It's been a while for some of us since we have dined in our favorite restaurant. It's a special thing when we're able to do that, and we sometimes take it for granted and we think at times like this, what a wonderful privilege that is. But in the ancient world, dining had a far greater significance. You didn't just eat with anybody. It was sort of like taking people in, having a formal relationship with people. These were people you might actually go to court for. You might defend them in court. You didn't just eat with everybody. And in this gospel of Luke, eating is a very big part of it. Part of that is because in many respects, I think, the gospel of Luke is following Deuteronomy, and there's a lot of eating in Deuteronomy. The whole goal of the progress to Zion from slavery through the wilderness, can God set a table in the wilderness, all the way to Zion is to eat and drink in the presence of the Lord. And I think that's why there are so many meals. It's not just because Luke was a doctor and he liked to eat out a lot. Because it's a very important theme running throughout the gospel of Luke that we get to eat and drink in the presence of the Lord. In fulfillment of that great prophecy in the call to worship from Isaiah 25. Luke's gospel particularly emphasizes the theme of Jesus as the journeying guest who's received not even by his own, but instead goes out into the highways and byways to bring in guests for his feast. And so what I want to focus on here from this passage at the end of Luke's gospel, three points. First of all, there's a transition, a really remarkable transition here at the end of his gospel where Jesus goes, now in this final episode of eating and eating and drinking with God, incarnate, But Jesus goes from being a stranger to being a guest until finally he's the host of the meal. It's interesting in the central section of Luke's gospel, it's almost as if the itinerary stops. You have, as in Deuteronomy, you have all of this journeying. And then the itinerary stops right in the middle of Luke's gospel, and it's almost like, where did the journey go? And then it picks up after the central section, and Jesus is on His way again to Jerusalem. Why this interlude? Well, as in Deuteronomy, there is a wilderness. There is a time of testing. And in a lot of those experiences, Jesus is having table fellowship with people. I mean, it's in those parts of Luke, for instance, chapter 14, where you get that striking narrative of Jesus with the Pharisees who invite Him to dinner, which is a pretty big thing to do. And they're going to interrogate him, but instead of allowing himself to be interrogated, he interrogates them. It wasn't normal if you were a guest to break out the rules of etiquette to your host. But that's exactly what Jesus did. When you're having a party, don't invite people who can help you out. Don't just invite the boss over. Invite those who can't repay you. It's not reciprocal. In this kingdom, it's going to be strange. And those were the very people the Pharisees wanted to keep out. And that's why they asked Jesus, very frankly, why do you eat and drink with tax gatherers and sinners? Everything else in Luke's gospel then picks up again and moves toward Jerusalem. And really, in a lot of ways, it recapitulates the whole history of Israel, doesn't it? At the beginning of Luke's gospel, John the Baptist comes preaching and teaching, and he's a very different kind of character. He's sort of odd. Odd for a different reason. His ministry isn't one of jubilation. It's not one of eating and drinking in the presence of the Lord, but one of fasting. He came neither eating nor drinking, we're told. But when Jesus comes, when he follows in John's train, he comes eating and drinking, gathering people around him to eat and drink in the presence of the Lord. And what do they say? He has a demon. He eats with tax gatherers and sinners. So either John has a demon, or he's so ascetic, or Jesus hangs out with bad company. It's time for the bridegroom. It's not a time of preparation for the wedding, but the bridegroom himself has arrived, and now is the time for joy. And that's why Jesus performs his first miracle at a wedding feast, turning the water into wine. Jesus moves towards Jerusalem, inviting people to the banquet. And now we come to our passage here where Jesus catches up with a couple of dejected disciples along the Emmaus Road, and they really haven't understood the point of this journey. It's dawn on the first day of the week. The women were preparing spices late Saturday night for the body, as was the custom. But when they arrived at dawn, there was no guard. They'd all fled. The stone was rolled away, and the tomb was empty. Understandably, they were terrified. Verses 6 and 7, like the end of the gospel, present really a creedal statement that we find in 1 Corinthians 15 and elsewhere. He was crucified, buried, and raised on the third day. Crucial also is the fact that they're told Jesus is risen as He told you. As He told you. This isn't happenstance. Jesus all along was telling them that this is how it happened to be. Remember, you know, Peter saying, oh, no, Lord, you're not going to be crucified. What a downer you are. Good grief. We're, you know, almost to Jerusalem. We're going to, you know, make Israel great again or have some kind of socialist revolution or something, but it's going to be big and we're going to be a part of it. If you don't stop talking about the cross and dying, I think that this could work out pretty well for all of us. They hadn't heard the words Jesus had spoken. Peter even rebuked Jesus about talking about Good Friday. Getting the plot of Scripture is absolutely crucial to the very existence of the church, as we heard again this morning. Who is Jesus? Who is Jesus for you? Who is Jesus for me? Who is Jesus? We don't get to decide. You know, we're in a culture that loves to decide that question. Who is Jesus for you? The real question is, who is Jesus, period? Right? It doesn't, I'm sorry, I mean, before we could talk about who Jesus is for you, who is Jesus? We don't get to make him a character in our story. He is the central actor in his own drama, and we have to come to terms with that. We've been seeing throughout the Gospel of John how resistant Jesus is to being manipulated. The women ran to the apostles with the news, but we're told in verse 11, The report seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. You know who the first Christian skeptics were in the history of the world? The disciples, who would become the apostles of the church. You know, this reminds us that the resurrection is not something people have suddenly found hard to believe in in the 21st century. because it was generally the case that dead people stayed dead in ancient Israel as well. That was people's experience then as it's people's experience now. And so they respond here exactly the way we would expect people to respond. They didn't say, oh, yeah. Oh, this is what Jesus was talking about. I know, I know, I got it, got it. Okay, it happened. Great, terrific. Now they were confused. They were bewildered. And at first they didn't believe the women when they came to announce that Jesus had been raised as he promised. That very day, Luke emphasizes, that very day, verse 13, is the day Jesus showed up to these two dejected disciples walking along the Emmaus Road. That very day that all of this had happened, everything is kind of thrown into confusion. They had just suddenly heard, they didn't have time to process all kinds of news going on. Their Messiah has been crucified. They thought He would redeem Israel, but now there's something even more confusing. The women came and told the eleven that Jesus had been raised. Luke mentions Cleopas. We don't know the name of the other disciple along the Emmaus Road. But as one scholar has argued pretty convincingly, there's a reason why in the Gospels generally, and in Luke in particular, names are mentioned. I mean, look at that. It's Cleopas. I mean, who really… who cares about Cleopas? We don't know anything about Cleopas except he's mentioned here, and the other guy isn't mentioned? Why Cleopas? And it's been argued that there's a very good reason for this. The people who are mentioned were still alive at the time of this writing. Remember, Luke is going around interviewing people to offer to the ruler, Theophilus, an orderly account of all the events that have occurred. And he's a physician, so he's very orderly. And so when he mentions a name, we're meant to think these are people, actual people, who were still alive at the potluck. And you could go talk to them. You could ask them. Remember Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, some of these people are still alive. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him, we're told. Now, I think that means pretty persuasively that they could have recognized him, that they would have recognized him, but they were kept from recognizing him. Just for this moment, just for this episode, why? Something much more important than them recognizing Him right now was them hearing Him. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. They had to hear the story re-narrated the way it's supposed to go according to Jesus because they had gotten the journey all wrong. Yes, it's exile and conquest. Jesus said he had an exodus to go through. I don't mean exile, I mean exodus. He had an exodus to go through during his transfiguration, and that's precisely what Calvary was. It was his exodus. And then there's a conquest. They realize now, okay, maybe we missed the exodus. The exodus was the cross. We needed the cross. That's great. But the conquest now, So the cross takes care of that, but the conquest now is going to… Now are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel, as they asked at the Ascension, right? Well, they got the Exodus wrong. They, not surprisingly, got the conquest wrong as well. But you know what? We're sometimes hard on them. This was before Pentecost. He said, you would understand everything when the Holy Spirit comes to you. And besides that, at least they didn't get it the wrong the way we Gentiles get the story wrong. You know, who is Jesus for you? Well, he's sort of, for me, he's the butler. You know, when the baggage gets a little too heavy, he comes and he helps out. Otherwise, he's out of the way, doesn't cause you any problems. Or he's like Santa Claus, or he just wants people to be happier. and healthier and have better teeth. You know, he wants us all just to be happy. That's all he wants. This is the, we thought he was the one. He's the one who was going to save Israel. He was going to redeem Israel. They at least cared not just about their hair, but about history, about Israel, about the nation. It was a very biblical concern that they had on their heart. We thought He was going to be the Redeemer of Israel. It's been three days. By drawing out the reasons for their disillusionment, Jesus was drawing out the misunderstandings of the kingdom that they had assumed. It's not a geopolitical kingdom. It's not the conquest like you think it is. See, they were thinking that it's a rerun, not a type. In other words, we're going to redo the Sinai theocracy instead of the Sinai theocracy being a faint picture of something far greater that they could not possibly imagine. They'd forgotten Jesus' own teaching about the order of it all. First, crucifixion, then resurrection, then glory. They wanted to reverse it all. They wanted to, just as Satan tried to tempt Jesus, go around the cross and have glory now. They'd gotten the journey all wrong. But we had hoped that he was the one who was to redeem Israel. We're going to be disillusioned. We're going to say, but we thought he was the one who was going to dot, dot, dot for me or for us. If we don't really understand that pattern of crucifixion, then resurrection, then glory. Remarkably, they stick to the facts. The disciples, they're kind of, you know, the witness of the women and the disciples to the empty tomb. The empty tomb by itself didn't prove the resurrection. You know, what if the disciples stole the body? That makes a lot of sense. these cowardly, frankly, guys who ran off when the soldiers were coming, and Peter denies knowing Jesus three times to a little girl. These aren't exactly people who are going to overwhelm the Romans and Herod's guard at the seal of a tomb and steal away a body. And the Romans certainly aren't going to make up a story like that. They had a vested interest in people they killed staying dead. And the Jews, of course, weren't going to fulfill the prophecy from Jesus' own lips that he would be raised on the third day. So, they're confused by all of this. The disciples were walking along that road as dead men while the Lord of life was walking beside them unrecognized. And isn't that the whole history of Israel? Is the Lord among us or not? Can the Lord spread out a table in the wilderness? So Gentiles might be expected not to get this. Israel surely should have, and the disciples are more culpable, but Jesus doesn't berate them. He does tell them they should have known better. They should have known the Scriptures. They should have known all of this had to happen according to the prophets. At this point, Jesus is still a stranger. The veil over their eyes had not yet been lifted. They don't recognize him yet. And before he reminds them of his words, in verse 44, he reminds them of the words of Scripture. They didn't believe the words of Scripture, which prophesied all of these events, so Jesus preached one long sermon from all of the Scriptures concerning Himself. Wouldn't you like to have a record of that sermon? Actually, we do. We have all sorts of records of those sermons in the book of Acts and in the epistles, how they interpreted all the Scriptures as fulfilled in Christ. Okay, the stranger now becomes the guest. The stranger joins these two disciples for dinner. What a sweet thing for Jesus to do. You know, he could have just clobbered them right there. He could just say, okay, you're out. You're definitely not going to be a catechism teacher. This isn't going to work. Instead, he keeps himself veiled to their eyes, as it were, so that he can go on not only preaching with them, but go stay with them. He pretended that he was going on further, and they said, no, no, no, no, nightfall is coming, and it's, you know, no good hotels around here. Come stay with us. And so Jesus kindly allows himself to be a stranger in Israel, a stranger who is to be cared for, taken in. Jesus knows the rules of hospitality and rather than lording it over them as He could have, revealing Himself as the risen King, their Lord. He allows Himself to be invited to dinner simply because it's toward evening and the day is now far spent. And they're pondering everything that Jesus said in the sermon. So sometimes we think, okay, if we could just see Jesus right now. there were a lot of people who saw Jesus. You know, seeing Jesus, a lot of people rejected him when they saw him and they saw the miracles and they rejected him. Jesus said, even if someone were to rise from the dead, that's what faith comes by hearing. They, even the disciples after the resurrection, have to hear the gospel. They have to hear Christ being proclaimed from the scriptures, even for them, this was the means of grace. And then finally, he becomes the host. He starts out as the stranger, invited in, and then he becomes the host. Now again, if you're just reading all of this in the light of the etiquette of the day, you would say, Okay, Jesus just, you've got to be careful inviting Jesus over to dinner. Especially if you have prestigious guests there who might be offended because he may say some things, I'm just saying. There might be, it might not happen the way we planned it. And that's what happened with the Pharisees when he had dinner with them and said, hey, let me tell you the proper etiquette for inviting people over for dinner. invite people who can't repay you. Now, he's sitting with the two disciples and they're kind of running around trying to figure out what to make. Okay, put out some bread here and whatever we can kind of drum up for dinner. And Jesus ends up becoming the host. Wow. Again, we don't see this, even we today would say, hey, can I help you with that? Can I, Jesus doesn't do that. Jesus just walks into the center of the action and takes over dinner. The formula here is reminiscent of the words of the institution of the Lord's Supper in chapter 22. Took, broke, and gave. And as Calvin says, it's unmistakable here that this is a celebration of the Lord's Supper after the resurrection. These are the three verbs that are used. That's why when He took, broke, and gave, we read, then they recognized Him. Now, the Roman Catholic Church often uses this to say, see, that's what happens in the Mass. That's why the Eucharist is the means of grace. That's when we realize Christ right in front of us. That's when we behold Christ right in front of us, but that leaves out the whole, everything that has gone before it. Their minds are still swimming in what He has spoken, the words that He has said, explaining how He is the hero of the whole story from Genesis. to Malachi. Now, the Spirit has taken away that temporary blindness, as it were. They recognize him in the breaking of the bread. There is something significant here. The sacrament ratifies the words that we hear from Jesus. That's why the Heidelberg Catechism it tells us, where does this true faith come from? The Holy Spirit creates it in our hearts by the preaching of the Holy Gospel and confirms it by the use of the Holy Sacraments. That's where we get this. I mean, this is what's happening right here in this passage. And so the tables are turned. The preacher becomes the content of what is preached. The stranger becomes the host. And now the hosts are strangers, but they too become recognized by Jesus as guests at a table at which He presides, as He takes care of them. Then He comes back to the 11 in Jerusalem with the good news. Now the church that had been scattered in denial, disillusionment, sorrow, and confusion is gathered together, we read in verse 33, gathered together, is synagogued in joy, saying, the Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon Peter. There they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. And now Jesus himself stood in the midst of them. That itself is significant. It's the journey. It just gets more and more fascinating. Jesus stood in the midst of them. Not alongside of them as he had on the Emmaus Road. Not with them in the boat. But in the midst of them, it's a covenant assembly. And in the midst, he says, peace be with you. Calming a greater storm than he ever calmed with the disciples on any other day. And while they were still, I love this, while they were still disbelieving for joy and were marveling. what a wonderful, weird confluence of verbs, right? Well, one or the other, they're disbelieving or they're joyful or they're marveling. No, all of it, all at once. This just has the ring of truth about it, doesn't it? This is exactly what you would expect of an event like this, an event of this magnitude. They didn't know how to describe it. They didn't know how to explain it. And so Jesus says, like he's going around the cupboards. Got anything to eat? I'm hungry. Yeah, I think got some fish over here. Can you imagine how weird that hour would have been? Even though they see and examine him, it is his words that they must hear if they are to truly recognize him for who he is. And further, they still must have their minds opened. And that's why Jesus says, that's why Luke tells us at the end, Jesus says, you have to go to the upper room and just wait there. Please don't talk to the press. Please don't go out there and do an interview. You're not ready for this. You can't handle it. You don't know. wait till the Holy Spirit comes. And he will remind you of everything I've said. This is the basis for an inerrant New Testament. The Holy Spirit, whom I taught you about, I said I would send him. He will come and he will make you my witnesses. You have been witnesses of me, but the Holy Spirit will make you witnesses to me from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost part of the earth. Brothers and sisters, each Lord's Day we come to this place with our problems. Some of them are small and some of them are very grave. Sometimes we come with joy and other times we come wondering. We thought he was the one who was going to fill in the blank. And yet all along our weekly journey we're met by a stranger. Our hearts burn within us as the stranger becomes the host and just takes over his whole service to us. And when we thought we were serving him, it turns out actually he's the one who will serve us. No longer filled with disillusionment and fear, but with good news and hope and joy he sends us out from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the uttermost parts of the world to extend his service to spread a banquet in the wilderness standing in the midst of us here in cellars and garages around the world where Christians can't meet openly in cathedrals in tents, standing in the midst of us and saying, I am risen. Peace be with you. Let's pray. Our great heavenly Father, you have cared for us in ways that are beyond our wildest imagining, if we could write up a list of what we want you and your Son and the Holy Spirit to be for us, if we could have our top ten list and you would completely satisfy everything that we checked, every box that we checked, we would not come close to being as happy as we are with that victory that you have accomplished, that story that you have written, that plot that you have accomplished and achieved in your Son, so that He is, in fact, the one who has redeemed Israel and has proved that by His resurrection from the dead, standing in the midst of us, saying, peace to all who are near and all who are far, that we may all come to the feast in this last hour. Hear us, receive our thanks, for Christ's sake. Amen.