Emmaus

Our pastor listens to the sermons of others. Podcasts, radio, riding in the car, sitting in on other’s services, we all hear a variety of preachers. Sunday morning he mentioned one he wished he could hear – Christ’s witness to the two men on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24.

Not me. I want to walk with them. Not just to hear what Christ had to say about scriptures prophesying His coming, but to ask Him about those very scriptures. He referred to scriptures often throughout His ministry. He knew them inside and out. Quoted them in the synagogue as well as to the tempter in the wilderness. Beginning with the temple visit at age 12, when He answered his parents with a question of His own.

And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? (Luke 2:49 KJV)

His parents knew the purpose of His birth. They easily forgot, but they had been told, specifically, that this was the Son of God.

As the Bereans learned about Jesus, they, too, wondered if what they heard was true and they searched the scriptures. The Tanakh. The written, not the oral traditions and interpretations of the word of God. That portion of the Christian Bible completed almost six centuries before Jesus’ birth, yet carried promises of His coming.

The Ethiopian was reading Isaiah when approached by Philip.

And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man? (Acts 8:34 KJV)

Philip took what we now call the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, explained the recent happenings in relation to it and the result was the same then as it is now in our churches two millennia later as our pastors preach Christ.

And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. (Acts 8:36-37 KJV)

Sunday morning we looked at Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 50:6, Isaiah 53:7-8, Psalms 22:7, 14, 16, 18 – but there are many, many more. My favorite is from Genesis.

And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. (Genesis 22:8 KJV)

And, He did provide Himself. For this, His unspeakable gift and the faith required to understand, I am eternally grateful.

Detail from Gemalde von Robert Zund's "Gang nach Emmaus", 1877 (Wiki Commons)