The 4th Sunday of Easter, 2021 - Luke's Post-resurrection Stories

 All four gospels proclaim the reality of the resurrection. They do so by relating the experience of the women who went to the tomb to anoint Jesus’s body. Three of the gospels then record post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. (The gospel of Mark is the one gospel that ends with the experience of the women at the tomb.) These post-resurrection experiences convey the gospel writers’ understanding of the significance and implication of the resurrection.

 The gospel of Luke records three post-resurrection stories. The primary story is of Jesus’s appearance to the two disciples walking to the village of Emmaus (Luke 24:13—35). When the two finally recognized Jesus, they returned to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples. Jesus appeared to the group—identified as the eleven disciples and companions—as the two reported their encounter with him (Luke 24:36—49). This second story foreshadows the companion to Luke’s gospel—the book of Acts. The final story relates the ascension of Jesus into heaven (Luke 24:50—53).

 The gospel writer repeats two dominant themes in these stories. The first was about Jesus’s death and resurrection; the second was about the disciples’ struggle.

 Both of the first two stories make the point that Jesus’s death and resurrection were the fulfillment of scripture. As Jesus walked with the two disciples toward Emmaus, he showed them how the scriptures taught the necessity of his suffering and death (Luke 24:25—27). When they recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, they spoke of how he had opened the scriptures to them (Luke 24:32). In the second story, Jesus again spoke of the fulfillment of scripture—“that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44—45). The three parts of the Hebrew Scriptures were the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the writings, which included the psalms. He again opened their minds to understand the scriptures (Luke 24:45) and interpreted what the scriptures said—“thus it is written” (Luke 24:46). 

 For this gospel writer, Jesus’s death and resurrection were a part of a larger story—the climax of the story found in the Hebrew Scriptures. It was the story of God dealing with Israel’s failure to be faithful to the covenant. In spite of their failure, God continued to relate to them out of faithful love. In the person of Jesus, God entered their experience as Isaiah’s suffering servant (Isaiah 53). He took their sin upon himself, redeeming them from its curse. In Jesus, the Kingdom of God (a central theme in Luke’s gospel) became a reality. Repentance and forgiveness could now be proclaimed in his name (Luke 24:46—47). Forgiveness—not condemnation and judgment—is how God deals with human sin. Jesus’s death and resurrection proclaim that reality. The reality of forgiveness calls for repentance—a change in thinking, a turning to God and God’s ways. The call for repentance was a call to embrace the kingdom of God that Jesus made a reality.

 The second emphasis both stories record is the reality of the disciples’ struggle. In the first story, the two disciples did not recognize Jesus even as he walked with them and taught them. Their eyes were opened, that is, they recognized him, as he blessed and broke the bread for the evening meal (Luke 24:30—32). In the second story, the disciples struggled to believe their eyes even as they saw him and interacted with him. Jesus addressed their struggle by inviting them to touch him and by eating a piece of broiled fish (Luke 24:39, 42). As they struggled to understand what he was teaching them, he opened their minds to understand (Luke 24:45).

 These stories instruct us today.

 The disciples’ story is our story. We see our experience in theirs. We are like the two disciples walking to Emmaus. We have our assumptions about God and about what God will do. We read the Bible through the lens of our assumptions and beliefs. We live with disappointment when God doesn’t do what we expect or want. “We had hoped …” (Luke 24:21).

 Struggle is a part of our journey as it was a part of theirs. We struggle to recognize the presence of Jesus. We struggle to understand the ways of God he taught. We struggle to embrace those ways because they are so foreign to how we have been trained to think. We struggle to believe. We struggle to grasp the reality of forgiveness. We struggle to embrace the reality of the Kingdom. We, like them, are dependent upon the Spirit to open our minds and guide our understanding.

 As Jesus, through the Spirit, walks with us, we move beyond our struggle. We move from the blindness caused by our old ways of thinking to seeing (understanding) what Jesus taught. This Spirit-given understanding transforms our lives as we learn to live out of grace and forgiveness. This transformation makes us witnesses to the new reality Jesus proclaimed and made real—God’s forgiveness, God’s way of life known as the Kingdom (Luke 24:48).

 At the heart of this transformation process is learning to read and understand the Bible in the way Jesus taught those first disciples. Jesus is the fulfillment of the story the Bible tells. He is the fullest and final revelation of the heart of God. Thus, our understanding of what the Bible says is to be shaped by what Jesus taught and how he lived. Parts of the Bible—both in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the New Testament—reflect a partial, incomplete understanding of God and the ways of God (see Hebrews 1:1—3). What Jesus taught and how he lived takes precedent over those partial understandings. He is the lens through which we read the Bible. We are to build our lives around what Jesus taught. This Jesus-shaped way of reading and understanding the Bible will result in our lives being shaped by what he taught and how he lived. Rather than proclaiming “the Bible says!” to support what we believe, we proclaim “Jesus said!” 

 Finally, these stories remind us that we are a vital part of the on-going story of Jesus. We, like those first disciples, are witnesses of these things (Luke 24:48). As the followers of Jesus, we are a part of that Kingdom he established and witnesses to it. We proclaim—both with our words and with our lives—the reality of “repentance and the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47). We proclaim God’s forgiveness, inviting people to set aside thinking in terms of deserving, judgment, and condemnation. We call them to embrace a new, grace-based way of thinking and living called the Kingdom of God (repentance). We live our part of the story through the power of the Spirit—“clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).

 The post-resurrections stories in Luke show how Jesus’s death and resurrection were the fulfillment of the story being told in the Hebrew Scriptures. They anticipate the continuation of that story as the disciples—including us!—live as witnesses to the reality of forgiveness, inviting people of all nations to embrace a new way of thinking and living called the Kingdom of God.