You can watch this here on You Tube: https://youtu.be/TJ7-yiNR3P4

Luke 24:13-35  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2024%3A%2013-35&version=NLT

We know Jesus had twelve, now eleven, close friends who came to be called the apostles.  We also know there was a group of women who had followed and cared for him since his Galilee days.  But there were many others who had really believed he was the Messiah that the scriptures had promised.  So right at this moment in time, there were a lot of very distressed and confused people heading home from the Passover festival in Jerusalem.  Some had even heard the women’s report about the empty tomb and the angels.  That only added to their bewilderment. A guy named Cleopas and one of his friends were two such people.  It was a seven mile walk home to Emmaus so they had plenty of time to talk.  They weren’t the only people on the road by any means and everyone they passed was talking about the same thing.  So when this guy they didn’t recognize was suddenly walking beside them they were baffled when he started asking them what they were talking about.  

“Seriously? Have you been living under a rock for the last three days?”  They fill the clueless stranger in.  Then he starts talking, and it becomes clear that he is not the clueless one.  “Open your eyes guys! How can you not see what’s going on?  This is exactly what the scriptures have always said would happen.”  And then he gives them a one lecture old testament survey as he demonstrates that from the earliest books of scripture, which were known as the law of Moses, right through all the writings of the prophets, God had said this was going to happen exactly the way it did.  As he spoke it was like a supernatural warmth radiated through them.  When they reached Emmaus the stranger headed for the road that went past the town, but they begged him to come home with them.  It was late afternoon.  They wanted him to stay, to keep talking.  His words were so full of hope.  It was all making sense.  They never wanted him to leave.  He agreed and joined them for dinner.  I guess they asked him to say grace because he did and then as he handed them the bread, they suddenly realized it.  Maybe it was a flashback to the way he passed them bread after blessing five loaves and two fish all those months ago after a long day of teaching.  I’m not sure what finally made them see it, but as they took the bread, they realized it was Jesus.  He was alive.  He was having dinner with them just like old times.  And then he was gone.  Only now they weren’t crushed by his disappearance.  Frankly, nothing could crush them again.  Jesus had walked them through the words of their scriptures and demonstrated that he was their fulfillment.  It all made sense, and now nothing could take their hope away.  

What Cleopas and his friend were realising is that over some fifteen or so centuries, and through the thirty to forty voices through which the scriptures were written, some 300 or more prophecies were all fulfilled in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. If there is a moment in history I wish I could have experienced, I think it’s that walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. That must have been amazing.  

And ya, apparently it was, because they ran seven miles back to Jerusalem in the middle of the night to tell the apostles what had happened.  When they get there, instead of a quiet darkened room full of disheartened people like the one they had left that morning, the door is thrown open to an ecstatic buzz of conversation and every light in the house burning bright.  Everyone is talking at once but they are at least able to make out the fact that, somewhere in the last several hours, Peter had also seen Jesus alive.  I wish Luke had told us how that went down!  Anyways, Cleopas and his buddy start telling their story and everyone is riveted. They are talking so excitedly that it takes them a minute to notice that the attention in the room has shifted.