Alive and Well!

One of the most intriguing verses in the Bible is Luke 24:27.

It’s resurrection day. The disciples of Jesus haven’t yet put the pieces together. All they knew was that their Teacher, their Master, their Friend – the One they had been following for the past three years, the One whom they recognized as a prophet mighty in word and deed, the One whom they had hoped would be the redeemer of Israel – was now dead.

He had been betrayed by one of His own. He had been handed over by the chief priests and rulers and condemned to die. People were saying all sorts of false things against Him. The Roman guards had beaten Him mercilessly. The soldiers and the crowds had mocked Him blasphemously.

Jesus carried His own cross through the streets of Jerusalem like a common criminal. He was nailed by His hands and feet to a rugged cross. He suffered and bled and died an excruciating death. Then His corpse was taken down and laid in a tomb.

This was what the disciples knew. It was a sucker punch to the gut. They never saw it coming. They were crushed.

“What went wrong?” they must have wondered. “This isn’t the way it was supposed to be! He was supposed to lead the charge to overthrow the Roman oppression and set Israel free! Maybe He wasn’t who we thought He was. Maybe we’ve been following the wrong guy. I guess He’s not the Messiah after all.”

“But the miracles! What about walking on the water? What about the feeding of the multitudes? What about the healings? The crippled are walking, the mute are talking, and the blind are seeing. What about Lazarus! He just had to be the One!”

“And His teachings! What about calling Himself the ‘Bread of Life,’ the ‘Light of the world,’ the ‘Good Shepherd,’ and the ‘Resurrection and the Life’? Didn’t He say, ‘I and the Father are one’? Didn’t He say, ‘The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost?’ Didn’t He say, ‘He who believes in Me will live,’ and ‘have eternal life’? How could He not be the One sent from God?!”

And on this resurrection day further complicating the heart-wrenching situation, some women who had gone to the tomb early in the morning came back reporting that the body of Jesus was not there. They talked about a vision of angels who said that He was alive. Even some of the disciples went to check it out, and the tomb was empty, all right, but Jesus was nowhere to be found.

As two of the disciples were talking about these things on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, Jesus Himself drew near and engaged in conversation with them, though their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. After hearing their story, Jesus then rebuked them for being so slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken. He then launched into one of the most intriguing expositions of Scripture in history.

Oh, to have been there! If only we had a record of that message!

Luke 24:27 reads: “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.”

Would Jesus have started at Genesis 3:15 and described how although the serpent had bruised His heel upon the cross, He had crushed Satan’s head in the resurrection? Would He have explained the picture of the Passover, how the blood of the lamb upon the doorpost saved the Israelites from death, and how the blood of the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world and saves His followers from death and hell? Would He have taken them to Isaiah 53 and showed them how this passage pointed to Him?

Jesus could have gone to any text, any story, any Psalm or any prophet and explained to those disciples how the Scriptures testified about Him.

As He spoke the truth His words burned within their hearts, and when He opened their eyes to see Him the pieces came together and they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus had risen indeed. They knew that His suffering and death was not the end, but the pathway to glory. Their hope was restored. Their sorrows erased. Jesus, their Savior and Lord, was alive and well!