The Washington Post conducted an experiment to find out if people are capable of recognizing beauty out of context. Unfortunately, their experiment proved that most people are oblivious to beauty that doesn’t fit into their routines, even a world-famous violinist playing a free concert in the subway. It happened the first time in 2007, and again seven years later. The protagonist? World-famous violinist Joshua Bell.
The experiment involved Joshua Bell playing violin in a busy subway station in Washington, DC at rush hour. Bell decided to use his Stradivarius violin, an instrument with an estimated value of over three million dollars. Three days before the experiment, Bell played a concert where the bad seats cost about 100 dollars.
The experiment was conducted on January 12, 2007, at 7:51 in the morning. Bell showed up at the subway station wearing a black long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and a baseball hat. He started playing a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach, followed by Shubert’s Ave Maria. He continued to play, one masterfully interpreted song after another. It became evident fairly quickly that people often look without really seeing and hear without really listening.
In the end, the world-renowned violin prodigy played for about 47 minutes. During that time, 1,097 people walked by him. To everyone’s surprise, only six people actually stopped to listen. In total, Bell earned $32.17 for his performance. One of the interesting things if you watch the video, there was a booth set up nearby where he was playing where people could buy lottery tickets. And there was actually a line of people, many of whom had their backs to him for thirty, forty minutes, and they never recognized him. Joshua Bell, like Jesus Christ was exuding truth and beauty, but only one recognized him
In our scripture today, The Road to Emmaus, Jesus (Creator God, Savior, Perfect in every way) shows up and is not even noticed.
We learn some very important things about Scripture here. Jesus has been crucified, He’s risen from the dead, and He appears to these two disciples on the road and then He eats with them. But they don’t understand it. They don’t get it. They don’t recognize Him, even initially. And so this is somewhat mysterious to them.
Let’s briefly just recap and give a little bit of context. Jesus has died, He’s risen! He shows up on the road to Emmaus, this small town seven miles from Jerusalem. One of the disciples was named Cleopas. The other name is not given. Some commentators believe that it was Cleopas and his wife but we don’t know. And they’re walking along. Jesus walks up to them, and “they were kept from recognizing him.” He says, “What are you talking about?” And they say, “Where have You been? What’s everyone talking about? We’re talking about Jesus of Nazareth. We had hoped He was the Promised One but He died and now we don’t know what to do.”
These disciples, more than likely, would have been with Jesus for years, probably for three years; they’re not one of the twelve but they were most likely part of a larger group that followed Jesus and so they had been with Jesus, they served with Him, they believed Him. And so they understand, you see, part of what Jesus did. They have some of the pieces but they’re missing some. As you see in verse 17, they’re sad. Verse 21 they say, “We thought he would be the one to redeem Israel.” In verses 22 and 24 they say that, “these women tell us he’s not in the tomb anymore.” And so they have some of this information and they don’t know what to do. Verse 16, for whatever reason they don’t recognize Jesus, and they travel these seven miles with Him. But Jesus essentially is with these people who have invested time, they’ve invested energy, they’ve had their hopes and dreams seemingly dashed, and so Jesus is going to these people who are sad on the road and where does He direct them? Jesus directs them to His Word. He points them to the Bible and specifically to the Old Testament.
I’m going to use a superlative, but this one is accurate. Jesus, on this road with these two men, this is the best small-group Bible study ever! It says, Jesus right there on the road says, “You don’t understand the Scriptures.” And beginning with Moses, that means in Genesis, and so He walks through the Garden of Eden, He walks through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and then Exodus and Leviticus, He goes there, He goes to the Prophets, He goes to the Psalms, and He unpacks how all of it is about Him. And so He explained to them what was said in the Scriptures, very important, verse 27, what was said in the Scriptures concerning Himself. I mean this would be the definitive explanation of what we call the Old Testament. This is the best Bible study ever. All the promises, all the stories, all the images found their fulfillment in Him. Everything is pointing to Him. And that means that Jesus is the point of the Bible. If you’re in sales you have an elevator speech. You’re supposed to make a sale in thirty seconds. “What is the Bible about?” How would we answer that? The Bible is about Jesus. It’s not a reference book, it’s not a book of examples to live up to, it’s not a to-do list. It’s about Jesus. It’s a single, true story with a plotline. The plotline is creation, fall, redemption, consummation. It’s about grace. It’s about rescue. It’s about how Jesus saves His people.
And so we don’t know what Jesus here on the road to Emmaus cited, we don’t know what specific quotes, what specific passages in the Old Testament He goes to, which exact ones, we don’t know the examples that He used, we can’t replicate His explanation. But I put in the last post, some information from the book by Sinclair Ferguson, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament.
Jesus, The Lving Word, teaches them the written and revealed Word of God about Himself. Why?
God Lovingly Writes Himself into His Own Story
Dorothy Sayers wrote a series of detective novels focused her fictional character Lord Peter Wimsey. Sayers’ creation Whimsey was an aristocrat detective from the 1930s who solved all kinds of crimes. She wrote a whole series of stories and novels about Lord Peter.
Then about halfway through her elven Wimsey detective series, a woman suddenly shows up in the novels. Sayers new character is named Harriet Vane, a female mystery writer and one of the very first women to get through Oxford. Harriet and Peter fall in love. Until that point in the series, Whimsey was an unhappy, broken bachelor, until Harriet Vane shows up and her love starts to heal his broken soul.
It’s interesting because Dorothy Sayers, like her fictional creation, was one of the first women to graduated from Oxford. Like Harriet Vane, Dorothy Sayers was a writer of mystery novels. Dorothy Sayers looked at her character, Lord Peter Wimsey, and saw that he needed someone to help him out. So who did she put in there? A detective novelist, a woman, and one of the first women to go through Oxford. Who was that? She put herself into her own stories. She looked into the world that she had created and she fell in love with the chief character, Peter Wimsey, and she wrote herself into that story so she could heal him.
Meaning: God creates the world, we’ve turned away from him and become damaged by our sin. But God looks into this world and he loves us and he writes himself into his own story. Only he really writes himself in, he really puts himself in there in Jesus Christ, and he comes and he heals us and he takes us to be his bride.
Verse 28, “They drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.’ So he went in to stay with them.” And so just think about this. Of all the places that Jesus could be after He’s resurrected from the dead, He’s in Emmaus, this nobody town, and He’s with these two disciples, one of whom is not even named. And so of all the places Jesus could have been He’s with these two nobodies. And they beg Him to stay and He stays with them. And we read in verse 30 and 31, “When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.”
And so what is Jesus doing? He’s doing what He’s doing His entire ministry. He is having meals with sinners. They’re doubting; they’re confused sinners. In fact, one of them, the ironic statement is when one of them looks at Jesus, Cleopas looks at Jesus and he says, “What are you talking about? Where have you been?” It’s so ironic because if anything, if anyone knew what happened in Jerusalem it was Jesus. And he says, “Don’t you know what happened?” And it’s almost identical language towards the end of the passage there. It’s almost identical language to Jesus feeding the five thousand, that He took bread and He broke it and He hands it to them and immediately they recognize Him. It’s interesting, it’s powerful. Their eyes were opened, God opens their eyes but the moment that their eyes were opened is when they were at the table with Jesus.
A Meal with the Savior: A Journey from Sadness and Discouragement, to Hope and Joy
And so what you see in this passage is Jesus coming and taking these men from sadness and discouragement to a place of hope and joy. And it’s an amazing passage where Jesus teaches us about the Bible.
In Luke 24, that even here you have a small story within the larger story of Scripture, that what you see here is what Jesus is doing throughout the story of Scripture. He’s taking people that are unbelieving and sad and discouraged and rebellious sinners and He’s taking them from brokenness and discouragement to joy and hope.
God is moving in this world and He’s moving people from brokenness to joy and you see that here. What we see in this passage we see it’s the grander story of Scripture. We see Luke gives us a picture of Jesus coming to these two men who are sad and broken, they had expectations that haven’t been met, the passage even says that they’re sad, they’ve devoted years to following Jesus, they thought that He would be a political king, they thought that this would be a political redemption, and now you hear over and over and over again that they’re confused and they’re sad. They have all this information but they don’t yet know how to put it together. But Jesus is drawing near to people who are brokenhearted.
In verse 33 what’s happening at the end of the passage. It’s amazing. They, at the very end, they go to tell their friends because they’re so excited. It finally comes together. This Jesus, He’s risen indeed! But what is the source? The source of their sadness, the source of their grief, Jesus says, that they’re failing to believe the Word of God. And what do you see as the remedy? The remedy was the truth of the Word of God. It was the testimony of Jesus worked deep down into their hearts and deep down into their bones.
And so I think just by way of application it’s important for us to remember because if you’re lacking hope, if you’re lacking joy, if you’re discouraged, if your circumstances are lacking, if you’re in very hard circumstances, what Jesus wants us to do is to go back to the Word. It’s to attend to the Word, to have confidence in the Word, to understand the Word and believe what the Word says about Christ and have joy that’s complete.
Message Audio/Video and Outline: https://upwards.church/leander-campus/watch-now-message-videos
Watch Messages: YouTube-Upwards Church
Read Along Daily Bible Reading: YouVersion (https://www.bible.com/organizations/370f8a6e-16bc-464f-8c43-0b7623fd2952)
Upwards Church 