SPEAKER_01 0:03

This resurrection Sunday after waiting to share to God the significance of how Jesus appeared to two disciples immediately following the resurrection and revealed itself in all the scriptures. Because of this, we proclaimed together, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

In the past week, we have had a couple of services, right? And these services are to mark the events that happened to Jesus towards the end of this week. On Monday Thursday, the night that was betrayed, we had the Monday Thursday service. And then on Good Friday, we marked the day when Jesus was hung on the cross for our sins. But we did not finish the week at Good Friday. That was not the end of the story. If it all ended with Jesus being buried in a tomb for good, then we shouldn't even be gathered here this morning. There wouldn't even be the church. There will have been no followers, since no one would have put their faith in this dead Messiah. Because a dead Messiah is no Messiah at all. The apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 that if Jesus was not raised from the dead, then our faith is in vain. We are still in our sins. Our hope is empty, and we are most to be pitied. If Jesus was not raised from the dead, then Paul writes, Let us drink, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. But he tells us in that same chapter, in verses uh chapter 15, verses 3 to 8, for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. And then he appeared to several people, he appeared to Cephas, uh, then he then to the 12th, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James and to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. There were all these eyewitnesses around. Many of them were still alive, and they could go check with them. They could check with them about seeing the reason Christ. And so the reason why, you know, the followers of Jesus continued to have faith in him and a faith to a much greater degree. The reason why even enemies of Christ became Christian, why the church came into existence in the first place, uh, why how the church survived the first few decades and endured through the two millennia. And why we are gathered in this century today, on Easter Sundays, is really because of one thing. And we did that earlier in the service, but I just want to try this again. It is all because of one thing. Christ is risen. Let's try that again. Christ is risen. Amen. And it was such a momentous event in all of world history because it shows that Jesus was neither a liar nor a nulitic. All that he has said had now been fulfilled. He who died for our sins and promised us new life in him has been resurrected from the dead, giving us certainty in the hope that we have in him, the hope of a new and everlasting life, the hope of eternal peace and love. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is Lord. And yet on that Easter Sunday, when Jesus uh came out of the tomb, not everyone really believed in the risen Christ. And that is understandable, right? The ancient people knew just as well as we do today that dead people don't just come back to life. A dead person stays dead. So their skepticism is understandable. And today we are looking at the story of two such followers of Jesus who didn't believe that he really rose from the dead. And we were just looking at their story in chapter, uh, Luke chapter 34, verses 13 to 35. And it is such a precious story recorded for us in the Gospel of Luke, peppered with small little details that that really help us kind of see and understand what they were going through. And perhaps we see, we will also see ourselves in them when we as we go through the same sort of journey. Right, these two disciples, um, they were not part of the 12, right? Uh, and and they were not so so to speak, they were not in the inner circle. And one is named, his name is Cleopas, we are told, and this is the only time he is mentioned in scripture. And the other one is not even named at all. We don't know who the other disciple is. And so, already this is a picture that that shows us that Jesus loves all of his disciples, even the quote-unquote lesser known ones, or even the unknown ones. Right? Jesus loves all his disciples to the extent that he will spend an entire day walking with them in both their physical and spiritual journeys. And so, as we go through their journey to Emmaus and back to Jerusalem, there are, I think, at least three key points for our own journey with the risen Christ. So, shall we now turn to the story uh in Luke chapter 24? Verses 13 and 14 tells us that that very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles, which is about 11 km, right from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all the things that had happened. Um, this actually continues and follows from what happened at the beginning of chapter 24. Uh, at the beginning, we read that uh we learned that on the third day after Jesus' death, some of the women, some of the followers of Jesus who were women went to his tomb, right, to anoint the body. And then when they went there, they found it empty and they were shocked, right? But what is even more shocking was that there were two angels there who told them that Jesus is not here but has reason. Jesus is not here, but has risen. And so, amazed and shocked with the news, the women went back to tell the other disciples, and again, true, true, true to them, uh, they did not believe the women, right? Although Peter did uh go to the tomb, he ran to the tomb to check it out for himself. But many of the disciples did not believe what the women said. And these two disciples uh in in today's reading were part of those who were skeptical, right? And they were they were gonna leave Jerusalem, they were gonna leave this place where they saw, just saw their pastor uh dying, right? They're gonna leave the place where it all happened, and they were going back to Emmaus, presumably back to their home, back to what they were doing before all of this, before this last three and a half years of following Jesus, right? They were distraught and they were disillusioned. Their world was turned upside down over the weekend. And they have been following Jesus, you know, they have been trusting that he will fulfill the national hope of driving out the Romans, only to see their beloved teacher brutally flogged and crucified. And so when they heard the women saying Jesus is risen, they just couldn't believe it. No way that's true. Nobody has even seen Jesus. How can that be true? Something else must have happened, something else, we must be able to explain it by other means. And to be honest, they were too saddened to even stay around, to even find out more, to even meet up with the other disciples. And it was already too much to bear. And you don't want to be around to hear any more of angels telling people that Jesus is alive. And so they decided to pack up everything and just leave Jerusalem, leave it all behind, to go back to where they came from, to go back to the old tree and back to where they were before they followed Jesus. Now, at this point, they were basically living as if Jesus were dead. But we read then in verses 15 and 16, while they were talking and discussing together, right? It was something that is weighing down their hearts so strongly that even though they were running away from it, they couldn't help but talk about it. And as we were talking about it, discussing it together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And here, Luke emphasizes this point. Jesus himself drew near. He could have sent a messenger, right? He could send some other disciple to run after them. He could even send angels, right? If he were here in the 21st century, he could have sent a text, right? Or a video call at least to show, hey, real, this is really me, right? But instead, he personally drew near to these two otherwise unknown disciples. And not only that, he went with them on this pretty long journey, walking 11 kilometers with them to Emmaus. And it is kind of strange that he will keep them from recognizing him, right? Why would God, why would Jesus keep people from recognizing him? Why wouldn't he just like shh reveal to him to them right then, then, right? Then you can just quickly go back to Jerusalem. He could have easily done so so that they don't waste time walking to Emmaus. And perhaps that is precisely the point. Perhaps it is precisely not a waste of time for the two disciples to go through this journey away from Jerusalem to Emmaus. And Jesus went with them so that he can converse with them, he can hear what they were really thinking and feeling, and he could walk with them through this spiritual journey. And in verses 17 to 24, then we see we see the disciples beginning to open up to Jesus, beginning to try to explain what was actually going on. Verse 17 is particularly interesting because when Jesus says, you know, what is this conversation that you are holding with each other, right? They their initial response is to just stand still and look sad. Right? They were so distraught that they could only be silent and in sadness. But as they try to explain to this uh stranger that they have met on the way, right, they they were telling them about this Jesus that they were following. And um everything is said in the past stands, right? Everything is now kind of like pushback in the past. They referred to Jesus uh as only a man, and Jesus was a prophet. Uh he did many great things, uh, mighty deeds and all, but he was a prophet, and they had hoped in Jesus being the redeemer. Using and saying that in past tense was a way of saying that their hope has died when Jesus died. They hoped for redemption, but now they have given up on it because the supposed redeemer has gone on, has died, and it's all over for them. And so that's why they were so dismayed over everything that had happened over the weekend. As Christians, you know, looking looking at this story, we know the end of the story, we kind of know why it's going on, right? Um, we can see that although they placed their hope in the right person and they were right in hoping for redemption, uh, they missed the mark in what that redemption will look like and how it will come about. And so here is, I think, the first key point for us this morning, as we look at uh the their journey on the road um to Emmaus, and that is our living hope in Christ. First Peter chapter 1 verses 3 uh verse 3 tells us this blessed be the God be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The redemption of God looked very different from what the disciples had in mind, right? The redemption of God for the disciples 2000 years ago and for us today is not a political revolution, it is not about building an earthly kingdom per se. Rather, it is the redemption of our souls from sin and death, so that we may have eternal life in Jesus Christ and be part of God's new creation in the world to come. And that is the ultimate concern for us all.

unknown 12:56

Right?

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Because we don't know when we will die, and we don't know when the end of time will come. And we know that we can do nothing to prevent it. Death comes to us all. And when we die, all that we have here on earth will amount to nothing. We can't we cannot carry anything over to the next life, and so that kind of scares a lot of people, especially as you uh advance in age, that kind of scares a lot of people. What Jesus shows that is that what matters most is not our earthly things, right? But our eternal destiny after this life. And that God, importantly, God has secured that eternal destiny for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the reason Christ, death has lost its sting and victory. So we no longer need to fear death as if we'll be consumed by the darkness because we are children of light. And we know we will be raised together with Christ into a glorious future. That is our living hope. That is the living hope that the apostles were writing about. A hope of a sure and certain future for all of us who have put our trust and faith in Jesus. And so Paul writes that in comparison, right, the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. He writes that in Romans chapter 8, verse 18. Right? The sufferings of this present time cannot compare to the glorious future that we have. As we go through trials and difficulties in life, then we can endure and remain hopeful. Knowing that on that day, when we join in the resurrection of Christ, the God of redemption will make all things new. And so we can hold on to that hope, we can cling on to that hope, even as we go through the the difficulties of life today. The reason Christ is our living hope. As we go on in the story, they explain to Jesus all that had happened, they explain their past hope and that has been shattered. Um, verse 25, Jesus now begins to admonish them a little bit, right? If you see uh verses 25 to 727 and then in to 32, um Jesus said to them, Oh foolish ones of slow and slow of heart to believe. They were already so distraught, right? And Jesus uh kind of scolds them, right? Oh foolish ones and slow of heart to believe, all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And if you jump to verse 32, uh, after Jesus has kind of revealed to them that he is the Christ at the breaking of bread, uh they said to each other, Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures. Why did Jesus uh admonish them and call them foolish? And more importantly, why did he say they were slow of heart to believe? They were slow of heart, not slow of mind, right? They were it's not that they were not intelligent enough, it's not that they did not know enough of the Bible because I'm sure they they did, they did, they knew the the Torah uh from front to back, right? And it's not that they lacked information. They had the intelligence, they had the information, they had the content knowledge. Rather, it was a condition of their hearts that hindered their belief, that made them slow in believing what God had already revealed to them, right? And so if the first point was uh our living hope in Christ, the second point is about hearing and believing in the living word. And the question for us today is are we also foolish and slow of heart in believing? Is the Bible something that we just read, we study, we can analyze, we can dissect, and then we call it a day? Um the the younger ones uh know know that with AI advancing so quickly, right? We can all become Bible experts, right? You just kind of key in some prompts into chat chat GBT, right? And they can tell you everything about the Bible, right? And then if you read that and you think, wow, expert already, you know everything there is to know the Bible, right? Do we treat the Bible as just like this pool of knowledge? Or that or that sometimes it's it's just something we read out of religious piety, right? We can kind of just study the Bible that way, we could find all sorts of different ways, new and old, uh, to kind of try to understand what the Bible is saying, right? But doing all of the above does not necessarily make us wise and faithful. And I think that's what Jesus was trying to get at. To read scripture and become wise requires us to apply the word of God to our hearts.

unknown 18:07

Right?

SPEAKER_00 18:08

To become wise and faithful, we have to read and apply the word of God to our hearts. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12 tells us for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. The Bible is not just some historical documents about God and humanity. We call it scripture.

unknown 18:40

Right?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

We call it scripture, meaning that it is the word of God, the living word of God. And many often ask, how do we hear God speak? Right? How do we hear, uh, how do we how can we be sure that God is speaking to us and how do we actually hear God speak, right? The primary way that God has chosen to speak is through scripture. Scripture is is is his self-disclosure to all of us and the revelation of Jesus Christ, his son. Meaning, whenever we read scripture, we are actually hearing God speak to us. It is living, Hebrews tells us, it is living and active. It is not just words spoken in the past, as if it were just words for the people back then and not for us today, right? The word that is living and active is still speaking to us presently. And when God speaks, when we read and hear God speaking to us through scripture, his word acts on us, piercing into us and discerning the thoughts and intentions of our heart, challenging our ideas, our agendas, our presuppositions, exposing the things that cloud our understanding and hinder our faith. And so Jesus was trying to get to the root of the issue here, right? That they were slow of heart to believe. Because, as we all know, right, there are things in scripture that we find easy to understand, we find easy to follow and believe in. There are things that we read, yeah, amen. This is this is indeed true. Right? And then there are other things that we find harder to believe and follow, right? Let's gloss over the parts that are too difficult for us, right? Things that that that you know, the demands of Jesus. No, let's just put that aside. Um if if Jesus is trying to tell us, if scripture is trying to tell us that we have a behavior or lifestyle that is sinful, uh, we can't just close one eye, pretend that it's not there, you know, let's just move on and read something else that's nice for us, right? Um we we tend to we tend to have things that that that when we encounter scripture, it kind of confronts us in a way that makes us feel uh uncomfortable. Right? But that's what scripture does to us. In fact, the meaning is say that's what God does to us as he speaks to us. Those who want to hear God speaking to us must kind of also be comfortable with God's words piercing into our hearts. Such that you know, our engenders, our own cultures, um, our own ideas, our own philosophies, we cannot bring any of those things into scripture. But we must must allow scripture to come and change those, those, those cultural uh norms and ideas. We cannot we cannot try to uh fit, we cannot try to make scripture fit our worldview, right? But we must have our worldview shaped by scripture, otherwise it would be the foolish way of reading scripture. Trying to read your ideas into scripture uh make doesn't make you wise at all, right? Rather, it makes you foolish. Like these two disciples, like they had this idea of how God would redeem because they were reading their ideas into uh what God was saying. Scripture is God's living word, and we must allow him to say what he wants. We must allow him to apply it to our hearts, even if some passages can be challenging. And as God's word pierces us, it will also convict our hearts. It gives us the power to change, to overcome, or to let go the things we thought we were unable to. When the word of God acts and is applied in such a way, we receive the grace and resurrection power of Jesus. Where these parts of our lives are not just challenged, but also redeemed and made new in Christ. And one of the other things that we learn from this text is that Jesus, while walking with them, right, he opened scripture to them. And often we don't, sometimes we don't understand particular passages. We can ask God to show us. And we can ask him to open up scripture to us. Even when, uh perhaps even, especially when a passage is very familiar to us, right? We can ask Jesus to open it to us afresh so that God can say something new to us. When we read God's word prayerfully, then uh as we as we try to uh meditate on the word of God, we've we've uh asking the Spirit to come and illumine the text for us, right? We may come to experience that same thing, the same thing that the joy the disciples had, right? Uh the same experience of their hearts burning as God speaks to us, right? And to receive that same joy that they had. Um and and where we feel like we have kind of peered into the great mysteries and wonders of God, and where we our spirits come alive with a renewed fervor for God. As we go back to the story now, um towards the end, uh when when Jesus reveals uh to the disciples that he is really the risen Lord, in verses 33 to 35, the disciples, after saying, you know, well, our hearts not burning when he opened the scripture to us, uh, they rose that same hour. Uh meaning to say they rose up immediately, right? It was late at night already, they were already having their supper, right? But they after after they found out that Jesus is risen, right, they rose immediately and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the 11 and those who were with them gathered together, saying, The Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon. Then they told what had happened on the road and how they how he was known to them in the breaking of bread. When they realized and they when they encountered the risen Christ, right, uh their woe was turned right side up. If before their third woe was turned kind of upside down when Jesus was crucified, now their woe was turned right side up. And that completely changed their lives. And as we have the living hope and the living word, the third key point, I think, from this scripture is having a living faith in Jesus. Like these two disciples at the end of a story, we know that Jesus has indeed risen from the dead. So how has that changed our lives? How has knowing the risen Christ, meeting the risen Christ, changed our lives? Earlier I quoted uh Paul writing to the Corinthians about the risen Christ. Right? Paul is an interesting character. Uh he was a militant enemy of the Christian faith. Right? He was going around persecuting Christians. At some point, he approved the stoning of disciples. So in Acts, I think it's six, right? He approved the stoning of Stephen. He will be the last person to believe in Christ crucified. Because again, to the Jew, a dead Messiah is no Messiah. He will be the last person to believe in a Christ crucified, much less a Christ resurrected. And that was why he was going around stamping uh Christianity, right? He was trying to get rid of Christianity because it's a heresy and a corruption to the Jewish faith and must be stopped. But this same enemy of Christ had his own journey when he met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, and his life was completely changed. He realized that he couldn't now go on living as if Jesus was still dead. Instead, he repented of his old ways and gave his life to Jesus, calling Jesus Lord. And I think this is what was happening with these two disciples as well, as they were turning back from Emmaus to go to Jerusalem. They were kind of turning back in their faith as well, to come back to Jesus now, to repent of their old ways and to come back to Christ, to give their lives over to Jesus, to call Jesus Lord once again. And so when we look at these two disciples, when we look at Paul, we remember uh what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5, uh verse 15, he Jesus died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. And so the the resurrection of Jesus is never considered in isolation, right? But uh we consider it together with the event of Good Friday. Christ crucified and Christ resurrected. These two things must be held together. As we know and encounter the risen Christ, we remember He died, that He died for our sins and call us all to repent so that our sins may be forgiven and that we may receive salvation. A new life rooted in the resurrection power of God in Jesus Christ. That is actually at the core of what baptism is about. For those who were just baptized this morning, and for many of us who have been baptized for a number of years, that is what baptism is about. Dying with Christ so that we may be raised with Christ in new life. At baptism, just how we heard, we make the decision to turn to Christ, to repent of our sins, and to renounce the devil, the world, and our sinful desires, so that we die to sin and become a new creation in Christ, so that we may live for Him. Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 4. Um, he says, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on a new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. And of course, we struggle with that. We struggle with putting off our old self that is all that we have known up to that point, right? And it's so comfortable, it feels so good. So we struggle with putting off the old self. Or we keep trying to put on, we keep trying to pull the new self over the old, right? To follow Christ but still remain as we were, right? But it just won't fit, right? You try to pull Christ over yourself when you haven't removed the old, and it just won't fit. We have to put off the old, Paul says, before we can fit on the new. You'll be like going home uh later tonight after your celebration and all, being kind of sweaty, kind of smelly, and just kind of throw on uh a clean clothes, and then that makes you clean, that makes you ready for bed. It doesn't, right? We have to kind of take off our clothes, uh, our old clothes, right? And to go for a shower and all, and then put on the new clothes. Um and um our baby sage uh has been so sensitive to her soy diapers. Uh now it's getting better, but but in the first few weeks, like just a little bit of pea, right? And she'll start screaming. Uh it's insane. And and and so we have to keep changing diapers for her, right? Um but but but you know, that's just how babies are. Like we cannot leave her be, and she's just like super uncomfortable being in in uh soy diaper. You can change it, right? And then uh five minutes, five minutes later, uh just a little bit of pea. No, those there are two lines there in yellow, turn a little bit blue, then you know that it's soy. Just a little bit blue, and then she's just screaming her head off. Um and so we will clean her up and then put on a new one, and that keeps her happy for about five minutes, and then something else happens. Um, and and and you know, you learn so much from infants, right? Uh this is kind of how it's like to live in the risen Christ. To put on the old and to put off the old and to put on the new, um like like Sage and her diapers. Uh, we in fact become we should in fact become more sensitive to sin in our lives, right? Just a little bit. Should make us feel uncomfortable already. Right? While in the past we were so comfortable in in um, you know, sometimes scripture does refer to sin as like excretment and all, right? Um sometimes we were while we were in the past so comfortable with it, now that we have put on the new self, right, we should be increasingly uncomfortable, even if it's just a little bit. So much that we cannot sit and dwell in it, but must cry out to God to come and cleanse us. And so we learn from the two disciples meeting the risen Christ will compel us not to go back to our old ways, not to go back to where we came from, not to go back to Emmaus, but to go to Jerusalem. It changes us in such a way that we become uncomfortable with our secret sins, with our trespasses, with our destructive habits. Those who have met the risen Christ cannot now live as though he is dead. Right? Those who have met the risen Christ cannot now live as though he is dead, but must repent and die to self so that we may walk in the new life that he gives. And so, if I may conclude with this thought, all of us similarly go on a journey. We have our own uh journey in our lives, just as these two disciples had theirs. And whatever that journey looks like now, wherever you are heading towards, Jesus himself draws near to you and goes with you. Even if you think you are an unknown person, even if you think that you are uh nobody, you know, Jesus probably won't pay attention, um, Jesus is there personally with you. The reason Lord is on the road with you, conversing and processing the things that have happened in your life. And I pray that all of us may learn to just open up to him more. Um there's a part in today's scripture that I didn't kind of touch on, but like at one point they beached image, Jesus was pretending to, uh Jesus was kind of going away, right? And they were imploring him to stay. Had they not implored Jesus to stay, Jesus would have just gone away and they would have just missed the boat altogether. Right? Don't miss the chance to converse with Jesus. Implore him to stay and converse with him. And I pray that we may hold fast to this living hope that we have in the resurrection of Christ, this hope that we have of a glorious future. I pray that we may let him open up the living word uh to us and apply it to our hearts. I pray that we may all have a living faith in Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

We pray that you've had the word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Eastern Christian Church, please visit our website at ycc.com. Have a blessed day.