in the summary report that they give to the risen Lord. And we find out that their frame of mind and their, and the tone of this is that these men are heartsick over the turn of events that has led up to the crucifixion. They’re totally perplexed about what’s going to happen now, what will follow. Are their hopes completely gone? Are they left now to be under the rule of the chief priests and their rulers, who wickedly handed over the one that they thought would be their Messiah, the one who thought they thought was rescuing them from false religion and heavy-handed shepherding.
What’s going to happen now? It’s important to point out that these men are troubled and sorrowful, deeply sad and disheartened, and we know that because of verse 25 as Jesus points out, they’re foolish, they’re slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken. The Lord truly, rightly points that out. But understand, these men are so deeply sad because they so deeply cared. They’re so troubled and hurt because they so deeply love the Lord. They put all their stock, all their hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. They didn’t have a plan B. He’s it. They were all in, all invested.
Subject to their conversation is anything but frivolous, anything but trivial. It’s substantial, it’s consequential. They believe still, even, even though their faith has been rocked. They, they want to find a way forward in faith, even though they can’t see it, even though now on the road in the bright light of the afternoon sun, they’re stumbling forward in spiritual darkness. I understand and you would be right to point out that there’s spiritual perplexity is a self-inflicted wound and it is one for which they are individually responsible, personally responsible.
It’s their duty to believe and to never stop believing. It’s their duty to drive away doubt with truth. The Lord’s going to gently expose that and directly confront it. We understand that. But still you need to see these two men love the Lord Jesus. They are grieving over what’s happened to him because they don’t yet understand and because of the subject of their conversation; all these things which have happened.
The next verse shows, indicates that the temperature of their conversation is rising. They were conversing same word as in verse 14, homileo, and then it says they were debating. Adverb in verse 15, the verb syzeteo, it turns up the heat on the conversation; sharper in tone, terser, more direct, more confrontational. It describes, as A.B. Bruce says, a, a lively discussion, perhaps accompanied by some heat. So one of them, the men might be, he supposes might be skeptical. The other more inclined to believe the story of the resurrection. You understand how that could go. They’re debating opinions, they’re disputing different points, maybe even arguing, and in so doing, maybe even sinning.
It’s right here, it’s right at this point that the risen Lord overtakes them on the road. Look again at verses 15 to 16, happened while they were conversing and debating. Jesus himself approached and was going with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. Prevented, it’s a verb that’s built from the word for power, one of the words for power, kratos. Kratos is a word that means unstoppable power and here the verb used in the passive voice, it refers to holding back or restraining or hindering. It’s in the perfect tense and it shows.
So it shows like a continual restraint is at work in their physical eyes. Luke is very clear to point out it’s not just their mental perception here, it’s their physical eyes that are hindered, prevented, keeping them from recognizing him, who they had known, him with whom they had shared meals, him with whom they had walked and talked. Several views as to what kept these disciples from recognizing Jesus. What was the power at work hindering them and preventing them from seeing and recognizing him. They’d been familiar with him in his pre-resurrection life and ministry. Now they can’t recognize him. It’s right in front of them, talking with him. Why is that?
One commentator comes out and says, Satan is the power keeping these men from recognizing Jesus. Satan’s not found in this context. I like to imagine him kind of still licking his wounds. He’s off somewhere else on maybe the other side of the world, doing devious deeds of deception and destruction over there, because what happened in the tomb, he did not see that coming. Satan’s not found here. He’s not in this context. Seems a great stretch and very unwise to invite him in, don’t you think? So that option, I believe, is out just on the basis of the context.
Others point to a summary statement in Mark chapter 16 verse 12, which uses these words to refer to Jesus as appearing to these two in a different form, an heteros morphe. Morphe referring to a form, so it’s a form. And the word, hetero, there’s two words for ‘another’, one is allos, one is heteros. Allos, means another of a same kind. Heteros means another of a different kind, all together different and that’s the word used in Mark 16:12. You need to understand though, that those verses Mark 16 verses 9 to 20, often set apart by brackets in your English translations. They’ve been mistakenly added to Mark’s shorter ending, which his Gospel ends at Mark 16 verse 8.
So there is no evidence other than that dubious verse that Jesus ever took on any different form after his resurrection. Fact, Jesus insists on exactly the opposite in verse 39 of our text, saying, “It is I myself, touch me and see.” Mary Magdalene, we understand, mistook Jesus for the gardener. These two disciples don’t immediately discern or recognize who he is. Later in Galilee, the disciples are out fishing. They don’t recognize Jesus is the one on the shore who’s waiting for them to catch the fish so he can cook some breakfast.
But these mistakes aren’t because Jesus is engaging in shape shifting after his resurrection or distorting his own appearance to make himself unrecognizable to them. Why would he do that intentionally? What is the divine purpose in that? After all, Jesus came to reveal, not to conceal. That’s the theme of the entire Gospel accounts, is he came to reveal the invisible God to us. He came to speak truth, to make it plain. He spoke plainly and openly, and especially so with his disciples. These are disciples. Does he come to conceal himself to them?
This is why I don’t accept another view that commentators claim to be true, and I think they’re faithful commentators, so don’t count them as heretics if you find this in some commentary note or something like that. But they say that the disciples are being prevented and invisibly held back by the power of God, or maybe by the power of Christ himself. That view is possible, just due to the use of the passive voice here.
In many contexts, this is what may be called the divine passive. That indicates that God is the unnamed subject exerting influence on the human object or a work in any kind of given situation. But again, that seems far from the context. In fact, it is the context that tells us exactly what is preventing these men from seeing and recognizing him. Their blindness comes from sorrow. They’re distracted by their grief. Their ability to see and to perceive correctly has been undermined by the disappointed false expectations they had set for the Messianic career. They thought Jesus was coming not to die, but to win, but to overthrow the Romans.
So everything that’s happened has completely turned their world upside down with regard to their eschatology. They’ve been shaken to the core because they didn’t understand what’s going to happen. They didn’t understand there would be a two-part visit of the Messiah, a first Advent and a second Advent. And before you say I would have seen it, no, you wouldn’t have. You’ve got the recorded written New Testament to fill you in. If you’re standing there among them, you’re not going to discern it either. But you could have understood it, as Jesus points out, if you had believed all that the prophets had written.
In a word, as for Jesus’ rebuke and verse 25, we know that their perception is compromised. Their visual ability to perceive and recognize who’s standing in front of them has been hindered, it’s being prevented because of their weak faith, because they failed to believe, all that the prophets had spoken. If they had believed, they would have seen and recognized and discern who’s standing in front of them. Power that hindered them, that restrained physical sight, that darkened their vision, that distorted their perception, that kept them, that really kept them from the comfort that they would have derived immediately by recognizing the one who’s lost. They mourned. He’s standing right in front of them. That power is there. It’s the power of faith.
But there’s another power at work, the noetic effects of sin, the sin of their own folly, the sin of their own slowness to believe, verse 25. And it is right to see that as a power, as a force, it has a darkening effect on our ability to perceive and know. It hinders and restrains and influences us and holds us back from understanding, from finding comfort, from finding consolation. Thanks be to God, though. Thanks be to his son Jesus Christ, who doesn’t leave us there.
These two don’t recognize their Lord, and yet nevertheless he approached them. The verb engizo used there, he drew near, he drew near. Then it says he was going along with them. He’s accompanying them. He’s walking alongside of them. Beloved, don’t fail to find the comfort there. Don’t fail to be encouraged by this, that our weakness and our blindness and our lack of faith, even our sinfulness, none of that prevents our Lord from drawing near to us. We may not perceive him, but he is there. He’s drawing near. He’s walking beside us whether we know it or not, whether we perceive his presence or not. His ministry to us continues, unabated, unhindered by us, even in our weakest moment, in our darkest hour, we have to cling to that promise, don’t we? For he himself has said Hebrews 13:5, “I will never,” “nor forsake you.”
Pardon my skipping ahead, but when the Lord removes the veil from their eyes in verse 31, so that they recognize Jesus in what’s kind of like the big reveal, notice what happens immediately after their eyes were open, they recognized him and poof, he vanished from their sight. Okay, unfair, but there’s a point to that, isn’t there? What’s the point? There are many, many points. We’ll get to that, but at least this, whether we’re prevented from seeing him by our own weakness, sin, and unbelief, verse 16, verse 25, or whether he is no longer visible to our physical sight, as it says in verse 31, and he is now in his current mode of ascended ministry at the right hand of the father.
We read in 1 Peter 8, that “though you have not seen him, you love him, and though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you were greatly rejoiced with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” Whether he’s visible to our physical eyes or not, the truth is Jesus never will depart from us. He never has been apart from us. He’s always there. I should say. He’s always here. He’s always near. He’s always drawing near. A truth only comforts us if we’re mindful of it, right?
That truth comforts us and consoles us, encourages us, strengthens us, if we’re conscious of it right. That makes good sense. When we’re ignorant of his nearness and his closeness, when we’re not paying attention to his abiding presence with us, his ministry to us, we find no comfort in it at all. We derive no benefit for our souls. Our hearts remain full of sadness and sorrow, not rejoicing in gratitude, not until we become mindful of his presence and truth and ministry. This is what the risen Lord Jesus seeks to remedy in these two and in us all, as he draws near to us and he draws out what ails us that he might overcome it with the truth.
So come to a second point number two, Jesus draws out the broken hearted. He draws near the broken hearted, and then he draws out the broken hearted. He draws forth what’s breaking their hearts. He draws them out by asking questions. Notice there starting at verse 17. He said to them, “What are these words that you’re discussing with one another as you’re walking?” When Jesus had come up to them, their discussion had become heated, but he bypasses the argument.
It would appear actually, that he’s been kind of a coming near for a bit, hearing their conversation, overhearing them. They’re talking, they’re going back and forth, he’s listening to the content. And as he draws near, he bypasses their entire debate and argument and any tension that’s in the air. He drops the temperature, cools things off just a little bit with a question. What are you discussing? The word he uses there is antiballo, the verb that means tossed back and forth. It’s like a good conversationalist will throw the ball back, take the ball, play with it a little bit, and then throw it back.
Try that in your conversation, make sure you’re not the one holding the ball and keeping it the whole time and running down the field so that nobody’s talking with you anymore. Make sure you’re not the only one talking. You hold the ball for a little bit, throw it back. Okay. That’s what is going on here. That’s a word he uses. What are you going back and forth about? This acknowledges the kind of the, the rigor of their conversation, but without drawing any attention here to anything that may have been sinful or untoward in their conversation.
His purpose, after all, is to get to the heart of the matter. Let’s talk about the fruit of their actions or their heat or their tone. But to get down to the heart of it. So he wants to bypass any of that, get down to the heart. The end of verse 17, Luke tells us Jesus’ question has caught them up short, it says that they it’s a separate sentence in the Greek. They stood still looking sad. Quite literally, they’re stopped in their tracks, shoulders slumped, deflated, discouraged sadness of the subject drawing their countenance downward. They’ve got sadness, dejection on their faces. It’s an outward portrayal of their inward broken hearts, discouraged, dismay, they don’t know what to do next.
Think about a loving mother who rushes to comfort her dejected, dispirited child. He’s sad, confused, doesn’t know where to turn. She wants nothing more than take that hurting child into her arms. If that’s the case with a human mother, we’ll how much more does our Savior care for his beleaguered sheep? When he draws near, he wants to comfort them, help them. He’s a Good Shepherd. He knows what ails them. He knows exactly how to lift them up and strengthen them, but they don’t know that. And so he takes this, what you could see is an indirect approach to draw these men out, verse 18.
One of them named Cleopas answered and said to him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?” The word that he uses there, the only one visiting Jerusalem is the verb means kind of like visiting as a sojourner, visiting as an alien resident, a temporary resident or stranger. We talked about Simon of Cyrene as a man like that who’d come to Jerusalem for the feast. He’s there as on a kind of temporary visa, but he’s going to go back to Cyrene, go back to the north of Africa. Cleopas is using a term like that for Jesus.
Are you just a temporary visitor? You don’t. I mean, if you were, you know, a Jewish resident of Jerusalem, if you were there full time, obviously this wouldn’t escape. So the only thing I can imagine is your sojourning there, and you must have been living in someone’s cellar. I don’t know what you were doing. Are you the only one unaware? Luke identifies one of the two disciples as Cleopas. It’s not to be mistaken for a similar name in John 19:25, the word Clopas long ‘O’ the Omega use there different name, different derivation. It’s a Hellenized version of a Semitic name. This is Cleopas short ‘O’ sound Omicron use their shortened form of Cleopatras, meaning illustrious father, glorious father.
So to overcome their sorrow and to deal with their grieving, to relieve their fears, anxieties, and doubts, these two men needed to hear what Jesus had to say. They needed to know what he knew. Travis Allen
Some of you may be more familiar with the feminine form of that name Cleopatra. Clearly, it’s a Greek name. Luke wants us to see that. That’s important here, raises a couple of interesting points, kind of leads to some encouraging implications for us in particular. Notice Cleopas is the one who answers and does all the talking. Luke leaves the other disciple unnamed. Cleopas remains relatively unknown to the church. His companion, unnamed companion, is a total mystery to the church, but there is a conjecture about the unnamed disciple. Traced back to the eleventh century Bishop named Theophylactos. His hypothesis, it’s taken up and also suggested by commentator Frederick Godet and then Alfred Edersheim, is that the unnamed companion of the Greek Cleopas is another Greek convert, none other than Luke, the beloved physician and the author of this Gospel.
Godet says that, “The Greek name Cleopas indicates he was a Jewish proselyte. He’d become a disciple of Jesus, came to the feast.” Well, Luke also Lucas, a Greek name, Godet adds to that. He says, “As to the other, it’s been thought that it was Luke himself, first because he is not named, and next because of the peculiarly dramatic character of the narrative following.” He points especially to verse 32. “They said to one another, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he’s speaking to us on the road, while he’s opening up the Scriptures to us?’” Seems first hand.
A source or two have dismissed this suggestion as mere conjecture with no basis in fact, and they may be right about that. I want to make that clear. The only substantive interaction I could find on this conjecture is from Alfred Plummer. Alfred Plummer, commentator, raises several objections. First, he says Luke admits in his preface that he’s not an eyewitness to what he records, which would seem to write him out of the account. But Plummer then goes on to though he raises it as an objection, he goes on to acknowledge that Luke quote, “may mean no more than this, that he was not one of those which from the beginning were eyewitnesses.” End Quote. Which could include Luke.
So he raises and then controverts the objection of Luke’s status as an eyewitness. He’s not an eyewitness from the beginning, but it is possible Luke could have been then their present at the end, just as the Gospel author Mark was present at the end. Another objection, Luke is a Gentile, and disciples in this count seemed Alfred Plummer to be Jews, since these two refer to the Jewish leaders as our rulers. But Plummer counters that objection too, says, “Luke may have been a proselyte before he was a Christian.”
So if he’s converted to Judaism, as many Greeks had done, then they joined the early followers of Jesus, and it would be natural for them, as Greek proselytes, now following the Jewish faith, to call them our rulers and those chief priests our priests. In the final analysis, the strongest protest that Plummer offers is this, “Nothing is gained by such conjectures.” So says he. And he may be right, as others have said, that Luke’s presence on the Emmaus Road is nothing more than an idle speculation.
So why am I bringing it up? What’s attractive about this? Without exception, every commentator echoes what Godet pointed out about the peculiarly dramatic character of the narrative. This narrative is so vivid in its detail, and it is almost as if it is a first-hand account. So if Luke is the unnamed disciple, the companion of Cleopas, why not name himself? Plummer raises that as a potential objection as well, noting that Luke included himself in the book of Acts in the ‘we’ passages, the ‘we’ sections of that volume, as a companion to the apostle Paul in his journey. So if he’s not reluctant to include himself in the book of Acts, well, why not insert himself into this account too? If he’s the companion of Cleopas, why remain unnamed here?
Well, again, if this conjecture has any merit, if this hypothesis were ever validated to be true, then we can easily understand the Luke’s reluctance to name himself in the Gospel, especially when can we compare his Gospel to three other Gospels? Matthew, he had to acknowledge himself by name because he was called to be an apostle by Christ himself. If he didn’t include his name in that Gospel account, he’s unfaithful. He’s forced to. But Matthew always added an appellation. Matthew the what? The tax gatherer. Matthew the publican. I want you to remember who this Matthew is. He’s a dirty, rotten scoundrel. Always with that reminder.
Mark didn’t name himself, but he did show up in his account. Mark refers to himself, but in an oblique way, as that certain young man who witnessed Jesus’ arrest member in the Garden of Gethsemane. He come to Gethsemane wearing nothing but a linen sheet, and then when they tried to seize him, he ran away naked. So he’s even making fun of himself as he refers to himself in his Gospel account. John, he refers to himself as what? The beloved disciple, right? Never naming himself but obviously present as an apostle. If he withheld his own presence in the Gospel account, he’d be unfaithful. He has to include himself there. He’s chosen to be an apostle.
So if Luke is the unnamed companion of Cleopas, we can understand his reluctance to name himself, insert himself into his own story because he doesn’t want to detract from the main subject, the only hope in the risen Christ. He doesn’t want to get in the way of that. So while it is conjecture, I think it’s not without warrant. In fact, Alfred Edesheim says this, “Of the two,” and he’s referring to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, “we know that one bore the name of Cleopas. The other, unnamed, has for that very reason, and because the narrative of that work bears in its vividness the character of personal reflection has been identified with Saint Luke himself. If so, then each of the Gospels would, like a picture, bear in some dim corner the indication of its author, the first referring to Matthew, that of the publican, that by Saint Mark, that of the young man who in the night of betrayal had fled from his captors, that of Saint Luke and the companion of Cleopas, and that in Saint John, in the disciple whom Jesus loved.” End quote.
Makes an interesting picture, doesn’t it? On the other hand, if it is just mere conjecture without any warrant, and Luke is not the unnamed companion of Cleopas, then what’s the point in raising the issue at all? Because of all the accounts that Luke had in hand, and he had many, he had done extensive research. He’s chosen to include this one about Jesus appearing to a Greek man, Cleopas, and his unnamed, probably Greek, also proselyte companion.
If you were a non Jew sitting here today, this is a very significant point. Luke is the only gentile writer of a Gospel, and he writes to a gentile benefactor named Theophilus, and it’s been his pleasure and joy to demonstrate God’s love of the outcasts all through his Gospel. By this point in our narrative, the only disciples to whom the Lord have appeared are Mary Magdalene according to John 20 verses 14 to 17, one from whom the Lord had cast seven demons and after her some other women according to Matthew 28:8-10.
Our Lord didn’t come first to those who would be renowned in the history of the church. That the apostles, the prophets, the elders, the leaders, he didn’t come to the strong and the powerful, that came to the weak and the insignificant. Those who were weak and insignificant in the eyes of the world. Not weak and insignificant in his eyes, not one of his sheep is insignificant to him, everyone matters. After appearing to Mary Magdalene and the women, those who are likely to be set aside and were set aside by the Jewish men. Well, even less significant in the eyes of a Jew than Jewish women are any and all non Jews. Gentile dogs, especially these pagan Greeks, such as this Cleopas, his travelling companion as well.
And Jesus takes great joy in going to them. Exactly a week before this Palm Sunday, the day that Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, these two men were there. When John 12:20 records, some Greeks had come to Jesus, they approached Philip wanting to meet Jesus. It says in John 12:20, “Some Greeks were among those who were going up to worship at the feast,” and this is right after the event of the triumphal entry and they’re going up to worship at the feast, “And these then came to Philip, who was from the state of Galilee.” They thought they’d have the best chance with this one who was in close to a Greek territory. And they say “they begin asking him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus. And Philip came and told Andrew. And Andrew and Philip came and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.’”
He sees the Greeks coming, the Jews being set aside, but the Greeks coming, he sees that as the sign, clearly the sign that, “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. And truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Verse 32, same chapter, If I, “I, if I’m lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself.” Not just Jews, Greeks too.
Jesus appeared first to the women, then to Cleopas and this other man who we presume also had a Greek name. Greek proselyte disciples inclined to stick together, here they are walking on the road, and Jesus comes to them and all this before he appears to Simon Peter. Stop and consider, beloved, our Lord is no respecter of persons. He does not show favoritism. He loves with an eternal love. He loves us with, with a infinite love.
He doesn’t regard one above another. Rather, he loves every single one of his people with an internal infinite divine love, one that can never be exhausted. And he delights to draw near to every single one of his sheep, to talk with them, to walk with them, to draw them out so we can minister to them, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. So whoever Cleopas’s companion is, both are here at a very low point when Jesus drew near and drew them out. Again, verse 18, again. “And one of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to him, ‘Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days.’” He answers them. “He said to them, ‘What things?’”
Answering Jesus’ question with a question. Oh, you won’t get away with that trick. It’s not gonna work on him. So he asks another question. He presses in a little further, draws him out, gets him to talk about it. Can I give you a little discipleship and counseling tip? Do this. Don’t barge into someone’s discouragement, sorrow, sadness, flinging Bible verses around and pouring on out buckets of old sagely wisdom and advice to them. Take the time to listen. Draw people out, ask questions gently, but intentionally press them. And then once you have the facts, and once you discern the situation and you understand the Scripture that rightly applies, then apply the Scripture with wisdom and gentleness. Use it as a healing balm.
There’s one whose words are like a sword thrust of the tongue of the healing or tongue of the wise brings healing. Be that person, just like Jesus has shown us here. Jesus often did that in his ministry, as we’ve seen. We see in verse 18, Cleopas has assumed some things in his response. First, he assumes that Jesus has been visiting Jerusalem, as they had. Second, he assumes that Jesus has somehow remained ignorant, remarkably ignorant of all that’s happened recently in Jerusalem. Right in the first assumption, terribly wrong in the second.
Jesus had come from Jerusalem, and he’d walked right out of a tomb that morning after hanging on the cross three days earlier. No, he’s not ignorant. Far from it. Cleopas and his companion would soon discover that this man is more in the know than either of them are, or any of the apostles and any of the disciples or anyone else in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, in the innermost parts of the earth. This man seems to know all things.
So to overcome their sorrow and to deal with their grieving, to relieve their fears, anxieties, and doubts, these two men needed to hear what Jesus had to say. They needed to know what he knew. If I could wrap it up in this, these men needed preaching. They needed teaching desperately. They needed to not just hear true words. They need to understand the meaning of those words, the implications of those words. They needed Jesus to explain the scriptures to them. Don’t we all.
Rather than treating their despondency and blindness by saying, hey guys, it’s me, Jesus, check it out. I’m, I’m alive. He didn’t say that does he. Could’ve, could’ve tried to convince them, but Jesus doesn’t here appeal to their eyes. He speaks to their ears to get to their hearts to draw them out. He wants them to think not in pictures, not in images, he doesn’t want to play a video for them, doesn’t want to show them the YouTube.
He wants them to think about abstract concepts, principles, truths, so he goes to their ears, to their hearts, not their eyes, to their hearts, their ears. They say, oh, but I’m a visual learner, he says, you’ll be alright. “What are these words you’re discussing with one another as you’re walking?” Jesus says let’s keep talking about those words. Let’s examine the source material for those words because those words contain the hope of eternal life if you understand the Scriptures.
Jesus knows they know all the historical facts. They all know all that happened in Jerusalem in recent days, they are about to summarize that for him. But he wants them to interpret those facts and they’ll only be able to interpret those facts accurately by going back to what he taught his disciples since Galilee, what he sent his angels to remind the women of in verse 7, that the Son of Man must be delivered in the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and the third day rise again. They need to understand those words about the substitutionary atonement, about God’s acceptance of that once for all perfect sacrifice for sins, about the perfect perfection of righteousness, about the death of death and the death of Christ, and about the offer of eternal life forevermore. Well, those are the words we’re going to delve more deeply into when we come back next time. For now, let’s pray.
Our Father, we thank you so much that you have sent Jesus to us that whether we are in the heart of Jerusalem or the temple itself, or whether we’re on a, a road to some unknown village lost to the corridors of time, Jesus draws near to us wherever we are, meets us there, and he draws us out. He draws us out not so that we’ll emote, not so that he can empathize with us, not so he can enter into our grief and suffering. No, but from his position of strength and joy and, and, and truth. He could pull us up out of our sorrow and misery, out of our discouragement and despair, and set our feet upon a rock, make our footsteps firm. It teaches us truth to set us free.
We thank You that he has done that for each and every one of us who by your grace, have come to know him that way. We know that there are those here who do not yet know you, and we just ask, Father, that You would deploy your Spirit to their hearts even now, cause them to be born again to this living hope of Jesus Christ. Set their hearts free. Forgive them of their sin, cleanse their evil consciences, and set them on a new path so that Christ may be fully formed in them too, and so that we all, together, with one resounding voice, will give praise and honor and glory to you in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.