Father Stephen De Young:

Now it was about the sixth hour,

The sixth hour, depending on the time of year, is about high noon.

and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

So the reason the time there is important isn’t just because St. Luke wants you to know exactly what time Jesus died. The point there is if it was 9:00 at night and it got real dark, that might be explainable by natural phenomena. If it gets pitch black dark at noon, something’s happening. Noon to 03:00 p.m., brightest, sunniest part of the day goes black, it goes black.

Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two.

We don’t have any more detail on that. It just says the veil of the temple was ripped open. We’ve talked before in the other synoptic Gospels as we went through. Often people interpret this in an inverse way. They interpret this as if God tears the curtain open so that everybody could see inside. Well, we know at this point in history there was nothing inside. So if you look at it that way and you say, “Okay, well, God was tearing it open so people could see what was inside.” That means he was tearing it open so they could see that there was nothing inside. Because what’s actually going on here is God is leaving.

Remember how Ezekiel starts? Ezekiel picks up from Jeremiah. Jeremiah had this vision of God leaving the temple before it was destroyed. And then in Ezekiel when God shows up, he’s in the throne, that’s sort of on these chariot wheels flying through the sky because he’s not bound to the temple anymore. This is a parallel here to what Jeremiah saw, because what’s going to happen in 70 AD to this temple? It’s going to be destroyed, right? What did Jesus predict just before he was arrested? And what did he predict again to the women on the way to the crucifixion? That this is all coming to an end. So this is the first step, the first step to the temple being destroyed and trampled under by Gentiles is God leaves; God’s presence leaves.

Interlocutor: Is this not the time when the lambs are being slaughtered and offerings made at the temple is not vacant at this time?

Fr. Stephen: No, it’s a slightly different time. It’s a slightly different now in John’s Gospel, I’ll have a discussion of that because St. John fiddles with the timeline a little bit so that Jesus dies at the exact moment that the lambs are being slain. So there’s a slight difference in the timeline because they’re making different points.

Interlocutor: But at Passover surely there’d be someone in the temple at that time?

Fr. Stephen: Well, also remember at Passover, lambs were not sacrificed in the temple. Lambs were killed and cooked by the head of the family, cooked whole. That was part of the legislation in Exodus. They were cooked whole and eaten by the family and the blood was taken and put on the door post.

Interlocutor: Are you saying that there’s nobody in the temple between 12 and 3?

Fr. Stephen: Well, there would have been the usual things going on. There’s no one going into the Holy of Holies. That only happened on the Day of Atonement. And this veil, the curtain is the curtain to the Holy of Holies. So there would have been… they offered incense every morning and every evening. There were daily sacrifices and things going on. So, yes, there would have been priests in the holy place, not in the most holy place.

Interlocutor: I’m just curious when they would have found the temple curtain torn? 

Fr. Stephen: Well, there might have been someone there at the time. If not, there would have been shortly thereafter who would have found it open and the Holy of Holies exposed to be empty.

And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’” Having said this, He breathed His last.

So notice how many things… I know I’ve made this point several times, and I know it ruins a lot of nice sermons and books and musical productions, but when you see the “seven things Jesus said from the cross”, none of the four Gospels says that He said seven things. They each recorded different things that he said. So if you pull all seven of them together, you’re telling a different story than any of the four Gospels tells.

So here, St Luke, Jesus says three things, right? He asked the Father to forgive them for what they’re doing. He tells the thief St Dismas, that he’ll be with him in paradise. And then here, finally, he commits his spirit to God. Which is also a quote, from Psalm 31. Those are the three things Jesus says in St Luke’s telling of the story.

“So when the centurion”, why is it the centurion? Remember, a centurion is a commander. He’s called a centurion. What’s a century in Latin? It’s a hundred, right? So he’s a commander of 100 troops. They sort of followed the decimal system in the Roman military. Everything was in tens and hundreds and thousands. And so he’s a commander of 100 troops. So the centurion is the centurion who’s in charge of the executions that day. There are lots of Roman troops out there, crucifying people, keeping order, holding the crowd back, doing whatever. He’s the one who’s supervising all of those soldiers who are on that duty. So, the centurion sees what happens:

He glorified God, saying, “Certainly this was a righteous Man!”

Notice the phrasing there. We saw in one of the other Gospels, “surely this man was the Son of God”. Here, notice St Luke has a little different emphasis. “Surely this was a righteous man.” Meaning what? Meaning surely this man was innocent. So this centurion recognizes… the centurion and St Dismas, this is great church tradition. This is St Longinus. These two, one of them noticed Jewish, one of them Roman, one of each are the two who recognize, even in Christ’s death, recognize that he was innocent.

And the whole crowd who came together to that sight, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned. But all His acquaintances, and the women who followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

But why does he drop that if they stood at a distance watching these things? Once again, these are the people who St. Luke talked to, right? They saw all this happen, everything I just told you about the darkness, what Christ said, what the centurion said, they were there and they saw this happen.

Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member,

So, part of the Sanhedrin. This is one of the Jewish leaders.

a good and just man. He had not consented to their decision and deed. He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God.

It’s unclear whether that “waiting for the kingdom of God” meant—he was one of Christ’s followers in particular, or just that he was a pious and righteous Jewish person who was waiting for the coming of the Messiah, waiting for the deliverance of Israel. And again, we don’t have here necessarily that he was a follower of Jesus, but he at least knows that Jesus is innocent and wanted nothing to do with his being condemned to death.

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

That’s a short little sentence, and you may think nothing of it, but keep in mind this is a person who Pilate just had executed by crucifixion, for claiming to be the King of the Jews. When you were crucified, you did not get buried. You did not normally get buried. You were left to hang there even after you were dead and decomposed and let the animals come and pick at you. That was part of the punishment, that was part of the display, was that you didn’t even get a decent burial. That was, again, part of the point that the Romans were making. So when St. Joseph of Arimathea does this and goes and asks for Christ’s body, he’s risking his own life. He’s basically going to Pilate and saying, “Yeah, I’m with him. That guy you just executed.” Not the best idea, right? Because Pilate would be just as liable to say, “Bring me another cross, I got another one for you. Where’s that centurion?” But he goes and he does it anyway. He risks his life to do this.

Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever lain before. That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near.

Meaning it’s Friday. The Sabbath drew near, meaning we’re coming close to sunset, because remember the day starts at sunset. So he’s got to do this in order to keep the Sabbath. He’s got to do this before in a hurry, before sunset.

And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.

So those women remember who watched everything unfold, they saw St. Joseph do this. They saw where he took the body, saw where he was buried. They said “Okay, well it’s the Sabbath so we can’t do anything. We’ll go home and keep the Sabbath but we’ll get some stuff ready, spices, ointments and everything and we’ll go the next day, the day after and we’ll anoint his body.”

But notice what St. Luke does here. Remember, St. Luke, I mentioned this way back in that original Bible study. His Greek is very much like that of Thucydides who is one of the Greek historians. St. Luke is presenting this to us as a historical document. He’s not writing a religious peace here. He’s presenting this… this is the account of what happened. I mean he would give you the names of the people he interviewed and talked to in order to find out these details, right where this is coming from. He’s presenting this as history.

So what’s one of the questions that might occur to you if you said, well, St. Joseph of Arimathea buried him and then Sunday morning the women went out to go anoint him? How did the women know where he was buried? How did they even know if he was buried or what excuse might someone use if you were a Christian and you came to them and said, “Well, they found the tomb empty”? “Well, the women were grief stricken, it was early in the morning. Maybe they went to the wrong tomb.” And so, St. Luke is pointing out here, “No, no, no, I talked to them. They were there, they saw where he was buried, they saw where he was, how he was laid out and they made preparations to go and anoint him.” So they knew exactly where they were going that morning, exactly where they expected to find him. And as we’re going to see here shortly, he wasn’t there. So that’s why St. Luke takes the time to spell that out, to make his case, make his historical case.

Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.  But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

So now we’ve got to be careful here. Remember, we’ve got to read each Gospel on its own for its own story, right? This is how St. Luke presents it, is they show up to the tomb, and the stone’s rolled to the side. Again, we have the picture from the Bible storybook of this sort of flat rock that sort of rolled over onto the door. This was more likely just a straight up boulder and you would roll… there’d be a hill next to the entry of the tomb. You sort of roll it down the hill, and it would land in front of it and seal off the door. It was not intended that you were going to be rolling this back and forth a whole lot. One of the other Gospels remember, says as they were walking, they were trying to figure out how they were going to get in to do it because there’s this huge stone in the way. Again, it was not designed to be rolled back and forth for access.

Interlocutor: So something that confuses me…. we visited the area of Golgotha, and we were in the tomb. And the distance it’s probably from here to the first row of cars parked outside, there was a stone that was flat, probably about this thick. And we were told, and we saw, Orthodox priests continually blessing that stone and it was pink. And they indicated that because of the rose water that was used as part of the blessing, it ended up bleaching that stone. And they said, this is the stone on which Christ was laid for his preparation and wrapping by St. Joseph. And at the same time they also talked about the miracles that occurred by persons who were there praying at that site. And here Luke is saying, at least I get the impression, that he is saying that his body was not prepared for, other than being wrapped by Joseph, who then went home.

Fr. Stephen: Well, we’re told he was in a hurry. So the idea is not so much that say Joseph didn’t prepare the body or just wrapped it in a cloth. He did wrap it. It’s that because it was nightfall, because he was in a hurry, he couldn’t sort of completely do what he would have wanted to do. One of the other gospels says that they were bringing about 100 pounds of ointment, the women. So it was a significant… the idea is more that they saw him do this thing, this good act, and they said, “Well, he was in a hurry, we can do a nicer job of this and Jesus deserves more than this.” And so, it was not so much that he didn’t do it or didn’t do it properly as on his limited time frame and then them wanting to show their love by doing more. So he did prepare Jesus’ body, just not as elaborately as the women believed it should be. So, yeah, so both of those are true.

So they go there. The stone has been moved already. Tomb is sitting open, they walk in, it’s empty.

And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this,

As one might imagine. “Wait a minute?”

that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’”

So these two figures appear as we’ve seen in the Old Testament when angels pop up, people could tend to go flat on their faces in fear, especially when they suddenly appeared. So they prostrate themselves.

They say, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Now if you go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre today, they’ve just done some renovations, but still Christ’s tomb is sort of sitting in the middle of this big open room and you might say, “well this is kind of odd looking” but what you need to do is go over to the far wall. There’s a crack in the wall and you could look through that crack. There’s no light back in there but if you have your handy camera phone there, you could turn on the flashlight or take a flash picture through that crack of the hole. What you’ll find is there’s a whole network of ancient tombs that Christ’s tomb was part of originally. Now because the church was built around Christ’s tomb, you don’t see the others but they’re still there. They’re just sort of buried and you can see them through there.

So, this wasn’t just sort of this tomb off on its own in the middle of nowhere. So they say, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” It’s sort of, “Why are you looking for Jesus in a cemetery?” Because Jesus is alive, therefore he’s not going to be in the cemetery. That’s the point that they’re making. He’s not here, but he’s risen. And then reminds them, “Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee?” We’re not even talking about recently. Remember way back when this whole thing started, way back when you were in Galilee? Because these are the women who followed him from Galilee. Remember we’ve been told twice by St. Luke. They’ve been with Him the whole time. Remember all the way back when this all first began back in Galilee. Remember he told you, he told you he was going to be delivered to the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise again. And you didn’t know what he was talking about at the time. You didn’t understand at the time. But he did tell you that exactly this was going to happen. So you shouldn’t be surprised.

And they remembered His words.

He did say that repeatedly.

Then they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.

So the eleven disciples and then all the rest of Jesus’ followers, they come back and tell the disciples, notice it’s now the eleven, not the twelve, because Judas is gone. And here we get a list of names, again.

It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles.

Again, why does St. Luke mention names? These are witnesses. These are his witnesses. That this is what happened. “If you don’t believe me that this is what happened, here’s three women, you can go ask.” Now you may not have noticed it because again, we’re all modern Americans. I just said “here’s three women you could go ask.”

St. Luke’s saying that in the first century would have gotten a very different response because remember, women couldn’t testify in court at this time in history. They had no rights, couldn’t testify. They were considered unreliable. We’re going to see in a minute some of the male disciples are going to say, “Yeah, we thought he was the Messiah, but he got crucified. And then some women showed up telling us he’d been raised for the dead. Isn’t that crazy? Some women, you know their old wives’ tales and they’re just grief stricken. You know how women are, they get all emotional, right?” That’s how they viewed women at that time in history.

So, the fact that St. Luke names these women as witnesses, a companion of St. Paul, shows you that something fundamental has already changed in the Christian community. By the time St. Luke’s writing this, which is probably in the 70s, maybe the early 80s. So we’re probably talking about 50 years, 45, 50 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection already something has profoundly changed in the Christian community in terms of how women are viewed, where St. Luke can just say this offhandedly and not apologize for it, right? And not saying, “And if you don’t believe the women, well then you could ask these men.” Doesn’t say that at all. Doesn’t say that at all.

I’ve talked about how some of these ideas, like the idea that God loves human beings or this about men and women and all human beings, all human lives being equally valuable to God, these were revolutionary ideas, and that revolution happened very quickly, very quickly after Christ’s resurrection. Because as we’ll see, once the Holy Spirit comes in Acts, there’s this big transition. The disciples, frankly, act like a bunch of doofuses through most of the Gospels, right? We’ve seen that already. They’re just kind of clueless. They’re always arguing about silly things, Jesus is always having to chide them, everything he tells them they don’t understand. Pentecost, there’s a big transition, and that huge transition has immediate effects and starts transforming the world immediately.

All of a sudden men start looking at women differently, women start looking at themselves differently, the community starts looking at itself differently. People start looking at slaves differently. All of a sudden, they’re like, coming to this understanding that, “How can I own my brother in Christ?” And all of these societal systems in the Roman Empire start to break down. And this is then what’s going to cause the Roman persecution of Christianity, because they’re going to look at Christians and see anarchists. You’re destroying the social order. You’re out there freeing slaves. You’re out there treating women as equal. This is insane. The whole order of society is going to fall apart.

And you find all these bizarre accusations, they call Christians atheists because they don’t believe in the Roman gods. They accuse them of trying to destroy society. All kinds of horrible things are said about Christians because of this, because the underpinnings of Roman society, which were not good, which are based on oppression, when Jesus says the Gentiles, the leaders of the Gentiles lord it over them, and he’s talking about Rome, all of those things get dissolved.

The whole understanding that there are better and worse categories of people that the whole Roman society is built on, that comes out of Plato’s Republic. Plato’s Republic is the first thing you have to teach children is that some people are like brass and some people are like bronze, and some people are like silver and some people are like gold. And they all have their place in society. And if you’re one of those people who’s like tin or aluminum and you’re a slave, well, that’s your lot in life, and you just go out there and be a good slave. And if you’re one of those who’s made of gold and you’re the king, well, then good for you. You go out there and be a good king. That’s how their society was structured.

And then the Christians come along and say, “This peasant from Galilee who was executed as a criminal by Rome is God.” That “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.” And the Romans say “That’s insanity, that’s anarchy. We have to destroy this movement at all costs.” And now we’re so far along in Christian society that we take a lot of these things for granted. If someone came here and started just reading from some of the Roman philosophers about women, people would either laugh at their face or throw things at them. But those were non-controversial comments in the Roman world. If someone started talking about slaves the way they talked about slaves, talked about non-Romans in the racist way they talked about non-Romans, we’d be appalled. But that’s how much Christianity ended up transforming society.

Notice even though St. Luke calls these women as witnesses, notice how the eleven responded at the time:

And their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them.

Again, we’re talking about 45, 50 years. St. Luke will call them as a witness. The disciples are, “Ugh, women,”—that quickly things began to change.

But Peter arose and ran to the tomb; and stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves; and he departed, marveling to himself at what had happened.

So he goes there, he sees that the cloths that Jesus was wrapped in are just lying there, and Jesus isn’t there. It doesn’t say, “And he believed that Jesus had risen from the dead!” No. It just says he departed, going, “Huh. Wonder what happened.” Notice the difference between his response and the women’s response. The angel says, “You remember, he said, this is going to happen,” and they remembered. “Yes, he did say that.” So the women believe, and Peter is like, “Huh, that’s odd.”

Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem.

I will give however much pie is left over there to anyone who can remember and tell me the other place in the Bible where the village of Emmaus is mentioned. There’s only one, and it’s pretty obscure. It’s in the Old Testament. That’s okay. I’m being mean. It’s in First Maccabees, which I know you’ve read every night before going to sleep since you were children. But it’s in First Maccabees. Remember in First Maccabees, it tells the history of the Maccabean revolt, which is when the Greeks, following Alexander the Great, his general Seleucus, had become sort of the quasi-emperor of the whole eastern portion of what Alexander the Great had conquered, and his dynasty was ruling over the area that included Judea at the time. And remember, Antiochus Epiphanes, who was Antiochus IV, was the king at the time. He lost a battle against the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt and decided that the reason he lost this battle was that the Jews were refusing to worship the Greek gods. And so, the Greek gods had gotten mad at him, and that’s why he lost the battle. And so he decided to persecute the Jews, and he went and sacrificed pigs to Zeus on the altar in the temple in Jerusalem. And that triggered a Jewish revolt led by Judas Maccabeus, which means Judah the Hammer, which I still think is a great baby name if anybody… Led by him and his brothers.

And in the battle that ensued against the Greek forces, the major military victory where the tide was turned, sort of the Gettysburg of this revolt was the battle at Emmaus. It’s the only other place Emmaus is mentioned in the Bible. So Emmaus by reputation, we don’t necessarily think of it, but when a Jewish audience at this time in history heard Emmaus, it was like, when we hear Gettysburg, it sort of calls to mind that war and what happened there. So it’s not just coincidence… we’ve seen lots of people walking down roads. St. Luke hasn’t mentioned that many villages in terms of geography, so it’s significant that he mentions one here. These disciples are on their way to Emmaus to this battle, historic battlefield, to this place where the Jews overthrew their Greek oppressors. And remember that Maccabean revolt was very present in the consciousness of people at this time, because what were they expecting the Messiah to do? To come and overthrow the Romans. So Judas Maccabeus is a sort of their picture of what the Messiah was going to do. This was going to happen again because they’re going to overthrow the Romans and set up a kingdom. So these two disciples are on their way to Emmaus. St. Luke is here setting the stage for this story for giving us this context to understand what they’re about to say.

And they talked together of all these things which had happened.

All the events that happened over the Passover weekend. Pretty eventful time in the city of Jerusalem.

So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him.

So they’re walking down the road, as happens. I mean, there’s no cars, right? Most people, especially Jews, couldn’t afford a horse, so people were walking. Well, you’re all walking down this road. There’s plenty of foot traffic. You got a long walk going on. People would fall in next to each other and start conversations. And so this happens. So this person comes up. It happens to be Jesus. They don’t recognize him. Now, this is an important detail, the fact that they don’t recognize him. And we see it in a lot of, we saw it in St. Matthew’s Gospel also, remember. In a lot of these appearances of Jesus after his resurrection, they don’t recognize him at first, or we get even stranger statements like “No one asked him who he was because they knew it was the Lord.”

Why is that an important statement? Well, if you’re going to take the position that this is fiction, you’re not a Christian. You don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead. So this is fiction. If I was writing fictional accounts and this presupposes now that there’s four people writing separate fictional accounts, why would any of them say that when they ran into Jesus after the resurrection, they didn’t recognize him? If I’m making this up to convince you “No, no, no. Jesus rose from the dead”, yeah, yeah. They executed him, but he rose from the dead.” I’m making this up and I’m trying to convince you. Would I say, “Yeah, I ran into him, but I couldn’t really tell it was him.”? That makes no sense. This is not a detail that anyone would have made up, let alone several different people adding this detail to different stories, different pieces of events. So as odd a detail as it is, the fact that odd detail is there tells us something about these accounts, that these are legitimate accounts of something that happened.

If I were making this up, I’d say I was walking down the road and I ran into Jesus and he was glowing and walking 3ft off the ground, right? Obviously, it was Jesus. Everybody knew it was Jesus. I could show you 20 other people who were there and said it was Jesus. I sure wouldn’t say, “Yeah, we couldn’t tell who it was.”

Now Jesus is walking with them and he said to them:

And He said to them, “What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?”

We were told that these are disciples, so these are people who are followers of Jesus. It was an eventful week and weekend in Jerusalem, but it was not a particularly pleasant one, especially if you were one of Jesus’ followers, so they’re sad and trying try to sort out, “Well, what do we do now? We thought Jesus was the Messiah. Now he’s been executed by the Romans.”

“Then the one whose name was Cleopas,” notice once again we get a name. Has Cleopas been mentioned anywhere else in St Luke’s Gospel? Is he mentioned in any of the other Gospels or mentioned anywhere else in the Bible? No. So why does St Luke mention him here? Because you can go talk to Cleopas and he’ll tell you that this is what happened. He’s the one who told me that this is what happened.

Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, “Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?”

He’s walking in the same direction they are. He seems to be coming from Jerusalem. He’s like, what? “What do you mean, what are we talking about? You weren’t just there, right? Didn’t you see all this happen?”

And He said to them, “What things?”

So they said to Him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,”

So you can see already how they’ve interpreted this, right? “Well, yeah, he got executed by the Romans, so clearly he wasn’t the Messiah. But he did do all these miracles and he did teach all these things. He must have been a prophet, because they killed a lot of the prophets. So that makes sense. He was a prophet like St John the Forerunner. That happens to prophets, these wicked rulers of Israel, they kill the prophets.” So that’s how they’ve decided to process this.

“and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.”

He says, “Well, we were hoping he was going to be the one to redeem Israel.” What does that mean? “We were hoping he was the one who was going to be the Messiah.” What was he going to do? “Well, we’re on our way to Emmaus. We were hoping he was going to do what Judas Maccabeus did. He was going to come and throw out the Romans and all this was going to happen. We had hoped, but clearly not, because he was executed by the Romans.” Because remember, executed by the Romans is what happens to failed messiahs, and it happened to a lot of them by this point. It would happen to a whole bunch more before Jerusalem was destroyed.

“Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but Him they did not see.”

So did any of that make a dent? “Yes, the women went and said they saw angels and the angel said he was alive. And yeah, then some of the men ran over there and didn’t find the body either. But, you know, it’s strange. Strange, I tell you.” But it hasn’t made a dent.

Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!”

So Jesus calls them foolish. So there you go. Jesus is sort of saying, “Okay, and? Let’s put this together.” But they hadn’t done that yet. But not only that, notice he says all that the prophets have spoken, meaning not just, “Hey, you should have paid attention to what Jesus was saying while he was alive. But don’t you even know? You’re talking about, we thought he was the Messiah, but I guess not. Well, did you go back and read what Isaiah said about the Messiah?” Because it wasn’t that he was going to come overthrow Romans, right? That’s not what the prophet said the Messiah was going to do.

“Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?”

And we saw as we were going through the Old Testament over the course of about four years, we saw again and again, I mean, a perfect example being King David. What was the pattern of King David’s story? Remember, he was basically put into exile by his son Absalom, who sees the throne, had to go on the run, was mocked, suffered, was betrayed. And then what happened? At the end, God restored him to the throne. Who is the paradigm for who the Messiah is? The anointed one, the King of Israel. David.

So, let’s start with the prophet Samuel. What did he write about the Messiah, about the Anointed? What about David? What? That he suffered and then he entered into his glory. That’s the pattern. Not, “David went overthrew the Philistines and took over.”

And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

So I doubt he took four years to do it. He did it a lot quicker than I did. It’s not that long a trip. It’s about 7 miles, right? But at that time, Jesus goes through, all the way through, says, “Look, didn’t you read Genesis? Look at Joseph. What happens? He’s betrayed by his brothers who tried to kill him. He ends up in prison, falsely convicted. But then what happens? God brings him out of the prison and makes him virtually the King of Egypt, goes all the way through the Scriptures and explains these things. So this is what you should have seen. This is what you should have been expecting. Okay? So now what’s the next step? If that’s what you were expecting, then who’s Jesus? Jesus is the Messiah, right? You were right the first time. You’re right the first time.

Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther.

They get to Emmaus and they’re satisfied, right? Jesus wants to go further. So don’t miss that little detail there, right? For them, Emmaus, kingdom on this earth, get rid of the Romans, set up an independent Judea, that’s enough for them. That’s all they’re looking for in a Messiah. Jesus goes much further than that.

But they constrained Him, saying, “Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And He went in to stay with them.

Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight.

Notice when it is that it finally clicks and they see who Jesus is. It’s the same language there in the Greek that was used at the Last Supper. Jesus took bread, broke it, gave it to the disciples. So we’re coming here to the end of St. Luke’s Gospel. Remember who St. Luke’s writing to? He’s writing to these churches that St. Paul has established. And what is he saying to them? Where should they look for Jesus? In this story we just read, there are two places where we see Jesus in this story.

Number one, the Scriptures. You look at the Scriptures going to this, starting with Moses, starting with Genesis. Genesis all the way through, you see Jesus there.

Where’s the second place, the Eucharist, right? Scripture and the Eucharist. This is the basic structure of our liturgy all the way down to today, right? Our liturgy has two pieces. There’s the first piece with the scripture readings and the sermon, we call the Liturgy of the Word. There’s Liturgy of the Sacrament, the Eucharist that we celebrate together. So what we have here, essentially in this road to Emmaus story is the first liturgy.  St. Luke is saying, this is the place in the reading and teaching of the Scriptures and in the Eucharist and the Sacraments. This is the place where Christ’s presence continues with us. There is in Christ. This is where we continue to see and experience and encounter Him as Christians.

And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem,

Now, notice they were walking all day, remember, 7 miles? But they’re so excited now that it’s finally clicked, that it’s finally come together. They’re so excited that they get up even though it’s dark, and they head 7 miles back to Jerusalem.

and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!”

That being Simon Peter. By the time they get back, Jesus has already appeared to them. So they come to, “Guys, guys, we have this great news.” And they’re like, “Yeah, we know.”

And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread.

St. Luke makes the point again. Christ is known to us in the breaking of the bread in the Eucharist.

Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them,

So while they’re still excitedly talking about this, “He appeared to us!” While they’re going back and forth, Jesus Himself appears in the midst of them.

and said to them, “Peace to you.”  But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.

So still things haven’t fully clicked. They still think maybe they’re seeing a ghost. And we could be a little harsh on them. Because I’ve got to tell you, if a loved one passed away and someone came to me and said, “Hey, yeah, I went down to the cemetery and the coffin was sitting there open and he was gone,” my first conclusion would not be, “Well, he must have risen from the dead.” That would not be the first thing I went to. And even if somebody I love died and then I saw them, you’d probably also think it was a ghost, right? Before I thought they were raised for the dead. And that kind of thing in the ancient world was very common, that people would see the spirit of a departed loved one, it would appear to them. And there are a lot of stories about that. Someone seeing the spirit of a departed loved one who says goodbye or who gives them some final wish or some final that kind of thing happened a lot in the stories of literature and the time. So don’t be too hard on them. They’re sort of understanding this in the way they’ve been culturally conditioned to understand it.

Interlocutor: That happens a lot in Shakespeare.

Fr. Stephen: Right.  Shakespeare, you have the same thing, Hamlet’s father and this sort of thing. It’s sort of a literary trope. But yeah, like I said, if I suddenly saw one of my departed loved ones I would not first jump to “they rose from the dead”. I would probably first think I was seeing a ghost or I’d gone crazy or someone was playing a trick on me or something else. So don’t be too hard on the disciples that they still haven’t quite pieced this all together.

And He said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.

Remember, St. Luke is telling us a historical story. He’s giving us historical details. He’s telling us what historically happened. And so, Jesus says, “No, I’m risen from the dead. Look, here’s the difference. Got holes in my hand, nail holes in my hands. I’ve got nail holes in my feet. This is my body up and walking around.” He’s risen from the dead. He’s not a spirit. He says, you can touch, right? Ghosts don’t have flesh and blood. Your hand goes right through them. At least at the haunted mansion at Disneyland. So you can see I’m not a ghost.

But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled,

So they’re still, as one might imagine, somewhat dazzled. Jesus reinforces his point:

He said to them, “Have you any food here?” So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence.

So he says, “Look, okay, ghosts don’t eat, right? Look here, I’m eating. I’m alive.”

Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.

Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  And you are witnesses of these things.  Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”

So he lays out for them now what just happened and what’s going to happen. He says to them, “Remember all those things I said when we were journeying, I kept telling you that I was going to be betrayed, I was going to be handed over, I was going to be crucified, I was going to rise again. I kept telling you that. You remember that?” And again he takes them through the Scriptures. He says, “This is what was supposed to happen. This was all part of the plan all along.” That’s another theme we’ve seen in St. Luke’s Gospel, that this was the plan all along. And then he says, “not only” notice here previously, when he predicted it before it happened, it always ended with him rising on the third day. Betrayed, handed over, suffer, die, rise on the third day. Now it doesn’t. Now, “rise on the third day”, and then “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem”.

Notice the way that’s phrased too. The Gospel is about repentance and forgiveness of sins, but also to all nations. Who is St. Luke writing to? Churches all over the world that include Gentiles, right? So what he is saying here is, St. Paul going and preaching to all these Gentiles, that wasn’t sort of something he came up with on his own. It wasn’t, He was going to the Jewish people and he struck out, so he said, “Well, okay, well, they aren’t buying, let’s go talk to these Gentiles,” right? This was part of the plan all along, that it be preached everywhere, starting in Jerusalem. It wasn’t preached to Jerusalem and then, oh yeah, it happened to leak out other places. Jerusalem was the beginning, and then it was always intended to go to the whole world. “You are witnesses of these things”. But then he says, remember, Acts is volume two. Acts of the Apostles is volume two of St. Luke’s Gospel. So we get the teaser here, the cliffhanger ending, right? That Christ is going to send the promise of the Father, which is the Holy Spirit, which he also calls here “power from on high.” He says, I want you to wait here, stay in Jerusalem till that time comes. We know it’s going to come in Pentecost once we get into the Book of Acts.

And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.

And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.  Amen.

So it ends with the Ascension. And the account of the Ascension here is pretty short and brief. There’s a little more detail in the Book of Acts, because the Book of Acts starts with the Ascension. It’s sort of the “last time on” at the beginning of the TV show, after you had it to be continued, you get the little recap, right? So we start with the ascension in the Book of Acts. And here it’s just very simply put that he’s blessing them and he is parted from them and disappears.

But notice what they do here at the end of the Gospel of Luke, because after the battle of Emmaus in First Maccabees, after they overthrew the Greeks, what did they do? They went back and they rededicated the temple because they had been defiled by Antiochus. That’s what started the revolt. They went back and rededicated the temple and that’s what led to the feast of Hanukkah. So you notice after the road to Emmaus, where do the disciples all go after the end of Christ’s victory? They all go back to the temple. They all go and worship God in the temple, because St. Luke is making the point here that even though we had God leaving the Temple, we’ve had these predictions of the Temple being destroyed. That’s not because the religion of the Jews, it’s not right to call it Judaism, it’s not that the religion of the Old Testament now is begone and done away with, but what we have with Christ, what we have with the worship he described in that Road to Emmaus story, what we have with Christ is the fulfillment of that religion.

So the Temple is sort of symbolically rededicated now to Christ rather than to the old… So those chief priests now are left out. And that’s the ultimate punishment for what they did. They rejected and excluded Christ, and so now they’ve found themselves cut off from God. And that is the end of St. Luke’s Gospel.