Tuesday Prayer Room – 9am
25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself….
32 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?” – Luke 24:25-27, 32
PRAYER GUIDE
We assume Jesus could have revealed himself to the two disciples on the Emmaus road at any point. Indeed later on in the account, their eyes will be opened (v. 31) when he is revealed to them in the breaking of bread. But here, while his risen identity is still hidden from them, instead of just saying, “Guys, it’s me,” he takes them back to the Jewish scriptures (our Old Testament).
Historians have often highlighted the distinction between an event and its meaning. Indeed, this is the central work of history – to set events that happen in spacetime within a context that helps us understand their meaning. The Allied tanks rolling through Paris in the summer of 1944 to cheering crowds who threw them flowers and gave them kisses is certainly a curious spectacle – but we cannot fully understand it without referring back to what had just taken place over the past several years. In 1940, the Nazi tanks rolled into the same city and occupied it for the past four years. It is this context that gives the liberation of Paris its meaning.
We cannot understand the resurrection of Jesus except as the answer to a set of lingering questions posed by the history of Israel and the Old Testament? Jesus, for his part, felt that the pivotal first step in these two on the Emmaus Road in becoming resurrection people, was understanding the story in the Old Testament as an unfinished story that finds its fulfillment in Himself. At this point, it was more important for the disciples to understand the Scriptures than it was to understand that they were talking to the risen Jesus.
One of the great needs of our day is for people to understand the Scriptures. Indeed, if we don’t, while we may agree Jesus has risen from the dead, we won’t actually understand what that means – until we understand the context of this event, which we find in the story of the world and of Israel in the Old Testament. While those of us alive today have access to more information and tools and resources about the Bible than any other age in human history, we are quickly becoming increasingly Biblically illiterate. Renewal and revival in the church always involves a recovery of the Scriptures. Even for Jesus himself, risen from the dead, his first move with these disillusioned and disappointed disciples was to open the Scriptures to them.
Once their minds are opened to understand the Scriptures, and even before Jesus revealed himself to them – they noticed that their hearts, previously wounded with despair, were now burning with resurrected hope. Lord, may it be so with us.
PRAYER GUIDE
- Let’s ask God to open our minds to understand the Scriptures as individuals, as a church, and as a society. Let’s ask for the ability to understand them as one unified story that points to Jesus.
- Ask for wisdom to help parents and adult teachers to teach the Bible compellingly to the next generation – so that it takes root in their hearts
- Ask for God to increase Biblical literacy among his people and in our society. Ask for people who had formerly dismissed the Bible to begin reading it.
- Ask for God to draw non-Christians to Bible studies and programs like Alpha. Sanctuary hosts another Alpha starting in May.
- Ask for burning hearts that truly understand not just that the resurrection happened, but what it actually means.
In Our Time 