This morning, I invite you to turn with me to Luke's account of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We'll read together Luke 24, beginning at verse 1 through verse 35. Considering this morning the episode that took place on the road to Emmaus, verses 13 through 35. Luke 24, beginning at verse 1. Hear now the holy Word of God. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen. Remember how He told you while He was still with you in Galilee, the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and on the third day be raised again? Then they remembered his words. When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and He went away wondering to Himself what had happened. Now that same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus Himself came up and walked along with them, but they were kept from recognizing Him. He asked them, What are you discussing together as you walk along? They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days? What things? he asked. About Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. But we had hoped that He was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn't find His body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found just as the women had said, but Him they did not see. He said to them, How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself. As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if He were going farther. But they urged Him strongly, Stay with us, for it is nearly evening. The day is almost over. So He went in to stay with them. When He was at the table with them, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him, and He disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us? They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven and those with them assembled together and saying, It is true, the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon. Then the two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus was recognized by them when He broke the bread. There ends the reading of God's holy Word. May He bless it to us this morning. Well, beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, on this day that we call Easter Sunday, we do celebrate the resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is alive. And that's why Peter was able to say with confidence, in His great mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope. How? Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Our living hope, our new birth, comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead because of His work accomplished on the cross. And as Paul says in Romans, He was raised for our justification that we might be right with God. And as that wonderful resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15 says, Paul calls Him the first fruits. His resurrection guarantees our resurrection from the dead. It guarantees our eternal life. Easter is indeed a time of joy, gladness, happiness, excitement, a time of celebration and good news. And that is why a sermon title that begins, Easter Tragedy, does not really fit for us, does it? Because for us, in our way of thinking, the tragedy, well, that was Friday night. The tragedy was Christ's crucifixion and death. For us, the tragedy was over. But it was not over for the followers of Jesus on that first Easter Sunday. They woke up as they did on Saturday, possibly thinking, it wasn't a dream. Jesus is dead. He really is in the sealed tomb. And then, of course, To complicate matters, there were the reports in the early morning hours of the empty tomb, but also the rumors that the disciples had stolen His body. Yes, yes, there were the reports of the angels preaching that He's alive and that He even appeared to some women. But the apostles didn't even believe it, as Mark records, and also Luke in verse 11. But they did not believe the women because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Even the apostles did not expect the resurrection of Jesus. On this first Easter morning, the problem, the tragedy for Christ's followers remained the cross and the suffering and the death of Jesus. The cross was a reality that they could not escape. The cross was a reality that they did not yet understand as is clear from Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus, as Cleopas says, they crucified Him. Yet for them and all of Christ's apostles and followers, this day that began in tragedy would be turned to Easter triumph on the Emmaus road. From Easter tragedy to Easter triumph. Beginning with the somber situation. That's how the day began. And the setting, it was not only the devastation of the Lord's crucifixion and death, but also added to that again the confusion and the unconfirmed reports of the early morning hours. And here these two disciples most likely about mid-afternoon were heading, we don't know for sure, but maybe home to Emmaus. About a seven-mile journey. Deep in conversation. Questioning each other back and forth about everything that had happened, the Bible says. How could this be? Why did this have to happen? Questioning each other without answers for each other, only to be joined by Jesus, yet as verse 16 says, they were kept from recognizing Him. Just as Mary earlier in the morning and some days later, all the apostles, Jesus was able to conceal His identity from them for this crucial time of instruction while He also pretended ignorance. Verse 17, He asked them, What are you discussing together as you walk along? Now, boys and girls, we know that Jesus didn't have to ask that question. He knew what they were talking about. But as He asks it, He drew out their sadness and their disappointment and their shattered hope. As if rehearsing it all again, just reopened unhealed wounds, but also that question met with a bit of a rebuke. They stood still. Their face is downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days? They stood there, in a sense, dumbfounded with their sadness and disappointment showing all over their face as if to say, well, where have you been? Everybody knows what's taking place. This is the only topic of conversation. It was the kind of news that silences everything else. Today, for us, it would be the kind of news that makes headlines for the newspapers and for the TV news. It was the kind of situation that everybody knew about, like when Presidents Kennedy and Reagan were shot, or in 1986 when the Challenger exploded, or the events of 9-11, or closer to home, the San Diego fires of 2007, or who can forget the Escondido bomb house. Everybody knows what has taken place. Where have you been? Yet this stranger draws out the burden of their hearts on this somber situation. What things, he asked. About Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed Him over to be sentenced to death and they crucified Him. But we had hoped that He was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all of this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning, but didn't find His body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said. But Him, they did not see. You can hear the disappointment in their voices. Him, they did not see. They unburdened themselves. The subject of the somber situation was Jesus of Nazareth as they remembered fondly His powerful Word, how He captivated the audiences who had never heard anyone speak like this, speaking with power and authority and comfort. Oh, how He knew the Scriptures like no one else. And they reminisced of His powerful deeds, His miracles, His wide range of miracles, even raising the dead to life. His powerful deeds that even His enemies could not deny. His powerful Word and deed that led to their hopes and their expectations, everything about Him testified that He was the One. That He was the Messiah. That He was the hope of Israel. Everything about Him testified to that. That is, everything except these things. His cross. His crucifixion. His death. which ushered in their disappointments. None of it made any sense, especially the fact that our leaders, the chief priests and the rulers, handed Him over to die, as Peter also preached on Pentecost. How could they do that? Our leaders, well, they were supposed to know, right? They were experts in the Scriptures, right? Yet the problem, as Jesus would make clear, was that the Jewish religious leaders, along with the apostles, really took only from the Old Testament what spoke of the glory and the victory of the Messiah and ignored the necessary path of suffering leading to those blessings. Also because they did not understand the kind of redemption that He was to bring. They thought it would be earthly, physical, temporary from the likes of Rome. And by this time, reality was setting in because it was already the third day and the reality seemed to be that He's not coming back. The bottom line is that the stumbling block of this somber situation was the cross. The cross was the Easter tragedy. The cross and His suffering didn't fit into their thinking of and their hope for a Messiah in the very same way that it remains a stumbling block today for so many who refuse to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and see that cross and Christ's death on it as only a sign of weakness and defeat. Oh, the world wants a superhero Savior. One who can wipe out the physical enemies with one swift blow. Not the only Savior who has defeated Satan and sin and death. In the midst of this somber situation, this stranger then takes over the conversation secondly with the stunning surprise. Verse 25, he said to them, How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Now that seems kind of rude, doesn't it? I suspect our teachers today do not approach their students that way. Oh, how foolish you are. How slow you are to understand the material. Jesus' admonition was not rude at all. Indeed, He admonishes them. They had claimed to be captivated by Christ's Word, His powerful Word. However, they only listened to or comprehended a part of it. And the stunning surprise here was that they receive amazing instruction from this stranger who speaks from all of Scripture, all of the Old Testament. Verses 26 and 27, Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Him. The subject of the Lord's instruction was the divine necessity of the cross of His suffering. Didn't He have to do this? The very truth that troubled them so was necessary for the redemption that they needed. Redemption from sin. Moses, we know, recorded man's creation and his fall into sin. And Moses recorded God's choosing of Abraham and making of him a great nation. Moses also recorded, we know, the moral law of God which the people had broken each and every commandment, and along with that he had recorded the ceremonial law, the sacrificial system that was needed to pay for their sin of breaking God's law. The prophets came with the Word of God prosecuting the covenant lawsuit, calling for repentance, and foretelling of the Son of David who was to come and to sit on the eternal throne. ascending that throne by way of suffering for salvation. That was the true redemption they needed. The Messiah had to suffer to remove man's guilt in order to remove God's wrath. He had to become a curse for us. He had to take our guilt upon Himself. Without the Messiah's suffering and death, He could not sufficiently or successfully do the work the Father had planned for Him to do. No cross, no resurrection, no it is finished. These most important parts of the redemption. No death, no hope. Notice they said, we hoped. They had given up. But you see, hope has not been stripped away. But that hope has become a living hope. It's still in the future. It's completion for us. But it is living. It is guaranteed. It is a reality. And that became the Apostle's message. That God Himself came in the flesh and took our sin upon Himself and suffered and died upon the cross to pay for our sins. He rose again. He ascended the throne in glory and there He reigns and rules over His church until He comes again. Jesus was teaching these two here that there really was no disconnect between what had taken place and what they ought to have expected from the Old Testament. Only His suffering could lead to His glory. Now, that may be hard for us to understand, but if His necessary work had not been finished, if it was not acceptable, if it was not accepted by God, He could not enter His glory. He would not establish His kingdom. God had to be satisfied through the payment for sin before salvation could come to you and me. For us, Jesus Christ established His kingdom without end. He established a place for us, and that's why we can sing of what will take place for us one day, made like Him, like Him we rise. That was the subject of the Lord's instruction, the divine necessity of the cross that He had to suffer. but we also can't miss the method of the Lord's instruction verse 27 again and beginning with Moses and all the prophets he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself the Old Testament scriptures at that time the Old Testament scriptures contained the divine program of things concerning Jesus now we don't know what specific passages Jesus preached on that day whether he began with Genesis 3 verse 15 talking about the seed of the serpent to strike the heel of the seed of the woman whether he took them to the Psalms whether he went to that Isaiah chapter 53 that unmistakable chapter we don't know it just says from all the scriptures but we do know that it was all about him he is the author he is its subject the Bible is His book it is of Him it is of man's need and the only fulfillment of that need through Jesus Christ our Lord it is of God's redemptive purpose in Jesus Christ it is of Jesus Christ from start to finish and He shows these two how these things that they had been talking about were not unexpected but indeed how Scripture testified of Him. And no one knew that word better than he of whom the Word of God spoke and still speaks today by which the cross has been transformed from a cross of gloom to a cross of glory from Easter tragedy to Easter triumph as these two disciples enjoyed finally the spectacular sight revealed to them. Verse 30, When He was at the table with them, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him and He disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us? Beloved, even before their eyes were opened, they were prepared by the Holy Spirit applying the Word of Christ in their hearts. As He knit together the Scriptures and it was brought to make sense to them. They had the burning of the truth in their hearts and excitement and unexplainable stirring a passion for the Word of God. And to top it all off, the spectacular sight revealed to them of this stranger's identity. Notice Jesus did not act as a guest. He acted as the host. And we are not told how or why they come to recognize Him, but it was in the context of Jesus giving thanks for and breaking bread and serving them as He had done before. We know it was the power of God Himself to open their eyes to recognize Him. The spectacular sight revealed to them of the stranger's identity as proof of all the Scriptures had said of Him and as a confirmation of the truth of the rumors of the early morning. We haven't lost Him. He is still with us. He is victorious over death. And therefore, what a change in life completely and forever, beloved, because He is alive. And now we have a Gospel. We have the one and only Gospel, the good news of the only Savior, Jesus Christ, the only way to the Father who has done it all for you and me. Now we have the Gospel to share with those as well who are lonely and hurting and hopeless and suffering and in distress. Many are still foolish looking for other ways of happiness and contentment and salvation if there is such a thing which can only be found in the Easter triumph of the living Lord Jesus Christ who was not only revealed to these two but was revealed by them. Beginning at verse 33, they got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven and those with them assembled together and saying, it is true, the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon. Then the two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus was recognized by them when He broke the bread. Revealed by these two to the rest of the followers who were gathered together who also had a confirming message for them. Peter, Simon Peter, has also seen Him. believers are called to encourage one another in the faith. Believers are called to encourage one another with the truth and the hope of eternal life and to share that hope with others, especially in the midst of a hopeless world. Beloved, the message of the suffering of the cross and the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is to go forth from the mouth of His people through the Word of Jesus Christ alone preached of the glorious foolishness of the cross by which God has chosen to save those who believe. This is the message of the whole of Scripture that we are called to preach and teach and of which to testify. And the Holy Spirit applies that word by igniting the flame of faith that burns in one's born-again heart as that one is brought to see their desperate need and their deserved suffering according to the Scriptures. But also that there is a Redeemer, God planned and God provided according to the Scriptures. The fire of faith burns with joy as one is brought to understand that living hope that is real for you and me today. And those who hear are called to embrace that Word of God, to embrace only the Word of God, and to embrace that Word of God entirely. Ignorance of the Word of God or picking and choosing parts of the Bible that one agrees with, as the Jewish leaders obviously did, will be no excuse before God one day. To say, I didn't know, will not work when in His presence. He has given to us His Word preserved for you and I. still today. The word of salvation. The word of the only way to the Father through Jesus Christ. We are called to read it. We are called to study it. We are called to meditate upon it, not to let it collect dust. Because it is about Jesus from beginning to end and what He has done for us. And about what is pleasing to our God. His suffering and death on the cross, beloved, were not a tragedy, but a triumph as His resurrection proves. His death and resurrection were the path by which He has entered the glory of heaven, which means our triumph too. Because He has promised to take us to be with Him where He is. And as His people, we are called to embrace all of God's Word. And by the strength of His Spirit to pattern our life after God's will alone, not man's, because God's alone is for our good. Beloved, life in the living Lord Jesus Christ is never the same. For the child of God, it is a life of joy and peace and patience and contentment, even in increasing measure as we face hardships and face the sinful world. It's ours in increasing measure as our hearts burn with the knowledge of Him and the assurance of our salvation as we grow into that faith by God's grace. Yet, beloved, the living Lord Jesus Christ is fearful for unbelievers because Jesus Christ is indeed risen. And that means that all of His claims are true. That means that He will come again on the clouds of glory to judge the living and the dead. That means that He is the only judge before whom every knee will bow. That means that there is only despair and hopelessness apart from Him. But for those who look to Him in faith, who look outside of themselves, He is God's revelation that there is forgiveness for sin. He is God's revelation of salvation for you and me. Ours is Easter triumph. Because He lived. He died. He rose again. And He is living. To enter His glory for us. To take us to be with Him forever. Therefore, hallelujah. What a Savior. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, alleluia. What a blessed Savior You have given to us. And we thank You for Your Word, Your living Word, which You have preserved for us today so many years after the actual events have taken place. Sometimes it seems, Lord, that, oh, what it would have been like to be there to see these things. But indeed, oh Lord, we are blessed to live in the day that we do. To have Your Word, to have the confirmation of Your Word to our hearts and lives by the power of Your Holy Spirit. To have Your Word, which is no less true today for us as it was for Your disciples and followers so many years ago. Again, we thank You for that precious gift. May it be a gift that we would never take for granted. And if and when we would, O Lord, we pray that very quickly You would bring back to our minds the gloriousness of such a great salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. Father, bless us in this day in our celebration. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.