Recreate Church, Pastor Michael Shockley—Service, Sunday, April 17, 2022

Easter Sunday. Along with, Unmet Expectations.

Today, Pastor Michael is studying the resurrection and unmet expectations.  He is in the book of Luke and Cleopas and friends are walking towards Emmaus and thinking something was supposed to happen and it didn’t.  The something was Jesus and being crucified and dying; folks had expected him to be the Messiah and now he was dead!  Talk about unmet expectations!

Another person comes along and starts walking with them and he asked them what they were talking about and why they were so sad.  Cleopas felt that this stranger knew very little about what all had been going on, but he gave the story of Jesus, hoping he was the Messiah and now he had been crucified and had been dead for 3 days.  Now, further evidence today shows that, the tomb was empty.  But they were going home, nothing had been confirmed, they didn’t really understand what all had been happening and yet this stranger felt this was exactly as it was supposed to be!

The Messiah was always destined to lay down his life, according to this stranger, who went over all the background of the prophesy of what happened to Jesus and how it was predicted long, long ago.  This person gave them many prophesies about how he would suffer and die.  And that it was not really, unexpected!

These folks walking along the road, asked the stranger to come to their house and have food with them.  When they asked him to bless the food, they recognized him but, he soon disappeared!

They ran back to Jerusalem and let everyone know that they had seen Jesus!  The Risen Lord!

(CSB Baker Illustrated Bible Study Notes) 24:13–27. The first resurrection appearance recorded in Luke’s Gospel is found here in 24:13–35. Two people are traveling to Emmaus from Jerusalem (24:13). As they travel, they are discussing the events of the previous day, and Jesus catches up with them as they journey (24:14–15). They cannot recognize Jesus, not because he looks different, but because in God’s sovereignty they are prevented from identifying him (24:16).

When Jesus inquires about the topic of their conversation, Cleopas (cf. Jn 19:25, which may refer to the same person; the identity of Cleopas’s partner is unknown, but perhaps it was his wife) responds by identifying Jesus as a prophet through whom God has worked in a mighty way (24:17–19). Nevertheless, he has been executed by the religious leaders, indicating that he could not have been the Messiah (24:20–21). To make matters worse, some women are saying that this Jesus is alive (24:22–23). They are right that the tomb is empty, but such a report could not be believed because no one has seen Jesus (24:24).

 

The “unknown” Jesus counters the belief of these two by pointing to the Scriptures. The OT Scriptures clearly teach that the Messiah must suffer before he enters into glory (24:25–27). For the texts that Jesus used, one should probably refer to the speeches in the book of Acts (Ac 2:14–39; 3:12–26; 13:16–41).

Verses can be found today in Luke 24: 13-49.

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.