(EJ 73.1-74.3)
Have you ever been a spy? Have you ever been an undercover operative? Perhaps you are one now. You work for ASIO or the Police the department of health. But of course we would never know. Because you are so deep undercover.
Don’t worry, if you are a spy I don’t really know that you are spying on us. I just thought it would be a good intro for my talk. Your cover isn’t blown.
After I finished year 12, I worked for three months at McDonald’s Bexley. And we were told to expect the ‘mystery customer’. The mystery customer would act like a normal customer, but would check out our work. He or she was undercover. The ‘mystery customer’ would evaluate us. 'How were the Big Macs and Quarter Pounders today? Had we done the suggestive sell? Would you like fries with that? You want to upsize? Any desserts today?' And of course, the undercover operative can find out things. What’s really going on?
In today's reading, the Risen Jesus has gone undercover. The report has gone out. Jesus is up and out of the grave, risen from the dead. The angels have made it known that Jesus Christ was once dead but is now alive. As two disciples set out for Emmaus, only the empties have been found. Empty tomb, empty grave clothes. To their knowledge, the Risen Jesus Christ has not yet shown up and produced his own body for identification.
Luke tells us that at this point the Apostle’s didn’t believe the women’s report. Peter went and checked out the tomb. He and at least another disciple found the empties[1]. Then Peter came back and wondered what had happened[2].
This is important to remember. Some people tell us that the disciples were gullible, prone to believe anything. They were already disposed to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. So the mere suggestion of resurrection would be enough for them.
That is not the picture the Gospel’s paint. Mary Magdalene is not a gullible women prone to believe her beloved Jesus is risen. She actually at first believes Jesus’ body has been stolen. She is only dissuaded from that when Jesus appears in front of her (John 20:2, 11-15; Matthew 28:9). Indeed, it is only when the risen Jesus provides unequivocal proofs later on Sunday evening – eating fish, and so forth – that they succumb to the belief that Jesus has indeed risen from the dead. Faith didn’t replace fact. Fact led to faith.
And so, on that first Easter Sunday, Cleopas and his companion set out on their journey to Emmaus. The explanation of the empty tomb is as yet unknown to them. Before their eyes, Jesus’ resurrection has not been verified. At best, it is hearsay and rumour. At worst, it is the delirium of the grief struck, hysterical women who buried him. And Cleopas and his friend don’t know what to believe. And so they discuss animatedly and heatedly.
And this is where the Undercover Messiah steps in. The hidden Jesus joins their journey. The ‘Mystery Customer’ catches up with them and plays a newcomer. He just happens to walks alongside them. He acts like an ignorant stranger to the city, unaware of all that has transpired. He literally asks them, ‘What are these words that you have been throwing at one another’, which stops them in their tracks. (Luke 24:17). He asks questions for which he knows the answers. He even gives the appearance of intending to go further to complete his undercover guise[3].
The question is, ‘Why?’ Why the Undercover Messiah? Why the hidden Jesus? Why does Jesus play the stranger with those he knows? We are not told. We have to read between the lines.
For the whole 11 kilometre journey, the risen Jesus doesn’t say ‘Here I am, it is I, I’m risen, just like I said I would’. Jesus could have done this, but he didn’t. He doesn’t say, ‘put your finger in the nail marks, and reach down and put your hand in my side’, as he would a week later to doubting Thomas (John 20:24-29).
What he says is this. After listening to all their whinging and bellyaching and disappointments and wonderment, he rebukes them. Third last paragraph on page 72:
And Jesus said to them, “How foolish you are, and slow of heart to believe all the things the prophets foretold! Didn’t the Christ have to suffer these things and so enter his glory?” (Luke 24:25-26)
In other words, Jesus shouldn’t have to show himself. Cleopas and his fellow traveller should believe not because they see. They should believe Jesus is risen because the Old Testament said so.
Jesus is so confident that the Old Testament is about him, that he is disappointed at their dullness. How dopey you are, how slow of heart, how thick. He chides and rebukes them. If you knew the Old Testament Scriptures, you would not have any trouble understanding what happened to the Christ.
Jesus first reaction to his disciples slowness to believe is not, ‘Well, here I am, you duffers!’ It’s to chastise them, and take them again through the Old Testament Scriptures. And he shows them how he fulfils them.
The risen Jesus wished to engender faith without sight on the Emmaus Walk. That’s why he kept his identity secret. Remember what the risen Jesus said to doubting Thomas a week after the first Easter. Jesus told Thomas:
Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. (John 20:29 NIV)
The Risen Jesus wants to create faith without sight on the road to Emmaus. And faith comes through hearing the word of God. So the risen Jesus keeps his identity hidden, and does a mobile bible study, bible study on the go.
He takes these two disciples on a journey of his own, a guided tour through the Old Testament, with the risen Jesus himself as tour guide. And he doesn’t want the identity of the tour guide to get in the way of the sightseeing. He wants the Scriptures to speak for themselves. So the hidden Jesus used the 11 kilometre walk to walk through the bible.
Who said men cannot do two things at once? Walk and study the bible, no problem.
And beginning with the writings of Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them the things written about himself in all the Scriptures. (Luke 24:27)
What does Jesus think the Old Testament is about? What is the Old Testament’s main theme and topic? Himself. Here is the author explaining his writings. Here is Jesus explaining what was written concerning himself.
Can you see what folly it is to say: ‘I’m not really into Jesus as a person, worshipping him and all that, but I like his teachings’. His teachings are all about himself. He was his own biggest topic.
The Old Testament is a book by Jesus for Jesus about Jesus. It is by Jesus in that it was his Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, that inspired it. It is for Jesus in that Jesus is here using it to create faith in his disciples. And it is about Jesus in that Jesus Christ is it’s great subject.
What a bible study it would have been! But there is another reason for Jesus keeping his identity secret on the Emmaus Walk. I think it was for us. For we are in the same situation as Cleopas and his unnamed fellow traveller. Jesus calls to live by faith and not by sight. We are those who have not seen, but believe.
So the Emmaus Walk is a model for our own walk with Christ. Our walk with Christ involves looking into the Old Testament and seeing how the Lord Jesus Christ fulfils Moses and the Prophets. When I read for you Isaiah 53, I do this for you. And my desire is that you will say with Cleopas and his friend: Were not our hearts on fire as he spoke to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us? The Bible can set your heart on fire, once you know it is all about Jesus.
However, Jesus does blow his cover. The hidden but risen Jesus does come out of hiding. For he does something that he regularly did with his disciples, and they cannot help but recognize them. He ate with them. Often when I see my Scripture kids out of context, I don’t recognize them. But when I see them in their uniform in their customary position, then I recognize them.
But no sooner do they recognize Jesus, that he disappears. If his appearance is not miraculous enough, now his disappearance is a miracle. It is quite similar to what happened to Phillip when the Ethiopian Eunuch came out of the water. At a key moment, the messenger is miraculously translated away. Jesus in his new resurrection body can pass through grave clothes. He can pass through doors that are locked because of fear (John 20:19). And yet he can eat and drink, and has a body and flesh and bones.
Everyone wants a super hero, someone like us, and for us, but with superhuman powers. We wish it was true. Well, it is true. If you want a super hero, here he is: the Risen Jesus Christ, our super hero! Jesus before his death had amazing powers, that made them say ‘Who is this man?’ And after his resurrection, Jesus breaks new ground in what humans can do.
Of course he will go where no man has gone before – even to the right hand of God. And one day, if you long for his appearing, you will be exactly as he is. For he is the firstborn among many brothers. Then everybody will be super. And that will be normal. There will be no more death, or tears, or grief or pain, for the old order would have passed away.
The Christian faith rests on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If Christ is risen, a truth for which the Apostles lived and died, then we have hope beyond the grave. Friends, I do not offer you faith by seeing. I have never seen the risen Lord Jesus. I like you must depend wholly on the Bible, and the Apostles. We live by faith not by sight, just as the two Emmaus walkers were first called to do. We cling to the Scriptures. Let’s do this until we meet the Risen Jesus face to face.
Let’s pray.
[1] John intimates it was himself (John 20:3-10); compare Luke 24:24.
[2] Compare John’s statement that neither Peter nor himself at that time understood that the Scriptures said that Jesus would rise to life (John 20:9). That must be held in tension with the fact in the previous verse that ‘he saw and believed’. No doubt there was much confusion among the disciples until Jesus actually appeared to them.
[3] Note the use of prospoieo, in the middle, meaning 1. to take or claim (a thing) to oneself. 2. to conform oneself to a thing, or rather to affect to oneself; therefore to pretend, followed by an infinitive: Luke 24:28: Thayer. Compare 1 Sa 21:14 LXX.