Turn with me to one of the most familiar parts of the New Testament, the twenty-fourth chapter of the Gospel according to Luke. Luke 24:13.
I think we must read it again.
And behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was threescore furlongs from Jerusalem.
And they communed with each other of all these things which had happened.
And it came to pass, while they communed and questioned together, that Jesus Himself drew near, and went with them.
But their eyes were holden that they should not know Him.
And He said unto them, What communications are these that ye have one with another, as ye walk?
And they stood still, looking sad.
And one of them, named Cleopas, answering said unto Him, Dost Thou alone sojourn in Jerusalem and not know the things which are come to pass there in these days?
And He said unto them, What things?
And they said unto Him, The things concerning Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:
And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him up to be condemned to death, and crucified Him.
But we hoped that it was He who should redeem Israel. Yea, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things came to pass.
Moreover certain women of our company amazed us, having been early at the tomb;
And when they found not His body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who said that He was alive.
And certain of them that were with us went to the tomb, and found it even so as the women had said: but Him they saw not.
And He said unto them, O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into His glory?
And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they were going: and He made as though He would go further.
And they constrained Him, saying, Abide with us; for it is toward evening, and the day is now far spent. And He went in to abide with them.
And it came to pass, when He had sat down with them to meat, He took the bread and blessed it; and breaking it He gave to them.
And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him; and He vanished out of their sight.
And they said one to another, Was not our heart burning within us, while He spake to us in the way, while He opened to us the Scriptures?
And they rose up that very hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them.
This chapter is the story of a transfigured journey. There are many things in it, and of course the supreme thing is that of the resurrection, which embraces and covers everything.
But I am not going to speak about that particularly this morning. I have it on my heart to speak about this transfigured road: the journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus, some six and a half miles.
It was undoubtedly undertaken by these two in a spirit of complete bewilderment over their situation. It proved to be a great turning point in their lives.
But when they set out on this journey, no doubt they had come to feel that they had come to the end of everything. All that had happened spoke of an end.
There had been much in the past which held the elements of a great hope and expectation. They had made a genuine, sincere committal of themselves to that expectation.
True, there had been much to perplex them, perhaps to allow for questions at times and some fears. But by and large, it had stimulated a great hope.
Now that had all ended in a great disappointment, and things were apparently in ruin. All seemed to have ended in disillusionment.
The only course seemed to be to get right away from the sphere of it all, to seek solitude in this country village well away from the city.
And so these two decided to take that course. “Let us get away, right away from everything. Perhaps we shall get a better perspective if we do. Let us get away.”
And we can imagine the dialogue on the journey—perhaps the longest six and a half miles that ever two men trudged.
One said, “Well, Cleopas, what do you think about it all? Have we made a great mistake? Have we been deceived? Have we been on a wrong road? It seems that something like that has happened to us.”
The other would say, “Well, brother, it does seem like that, it is true. But we cannot forget, can we? We cannot forget everything. We cannot just write everything off like that. Do you remember?” Then he would call to mind some of those wonderful times with the Master—His words and His works.
So they tried to get to the bottom of this mist, to explain this great problem. As they went on, we know the rest of the story.
Suddenly they became conscious of another joining them on the road, a stranger whose presence they had not been aware of until He drew up alongside and questioned them as to the subject of their conversation—a subject evidently causing them a good deal of concern.
And they stood still, looking sad. “Art Thou only a visitor in these parts, and dost not know the things which have come to pass?”
He still drew them out. You know, it is one of the Master’s ways—of our great Master—to draw us out sometimes.
It is a great thing to be drawn out, to have to explain your own trouble and problems. Take that as a lesson.
And so He drew them out until they had no more to say. Then He began to speak.
As He took up the Scriptures with which they were so familiar and opened to them the Scriptures, there was a new movement inside. The dying embers began to glow. A new ray of hope broke in upon them, and light was breaking. Their hearts were warm.
Perhaps some sense of shame was creeping up inside because of their foolishness. I do not wish to be quite sure about this, but our Authorized Version is not correct here: “O fools, and slow of heart.”
Jesus did not say that. That is a word used on another occasion by Jesus: if anyone called his brother a fool, he was in danger of hell-fire. That is not the word Jesus used here.
It is the same word Paul used for the Galatians: “O foolish Galatians, who did bewitch you?” The Revised Version is correct: “O foolish men.” It was not harsh and cruel; it meant lacking in understanding.
That is the point we want to get at this morning: “O foolish men, slow of heart.”
Well, they arrived at the village eventually. The day was far spent, and these men could not let Him go like that. “Come in; abide with us. The day is far spent. It is dangerous to go on tonight, and we want more of this.”
So He went in and sat down to meat with them. Then He took the bread, blessed, broke, and gave it to them. Their eyes were opened.
Now, whether it was His sovereign act in opening their eyes, or a sudden remembrance of what had happened before, we must not read into this what is not there. These were not of the twelve apostles; they had not been at the Lord’s Supper.
But undoubtedly they had been with Him at some suppers, perhaps at the feeding of the thousands, when He took the bread, broke it, and gave thanks. Probably on other occasions they had eaten together. Something about this act was reminiscent and reminded them.
Or, as I say, it may have been His act of withdrawing the veil. However, the point is that they knew Him, and He vanished out of their sight.
What a transfigured road that was. Everything was changed—from the natural to the spiritual.
They had gone in broad daylight, but it was dark. They returned by night, and it was light. Yes, the whole situation had changed.
This is the transition from the natural to the spiritual. Natural day and night are just a parable. Now, what transfigured that road? What was it? What made that return journey so different from the outward journey?
There is no doubt that it was an outward journey. If you like, it was a going out: “Let us get away. Let us get out. Let us go.”
And outward journeys, in the loss of all, are bound to be very gloomy things, at least.
What was it that made the difference in the two journeys? What will transform any such gloomy pathway that we may tread?
What made them retrace that road? I am perfectly certain that those men never thought, at the end of that day, that they would be back where they were at the beginning. They would be going back again. I am sure that was never intended, but something happened that brought them back.
What was it?
Of course, there is this great, all-inclusive reality that they had discovered: that Jesus, after all, was alive. We have built on that always when we have read and meditated upon this chapter.
But there are some other things here, I think, lying right at the heart of this story which may be helpful to us. First of all, they discovered that Jesus knew all about them and their trouble.
Although they were very largely responsible for their situation, He had not given them up. That is a simple beginning of a transformed journey.
In our perplexity, our bewilderment, yes, and our failure, when our hearts are moving in the wrong direction, we realize that the Lord Jesus never abandons anyone who is sincerely, honestly, and truly perplexed with Him and His way.
He knows all about it. This may be a word for somebody: He knows all about us.
I am quite sure that these men were not doing this in a spirit of wilful abandonment of the Lord. It was simply that they could not understand, and they were reaching out for understanding.
They discovered that He understood. This takes place at the very beginning. He did not let them go because they were having a difficult and distressing time. He never does.
Then again, they discovered that there was another side altogether to the whole situation—a side which they had never seen. And that always is.
If we saw all, we should be saved a lot of many difficulties and deflections, which are simply because we have seen only one side of the matter.
And if anything at all is proved by what happened on this road to make the difference, it is this: the Lord Jesus showed them there was another side to this whole matter to which they were blind.
Dear friends, we must always believe that about situations, however difficult and perhaps testing they may be, and whatever amount of evidence there may seem to be for our present course.
We must always remember that the Lord sees another side. There is another side, and we must seek to find that other side. What does the Lord know about this? What does the Lord mean in this? Yes, there is something more in this than we can see, if we are the Lord’s children.
We do, in our human limitations, see only one side of things. If only we could see the other, we should be saved.
That changed everything for them. They discovered that there was another side to this whole matter, and the other side was the much more wonderful side—a side which wrote all their side off as very defective indeed.
They therefore discovered that there is a divine meaning to our deepest trouble which, when we see it, makes foolishness of the way we have been contemplating.
There is a hidden meaning in suffering, trials, and difficulties—a divine meaning. If only we could get our hands on that, if only the Lord would show us that, it would make foolishness of this thing which we thought to be so overwhelmingly true, perhaps right, where we were concerned.
They discovered that, although they had an immense amount of Bible knowledge and truth—teaching from the Bible, the Old Testament, which they possessed, and the teaching that the Lord Jesus had given them during the past months or years—they possessed a lot of truth.
But there was lacking in their apprehension of truth something which was vital to their very survival in the day of the ordeal. That is something to learn.
Great tests came not just to them, but to all that they had received in the past. And the test set by the cross at that time was whether they had got truth in the mind, or whether that truth was their very life.
These men discovered that they had very much, but there was something which needed the touch of the living hand—the hand of the risen Lord—a touch of the Spirit of life upon it, in order that all that they had might be brought into life and be seasoned.
What we need, dear friends, is that the truth which we possess should be living truth—not just truth as such, but that it should be our very life.
This is their after-history: it all became alive. It only came alive through a very deep ordeal.
This whole story centres around that mighty word of His: “Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things?”
In that, you see, He gathers up all His discourse from the Old Testament, showing that the Christ must suffer. The cross is essential to everything.
It was not until they themselves came right into a deep and terrible experience of the cross that the way was opened for all that they held in their minds to become their salvation.
It works like this. Here they are: everything devastated; a terribly deep experience.
Through the very experience of the cross in their own hearts and lives, they are going to say, “Now I see. Now I see what I have never seen before in all that I knew. Behooved it not the Christ to suffer?”
The cross is essential to our seeing. But the cross is not objective. The cross is not just historic. The cross has to come right into our experience and smash everything that is not true.
You see, there was a mixture about their position—no doubt about that. “We hoped that it was He who should redeem Israel.” Yes, but we know what was bound up with that hope. From the Gospels themselves, we know that there was the desire for a place in that kingdom, something to minister to their own importance.
There was mixture in it, and the cross had to rid them of all the rest that was mixed with their position. It did it, first of all, by taking everything away—everything, the right and the wrong.
When the cross came in, they had to start all over again. But this time they were starting on clean ground, pure ground. “I see the meaning of the cross.”
So it was. That is the story: the necessity of the cross in our lives to get us on true ground, safe ground; to explain to us our own problems and our own divisions.
A right understanding of that is a really transforming and transfiguring thing, is it not?
You see, it all comes back to this. This whole story reveals that they had gotten an entirely wrong, or inadequate, apprehension of the meaning of the cross.
And when they saw it aright, when He opened it for them—the sufferings of Christ—they thought aright. That whole situation was transfigured. Everything was transfigured when they saw it aright.
When they themselves had gone out of the picture entirely, with all their interests, they could go and preach the cross after this and say, “In the cross I glory.”
At first, the cross had felt anything but glorious. What a change.
Now, I do not know why the Lord put it on my heart to say this, but it may be that some have decided on leaving the situation. Maybe you are going down this dismal road of bewilderment and perplexity and disappointment, disillusionment.
It may be that you will be tempted at some time to do that. Read again this story. Look into His heart and see.
Well, if it is an honest and sincere difficulty that you are in, the Lord Jesus has every sympathy. He will only stand away if you are rebellious, or something like that.
If, in the deepest sense, it is inability to understand, He is in full sympathy, and He will not give you up. It is the opposite.
He will draw you out. He will require you to tell Him exactly what the trouble is. Perhaps, as you do that, you will begin to see that it is not quite so solid as you thought it was.
And then He will come first, and with a touch of His own hand will begin to show you that there is something more in it than you have seen, a deeper secret than you knew. In the disclosing of that secret, you will be saved.
But you know this: your experience was, after all, what you had talked about so often—the cross, the cross, the cross.
We can talk about the cross with a great deal of knowledge. We know all about identification with Christ until the Lord brings us into an absolutely devastating experience. That is what it is: to discover reality, and that which will stand and pass in good stead in the day of the ordeal.