Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] If you're a guest with us, my name is Brandon. I'm joyfully one of the pastors here. And you're welcome. And for. Thank you for being here.
[00:00:08] We're continuing in our series the Table. As you just saw, that delicious Mediterranean meal on the screen made me ready for lunch.
[00:00:17] And in this series, we are encountering Jesus through the meals that he attended. And today, we're going to see Jesus restore hope to a sad disciple.
[00:00:29] And we're going to see Jesus explain the purpose of the entire Bible.
[00:00:34] It's a immensely significant passage of scripture and to get our hearts headed in the right direction. Let me show you a picture of the first time my daughters went to Disney.
[00:00:48] This was. What's crazy is this was only five years ago. My. This one right here was my daughter.
[00:00:54] She's twice as tall as she was in that photo. Anyway, this was the moment we just walked in the park. This is the moment that they first saw Cinderella's castle.
[00:01:06] It's crazy to me that it was not that long ago. What an awesome moment. They were blown away because Disney is famously huge and spectacular. It's literally known as the most magical place on earth.
[00:01:21] Disney was made, as many of you have experienced, for huge crowds from all over the world to have wonderful memories across 25,000 acres.
[00:01:31] And we couldn't believe the size and the amazingness of Disney.
[00:01:35] But somehow it's often also personal. Is it? A trash can will have a conversation with you.
[00:01:43] It's true.
[00:01:46] More importantly, a princess will notice you.
[00:01:51] Our first time at Disney in That photo was 2021. We had three girls ages 6 to 10 at that moment. So we were a big Frozen fan family.
[00:02:01] And actually, you saw in the picture, two of our girls were wearing Frozen themed Mickey ears. And at some point that afternoon, there was a parade through the park.
[00:02:10] And we saw it. We stopped like everybody else and oh, my goodness, we saw in the distance there was a Frozen float coming.
[00:02:17] There they were. Even I was excited. Queen Elsa and Princess Anna.
[00:02:22] And as they moved past us, Princess Anna leaned over the side of the float, looked at my girls and said, I like your ears.
[00:02:34] Princess Anna noticed my girls and told them she liked their ears. It was amazing.
[00:02:43] And I seriously get a little emotional thinking about it because it was such a cool day for my daughters. But I also think I get emotional because the real reason that we love Disney and things like Disney is because they mirror in small but real ways the reality at the core of the world. We are living right now as part of a huge supernatural story.
[00:03:10] We live right now in a cosmic, once upon a time sort of tale. And what our passage is going to remind us of today is that there is a massive magical story at the heart of this world. And somehow the king of that story will notice you.
[00:03:30] What I want us to see today is that Jesus is the point of the Word and the hope of the One.
[00:03:38] Jesus is the whole point of the whole story of the world. And he'll help a sad person in the suburbs.
[00:03:47] It's amazing.
[00:03:48] Jesus is the point of the Word and the hope of the One. So the scene, the grice. Just read it for us. I'm going to walk us back through it briefly before we dig into what it's teaching us. Let's begin in verse 13. Y' all ready? We're going to power through it.
[00:04:04] That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things that happened. First, it's important to recognize that that very day is Easter.
[00:04:20] What we're looking at today happened hours after Jesus rose from the dead, conquering sin and death and hell for all people of all time who trust in him. The afternoon of Easter, a couple of Jesus disciples are walking back to a town called Emmaus, seven miles from where the world just changed forever. With me so far.
[00:04:45] Keep reading. While they're talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with him, but their eyes were kept from recognizing them. So Jesus joins these two disciples on the road, and we learn that one of them is named Cleopas. You just heard that. And crucially, their eyes are kept from recognizing Jesus. We're going to see why a little later. But what's going on here is that these are two of Jesus's many disciples. You know that he had His 12 disciples, but he was also followed at many times by many others. So these are two disciples that would have recognized him, but he shows up besides them, and God keeps them from recognizing him. Still there.
[00:05:26] Great. Verse 17.
[00:05:28] And he said to them, what is this conversation you are holding with each other as you walk? And they stood still, looking sad. Jesus asked them what they're talking about. And the Bible specifically tells us that these disciples are sad. That is when Cleopas tells Jesus, without knowing that he is Jesus, about Jesus.
[00:05:49] He tells him that Jesus had been a prophet, mighty in word and deed, but that he had been crucified. And Cleopas says in verse 29:9, but we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.
[00:06:02] It's a sad moment.
[00:06:04] We, Cleopas says we had hoped that Jesus was going to be the one to rescue us. We had hoped, but now he's been dead for three days. And Cleopas then shares that they had heard that Jesus's tomb was empty, but no one knows where Jesus is. Clearly they didn't think anything great was going on because they're going home, back to Emmaus as sad, hopeless disciples. And Jesus responds to this sadness in verse 25 to Cleopas and says, 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 watch. And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. That is one of the biggest verses in the Bible.
[00:06:53] Undeniably life changing can be for you. It was for me. We'll focus on that in a moment. But Jesus confronts the faithlessness of these sad disciples. And he tells them that for thousands of years the Scriptures said that the Messiah would come to rescue the world through suffering, but they couldn't see it.
[00:07:15] And then Jesus gives them a hermeneutics class.
[00:07:19] He gives them a biblical interpretation seminar. For the next several miles of the journey, Jesus walks through the whole Old Testament, beginning with the works of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and all the prophets and all through the Old Testament to show them how the whole scripture was telling everybody all along that the world needed to be rescued from sin and that God himself would come down to. To suffer in our place, to redeem us. That was the all along Jesus walked, his disciples who could not see it was him through the Scripture showing how his love was the work of rescue and was the point of everything.
[00:08:00] Still with me by this time, they arrive at Emmaus.
[00:08:06] And the disciples convinced Jesus to stay with them for dinner. Pick up reading. In verse 30, when he was at table with them, he broke the bread and blessed. He took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. 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. This is so beautiful. Somehow, even though he was the guest, Jesus becomes the host of the meal.
[00:08:35] And when he blesses the bread and breaks it, that is what the Lord uses to open the eyes of the disciples to see that they've really been talking to Jesus. These last Seven miles.
[00:08:46] Now, these disciples would not have been at the Lord's Supper. So that's not how they got this recognition. That's not what triggered it. But as we've seen throughout the series, Jesus was breaking bread with people all the place, all the time.
[00:08:57] It's very likely that these disciples recognized something about the way Jesus broke and blessed bread.
[00:09:03] And that's the moment that God let them see who they were really with and who had been explaining the Scriptures to them that day. And so they said to each other, did not our hearts burn within us as he opened to us the scriptures? And then do you see what they did?
[00:09:26] The disciples who have just been sad now have their hope restored, and they jump back into the mission, and immediately they walk back to Jerusalem the seven miles to tell the other disciples.
[00:09:37] It's an incredible moment in the life of Jesus because it's massive in its scale and implication, while it's also so personal and small.
[00:09:52] The Emmaus moment is simultaneously showing us thousands of years of redemptive work and a risen savior making sure Cleopas is okay.
[00:10:08] Jesus is the point of the Word and the hope of the One.
[00:10:15] So now we've seen the story, I want us to focus on those two truths one at a time. Here we go. Jesus is the point of the whole Word for the whole world. Look again at verse 24.
[00:10:28] And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the thing concerning himself. So I'm going to spend a few minutes helping you know how to do this.
[00:10:43] But first, remember, the reality is that our world has been broken almost since it began.
[00:10:54] Humanity has been fallen and dying since sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden. But also remember, from the very first day, the Bible has promised that a hero would come and he would change everything about the story. Even in that first heartbreaking conversation between God and his people who rejected him, he said to Adam and Eve, over Adam and Eve and the enemy.
[00:11:21] He said the offspring of Eve the woman would bruise his hill while he crushed the enemy's head. Right?
[00:11:30] But that day on the road to Emmaus, the disciples did not understand that that is exactly what had just happened.
[00:11:42] The moment we'd all been waiting for for millennia had arrived. Yet they were sad. They said we had hoped this was the one. But they didn't understand what he'd done.
[00:11:54] Cleopas didn't understand what the Bible had been saying all along about how God would suffer to save his people.
[00:12:03] Rewriting the story that we made sad.
[00:12:08] And so Jesus Came and explained it to him.
[00:12:12] And in explaining it to Cleopas, he's explaining it to us.
[00:12:16] Cleopas learned that Jesus is everywhere you look in the Bible. Once you know how to look and understanding this will change your life.
[00:12:26] Changed my life. Once you once you see Jesus as the key to everything in the Bible, you begin to see Jesus as the key for every moment in your life. Like the brokenness you see in the Bible, once you know to look for the rescuer, always in the deep need of God's people in the Bible, you begin to trust that rescuer for everything you face.
[00:12:48] So let me give you the three P's for reading the Old Testament as a way to experience Jesus in the Old Testament scripture for yourself. The more official terms for these three ways to see Jesus in the Old Testament are prophecy, typology and christophany.
[00:13:07] You're not going to remember those, but you can remember these three P's and I'm going to email them to you this week. Anyway, these will help you understand the Bible interpretation lesson that Jesus gave Cleopas on the road to Emmaus.
[00:13:24] First, the most common thing you are looking for in the Old Testament is patterns. Patterns of Jesus.
[00:13:35] Give you a second to think about that while I rehydrate.
[00:13:40] A pattern is not the real thing, but it has the shape of the real thing.
[00:13:47] It is the outline of the real thing to help you get a sense of the real thing. My one year old son has a little emo, a little Elmo stuffy that he really loves right now.
[00:14:00] And one of my daughters is super into bedazzling right now.
[00:14:05] So I asked her to bedazzle a pattern of his Elmo.
[00:14:11] She did a pretty great job.
[00:14:14] The pattern isn't the actual Elmo, but it helps you know what it looks like, right?
[00:14:27] It's not Elmo, but it helps you know the shape of the real thing. She did a lot of work for that 15 seconds.
[00:14:36] There are patterns of Jesus all over the Old Testament.
[00:14:42] I mean it's essentially inexhaustible. But probably the most common example used to illustrate the patterns is David. It's probably what you'll hear the most. Most of you know the story of David and Goliath. God's people are being threatened by a giant.
[00:14:58] They can't win.
[00:15:00] Young David walks up and volunteers to fight the giant. And then he kills the giant in the power and the name of God. It's amazing. And when I was in church as a kid, I was told, trust God and you too can kill the Giants in your life. And yes, that is sometimes true.
[00:15:20] God can use you to defeat enemies. But isn't it also true that sometimes we don't trust God?
[00:15:28] And even if somehow you trusted God perfectly and you won't, isn't it also true that there's some giants we just can't kill? You can't defeat the giant of sin.
[00:15:39] You certainly can't defeat the giants of death and hell. It was never really about that. That means it's more. David is more of a pattern for Jesus than he is for me and you. David is a pattern pointing to something greater. In fact, there is famous language for talking about patterns of Jesus. Teachers of the Bible, you've actually heard me use it before, often call Jesus the true and better version of all kinds of things that we see in the Old Testament that are trying to be the outline of him or trying to reveal him, trying to show us our need for him and what he would accomplish.
[00:16:11] Jesus was the true and better David because David was pointing forward to a time when Jesus would stand in the place to fight for everybody and he would defeat the giants of sin and death that nobody else could. And it would be for forever to set his people free from captivity.
[00:16:29] David was a pattern that helped the world like so many others. Remember that we need a rescuer who would suffer in our place and that he was coming.
[00:16:37] Moses is another example of a pattern.
[00:16:41] I want you to put categories in your mind for when you're reading the Bible. Moses interceded for the people of God. He led them out of bondage, but of course he was also weak and he was often unfaithful and he didn't even make it to the promised land.
[00:16:53] But he accomplished his most important purpose because that was to show God's people that they needed a true and better rescuer.
[00:17:01] They needed a Messiah who would come and intercede for them once and for all that would lead them out of bondage for all time and forever. You get the idea when you see the patterns of weakness and protection of sin and salvation in the Old Testament.
[00:17:18] Those are patterns in the great story of the universe that said to the world, Jesus is coming to save the day and give himself in your place.
[00:17:30] It's not just people. Animal skins put on Adam and Eve after they sinned against God are patterns telling us the rescuer is coming and he'll be the one to be sacrificed in your place. The ark that saves Noah and his family after the flood, the sacrifices offered at the temple, the to atone for sin, the heroes of the faith who helped God's people find just temporary freedom in so many ways. These all told us for thousands of years, the rescuer is coming to suffer for the world. Jesus is coming to save you. And then to Cleopas and his friend on the road outside of Jerusalem, Jesus said, I'm here.
[00:18:13] It's happened.
[00:18:16] I am the one you hoped and waited for. And patterns of Jesus aren't even the only thing we have in the Old Testament. We also have promises of Jesus.
[00:18:27] When you read the Old Testament, look for the promises. There are hundreds of them. The Old Testament writers, through the work of the Spirit of God, told us what was going to happen to our suffering Savior, sometimes thousands of years in advance. For example, Isaiah 7:14 was written roughly 700 years before the birth of Jesus. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Emmanuel. The Old Testament told us that a rescuer would come who would be God with us, born of a virgin.
[00:18:59] Did you know that the Old Testament foretold that Jesus would be Galilean?
[00:19:03] Pretty crazy. Did you know that the Old Testament said that he would be pierced?
[00:19:09] The Old Testament foretold that the money used to betray Jesus would then be used to purchase a potter's field. And then centuries later, that's what happened. And I'm not telling you where those things are because I want you to read your Bible and find them. And also probably I would have to look them up right now because I don't really remember.
[00:19:29] The Bible said for thousands of years Jesus is coming to rescue the world from brokenness and death through his suffering. And then he did so. We can look for patterns of Jesus. We can look for promises about Jesus. And the third P, we can look for the presence of Jesus.
[00:19:52] Patterns, promises and presence. There are a few times in the Old Testament when Jesus, who is the embodied second person of our triune God, just shows up himself. This is called Christophany.
[00:20:05] Think of Daniel 3. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are thrown into the fire. And Nebuchadnezzar says, did we not cast three men bound into the fire?
[00:20:15] They answered him, said to the king. True, O king, he answered and said, but I see four men unbound walking in the midst of the fire. And they are not hurt. And the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.
[00:20:29] That's Christophany. That's the presence of the pre incarnate Christ in the Old Testament.
[00:20:36] But let me tell you about Genesis 22.
[00:20:39] This is incredible.
[00:20:41] A lot of, you know, Genesis 22, it's a famous moment that is a pattern for the coming Messiah. God tells Abraham to sacrifice all Isaac on an altar, right? But of course, he didn't really want Abraham to sacrifice Isaac because instead the Bible says that the angel of the Lord calls out to Abraham before he does this and said to instead to sacrifice the ram caught in the bushes, right?
[00:21:05] What is the ram?
[00:21:08] It's a pattern of Jesus. You guys are such great students. It's a pattern of Jesus, who became the true and better sacrifice to spare the lives of the people of God. Right?
[00:21:20] But then we read, read with me, beginning in verse 15.
[00:21:24] And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, by myself, I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. And I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven and as the sand is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. So we already have a pattern.
[00:21:52] Now we read, all the nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring. That is part of a promise that Jesus would come through Abraham's line to be the rescuer of the world. Pattern and promise. But here's the kicker.
[00:22:08] In giving that word, the angel, and angel there just means messenger.
[00:22:14] The messenger says, by myself I have sworn.
[00:22:19] This is the Lord's declaration.
[00:22:22] So you have this messenger saying, by myself I swear the Lord's declaration.
[00:22:31] Who is the messenger who was from the Lord and is the Lord Jesus.
[00:22:42] Jesus.
[00:22:43] So in this one story within the story of the universe, Jesus is present and Jesus is promising. And Jesus is patterning his own sacrificial death in our place as his rescue mission. All at the same time, Jesus wants us to see that he's the whole point of the whole Word, for the whole world. So for thousands of years, the story at the center of everything was that Orestewer would come to save humanity from sin, and that to do so, he would suffer. That was the plan all along. It's the most significant thing ever.
[00:23:21] And on the road to Emmaus, Jesus is explaining that truth to sad Cleopas.
[00:23:28] Because Jesus is also the hope of the One, the point of the Word and the world and the One.
[00:24:09] Sorry about that, guys.
[00:24:12] Saw my friend JD over there and we've been talking about getting together to play pickleball. I just want to make sure.
[00:24:20] Apparently we're going to play Wednesday night because I just asked him right now.
[00:24:23] Hope that's true. Really looking forward to it.
[00:24:29] We all think what we're doing right now is very important or we wouldn't be here.
[00:24:34] And it is important enough that it is odd for me to walk off stage to talk to somebody.
[00:24:42] Even in a crowd this size. It would be strange if I regularly walked off stage just to spend a moment with one or two guys.
[00:24:56] Here's what I want your heart to see.
[00:25:01] Jesus after the three most important long awaited days in history.
[00:25:10] With the eternal lives of everyone who has ever lived at stake. The same day he rose from the dead. But literally changing everything about the world and every single person in it. Jesus knew that a guy named Cleopas was going to struggle with what had just happened.
[00:25:31] It's crazy.
[00:25:34] Jesus fulfilled the promise of rescue that is as old as the world itself. But he also knew Cleopas didn't understand it.
[00:25:43] And on the day of all days with the entire planet needing to hear that the story had been changed forever. Jesus walks seven miles to have dinner with his friends.
[00:25:59] We're miles away from Jerusalem where the people who are actually going to be used to change the course of history don't even know what's happening yet.
[00:26:12] And Jesus led sad Cleopas through his word, showing him the plan.
[00:26:19] Showing Cleopas that Jesus intended to suffer to atone for our sin. That Jesus purpose was to be rejected and crucified and lifted up to draw all men to himself. And even before he recognized who he was talking to, Cleopas heart burned.
[00:26:40] And only then when his eyes are open to the most magnificent, magical, massive moment in history. I don't know why I did three M's there. I wish I could take it back. Only then did Cleopas walk right back to Jerusalem. He right back. He jumped back in. He said, we got to tell the other disciples that the suffering of Jesus was the plan and he's alive and this is the hope.
[00:27:07] And I was overjoyed this week and I hope you will be too. Thinking about how loved Cleopas must have felt while walking back to Jerusalem that evening.
[00:27:19] He retraced the steps he had just taken.
[00:27:23] While the patterns of Jesus's sacrifice had been explained to him by Jesus. As the promises of Jesus's rescue plan had been laid out for him. And I thought about this week, about how some point on the road back into Jerusalem it would have occurred to Cleopas, wait a minute.
[00:27:42] This was all for me.
[00:27:46] What he would have made the Connection, my friend. Jesus was the ram in the bush to save me.
[00:27:59] Jesus, who was just at my table, was the tabernacle and the ladder to heaven and the unblemished lamb slain so that I could live.
[00:28:11] And now he's alive and he just came to dinner to make sure I knew it was true.
[00:28:17] That's amazing.
[00:28:19] Jesus is the point of the Word and the hope of the One. And the One and the One and the One and the One. Oh, still you one.
[00:28:32] But how do we experience this?
[00:28:35] Because we're not on the road to Emmaus today.
[00:28:39] How do we get to encounter the same truth, the same love, the same hope that Cleopas experienced? And it's so simple.
[00:28:48] We experience it the same way Cleopas did.
[00:28:52] Perhaps the biggest point of this text is that Jesus closed the eyes of his disciples for a reason. Reason so important.
[00:29:04] Jesus was days away from ascending to heaven and sending His Holy Spirit. So he closed the eyes of a disciple who could have seen him to teach everyone who would come after how anyone can see him.
[00:29:22] In closing Cleopas eyes and revealing to him that Jesus was the whole point of the whole Bible. Jesus was showing us exactly how to be the one he walks with, how we can find and have the hope and love of God for me.
[00:29:43] For you.
[00:29:46] Jesus knew that Second Corinthians 5:7 would be true.
[00:29:52] We walk by faith, not by sight.
[00:29:57] You probably haven't seen him.
[00:30:01] Cleopas didn't know he had.
[00:30:06] We see and experience Jesus today the same way Cleopas did on Easter Sunday.
[00:30:13] Not with our eyes first, but with the Word first.
[00:30:17] And guess what? When you open God's Word, Jesus is the hero and you get to be the one.
[00:30:30] Jesus is the point of the Word and the hope of the One. And that one is you sitting in your chair at your house tomorrow morning when you go to God's Word, in your own sadness and you have it, and sometimes even in your hopelessness and your cynicism, you know what you're going to see. You're going to see that Jesus promised for thousands of years to give you a future and a hope. And he did it.
[00:30:59] And you're going to see that he promised to atone for your sin through his sacrificial death. And it's finished.
[00:31:07] You're going to see that he promised to send a king who could lead you to peace. And it's done.
[00:31:16] So if you have a Bible, you have a hope.
[00:31:20] If you have the Word, it has the rescuer. And you are the One.
[00:31:27] I'll fix that for next service.
[00:31:34] Let Jesus come to you with hope. Here's my encouragement for you this week.
[00:31:39] This past week, I set a timer each morning for an hour to read the Old Testament.
[00:31:46] It was amazing.
[00:31:48] I read the book of Leviticus with tears in my eyes. All the. If you can read the book of Leviticus and feel hope, you know Jesus is there. You know how it starts.
[00:31:59] You know how Leviticus starts. Something like this, when you need to pay for your sin. This is the Brandon Hiltebato version.
[00:32:08] Bring a bull without blemish and kill it.
[00:32:14] What is that?
[00:32:16] It's a pattern.
[00:32:18] I couldn't.
[00:32:20] You know how many bulls you'd have to kill?
[00:32:22] My gosh.
[00:32:23] There'd be no stakes left.
[00:32:27] Maybe not 60 minutes, maybe 30 minutes. Set a timer for 30 minutes each day this week to read the Old Testament. Seeing the hope and the love of Jesus. See that it's for you. He's the point of the word. He's the hope of your heart.
[00:32:42] Let me pray for us that God will help us experience it. Father, I thank you so much.
[00:32:51] Father, thank you for loving us before the foundation of the world. Even though we set ourselves against you. You purposed to send your son as our sacrifice. Jesus, thank you for rescuing us and your holy Spirit to open our eyes to see the truth. And we see it through what you've given us. That we say thank you so much. And God, I do pray for anybody that's in this room right now that does not have a relationship with you through the sacrificial death of Jesus in their place. That they would see him right now as their only hope.
[00:33:23] There is not enough they can do to defeat the giant of their sin. There's nothing they can do to avoid the surety of their death.
[00:33:32] But you've made a way.
[00:33:35] And God, I pray for my brothers and sisters that you would help our hearts to burn within us with hope, with the recognition of your love. God, I pray that you would lead my friends down the road tomorrow morning in their house.
[00:34:00] Jesus, you love him. You love me.
[00:34:04] You loved Cleopas.
[00:34:07] We have no doubt. And I pray that you'd help us to live in it. Pray that you'd help us to share it.
[00:34:13] Help us to sing about it.
[00:34:17] In your name we pray. Amen. Let's stand.
