Luke's last look at Christ: Luke 24:13-53 — A.J. Higgins

Now, again, a very warm welcome to all of taking time to come and just take a moment to thank the assembly here for the invitation to be with you. And we trust that it has been of some profit. Now, tonight, as you know, we're looking at the latter part of Luke, chapter 24.

Reading Luke 24:13–53: Christ Revealed, Commissioning, and Ascending

So I'll ask you to turn to chapter 24 and we'll begin reading in verse number 13, have a rather lengthy section and yet profitable for us to take the time to read it. Luke's Gospel, chapter 24, verse number 13.

And behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem, about three score furlongs. And they talked together of all those things which had happened. It came to pass that while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near and went with them.

But their eyes were holding that they should not know him. And he said to them, what manner of communications are these that you have one to another as you walk and are sad? One of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering said unto him, art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?

And he said unto them, what things? And they said unto him concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet, mighty indeed and word before God and all the people and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him.

But we trusted, we had hoped that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel. And beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulcher.

And when they found not his body, they came saying they had also seen a vision of angels which said he was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulcher and found that even so, as the women had said, but him they saw not.

Then he said unto them, O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, ought not Christ to have suffered these things in the winter into his glory and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself.

And as they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went, he made as though he would have gone further, but they constrained him saying, abide with us for it is toward evening and the day is far spent.

And he went into tarry with them and it came to pass as he sat at meet with them. He took bread, blessed it and break and 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, did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way and while he opened to us the scriptures? And they rose up the same hour and returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven gathered together.

And then they were with them saying, the Lord is risen indeed, hath appeared to Simon and they told what things were done in the way and how he was known of them in the breaking of bread. And as they thus speak, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and said unto them, peace be unto you.

But they were terrified and afraid and suppose they had seen a spirit. But he said to them, why are you trouble? Why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold, my hands and my feet. It is I myself handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have.

When he had spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they yet believe not for joy and wondered, he said unto them, have you hear any meat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish and of honeycomb.

And he took it and did eat before them. And he said unto them, these are the words which I speak unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me.

Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. And said unto them, thus it is written, and thus it behoove Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day and that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem.

And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the promise of my father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high. And he led them out as far as to Bethany and lifted up his hands and blessed them came to pass while he blessed them.

He was departed from them and carried up into heaven and they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen. Now, we do know that God will add his rich blessing to a portion of the word of God, which we seem constantly to be drawn to and to have a special place of affection in our hearts.

Three Portraits of Christ in Luke 24

All scripture is profitable. And yet there are parts of the word of God that we seem instinctively to turn to in times of need, times of sorrow, times of tragedy. The Emmaus Road. Actually, there are three main sections here, one very large, one relatively smaller and one quite small.

We have the Lord Jesus Christ, his consideration and revelation on the Emmaus Road, and he's seen as the prophet communicating the truth of God. Then we have the Lord Jesus Christ seen in the upper room and we notice there his communication to his disciples.

And he is the sovereign who is commissioning them to go and to preach the word of God. And then we see him at Bethany and we see the adoration and the Lord Jesus, not now as the prophet communicating or as the sovereign commending, but as the priest with uplifted hands, conferring blessing upon his people.

This chapter as well, we looked at it last evening in some measure, but another way of appreciating it is looking at the Lord Jesus Christ on the highway of life. Christ on the highway of life, Christ in the hearts of men did not our heart burn within us, Christ in the home and finally Christ in heaven.

As we see Christ on the highway of life, we see him as the divine escort moving together with them. As we see Christ in the hearts of men, he is the divine enjoyment of life. He gave them joy. As we see Christ in the home, he becomes the divine entertainer, not the one who is a guest, but the one who becomes the host, taking the bread and breaking it and feeding them.

Christ in heaven, the divine enabler for our lives. So the Lord Jesus Christ and all of those lovely portraits in all of those various ways. Just take a moment to have you consider and we're just going to be looking at Luke, but those who wish to can go to Matthew, Mark and John and see the same pattern that unfolds.

Gospel Bookends and the Symmetry of Luke

And the pattern is this, that there is a symmetry or a balance between the beginning of a gospel and the end of a gospel. There's they're like bookends that capture everything in between. For example, how does the gospel of Luke begin?

Luke chapter one, you have a priest in the temple. How does Luke end the Lord Jesus with priestly hands, lifting up his hands in blessing upon the people of God? It begins with the people outside the temple waiting.

It ends with the disciples going into the temple. It begins with a priest who becomes dumb and cannot speak. It ends with a people whose mouths are open in praise and worship as they are daily in the temple, praising God and giving thanks.

It began, if you recall, in chapter two of Luke with two people who are taking a journey, Joseph and Mary, and they thought the Lord Jesus Christ was with them and he wasn't. It ends with two people who are traveling.

Who think the Lord Jesus Christ was not with them. And he was. So you can see the and you can trace other links between the beginning of the gospel and the end of the gospel, and you can go through each of the gospels, Matthew, Mark and John, and again, see the the symmetry, the parallel between the beginning and the end of each gospel.

The spirit of God is very careful to balance and to give us the balancing of those two aspects, the beginning and the end of of each particular gospel. But before us tonight, we want to consider then these three sections.

The Lord Jesus seen as the great prophet, communicating truth to two that are walking on the road to Emmaus, to view him as the sovereign who is commissioning and sending forth to preach the gospel and to see him as the priest uplifted with uplifted hands, leading them out as far as the Bethany, conferring blessing upon them and ascending into heaven to be seated at God's right hand.

Mention one other thing before we look at some of these verses in a very superficial manner. You'll notice the progression of truth as to how each gospel ends. If you're careful and you're reading in Matthew, you read the Lord Jesus Christ takes them out to a mountain in Galilee.

But there's no mention in Matthew of the Lord Jesus Christ ascending. Matthew ends with the resurrected Christ on a mountain in Galilee, commissioning his disciples and giving them the promise that he is with them always.

So Matthew does not have an ascension. Mark gives us an ascension. He meets them again and he is seen ascending and sitting down at God's right hand. And we have there the disciples going forth and and working in the Lord, working with them.

When we come to Luke, he not only ascends, but he is seen ascending and blessing his people and conferring blessing upon them in his ascent. What about in John? Remember how John ends? John says to to Peter, if I will, that he tarry till I come.

What is that to the follow me? So John ends with the promise of his return. So there's a progression as you go through the four gospels, each of them ending on a slightly higher note until you come to John's gospel and you have the promise of his return, of his coming again, stated in John chapter 21.

And just one other thing to note when you're looking, thinking of John 21, whenever the Lord Jesus Christ talks about coming for the church, he talks in the first person singular, I come in my father's house or many mansions.

If I were not so, I would have told you if I go, I come. John 21, if you if I will, that he tarry till I come, what is that to the revelation 21? Behold, I come quick. So wherever it is, his coming for the church, he speaks in the first person singular.

Whenever he speaks of coming to the earth for Israel, it's third person. When the son of man comes, when he comes. But for us, it's personal, very, very special, very, very intimate. I'll just mention as well one thing, because we don't have time to hopefully we'll be noticing it.

We can't help but notice it. But there is a not a recipe here, but there's insight here by the way the Lord Jesus Christ deals with these two on the road to Emmaus, how we can be a help to those who are discouraged, those who are despondent, those who are who have who feel like giving up, those who are depressed.

The Lord Jesus deals so skillfully and so wisely with them. And we are given insight into how we can be a help one to another as we deal with individuals who have, like these two on the road to Emmaus, have felt discouragement and have felt all their hopes shattered.

That's really the idea of these two walking. We thought we had hoped that it would be he who would redeem Israel. Our hopes have been shattered by the events. And I would be surprised if there's not a few believers here who have known the reality of shattered hopes, shattered dreams.

And we'll see how the Lord Jesus Christ deals with it here in this section. Mention one other thing. And if this were a Bible reading, it would cause a lively exchange of comments. Is this a husband and wife or are these two disciples?

Now, those who would say a husband and wife would have this in their favor, that it says, did not our heart burn within us? The idea of the unity of this couple, whoever they were, did not our heart, singular, burn within us.

So it almost carries the idea of two people who are so close, their heart beats as one. So it could be that it is a husband and wife who are walking together. And certainly you have the idea of a home to which he's invited.

Others would see it as two men, two disciples. And of course, although the masculine is used, two of them, wherever there's a male and female, the masculine will be used anyway. So it's difficult to really be certain.

But I may jump between both. You'll forgive me if I do. Coming down squarely on both sides of the question. But there's profit wherever we look at it. And certainly much can be learned from it. So just consider now at the beginning of what we're considering, his revelation to those who are discouraged.

Christ’s Patient Care for Discouraged Disciples

I want you to look at the order, the order in which he intervened. Now, what I mean by that is this. He allowed them to talk. He didn't jump in with all the solutions, all the answers he could have immediately revealed himself.

He could have immediately told them who he was, but he knew here were people who needed to to ventilate, if I can just speak in everyday terminology, he knew they needed to unburden their hearts in this section.

We find the Lord Jesus Christ dealing with the burdened, with the blinded, with the broken, with the brooding. And he knows just how to deal with each group of people. And so as he as he approaches this couple, as they're walking on the road that day, he he just asks them, what manner of communications are these that you have?

And as you walk together and are sad and are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who doesn't know what's happening? And he said, what things he allows them to. To talk, he allows them to express the burden of their heart, the Lord did the same with Elijah.

You recall. What do I hear, Elijah and Elijah has his spiel already. I have been zealous for the Lord God of hosts. I alone am left. They've torn down nine altars, slain my prophets. I'm the only one left.

He repeats the same story word for word twice to the Lord. The Lord just lets him talk. The need to unburden his heart, the need to have an opportunity to actually express all that is pent up and all that is causing so much, much grief.

He's the unrecognized stranger, it's amazing to me, the expression, are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who doesn't know what's happened? You know, I almost hate to say it's irony, but it is. He was the only one that knew what happened.

He's the only one that really knew all that happened in Jerusalem. No one else knew. And yet they're telling him. Are you the only one that doesn't know what happened? And he's the only one that really did know what happened.

He's the unrecognized stranger. He's the unrivaled sympathizer. He's able to come alongside, able to travel with them. You recall, we all know Psalm 23 so well. The first three verses of Psalm number 23.

The psalmist talks about the Lord who is my shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd. He makes me to lie down. He leadeth me. He restores me. He talks about the shepherd. When he goes into the valley of the shadow of death, his pronouns change.

He doesn't talk about the shepherd. He talks to the shepherd. Thou art with me. Thou prepares the table before me. Thou anointest my head with oil. It's as though now he's come near. In the valley, in the valley of the shadow of death, this shepherd has now come near.

And he's not just talking about him to others. He's talking to him. It has become personal. And that's what we have here. The Lord Jesus Christ walking with two in the valley of the shadow of death. I think it's lovely to see him so, so unhurried, so patient.

He doesn't rush them to a conclusion. He just allows them to talk. The traveler who is always with us, the tender sympathizer who is ever available to us, the teacher who patiently deals with us. The order is most instructive, lets them ventilate first, unburden their hearts first.

And then he's going to come in and balance all they have to say. The order in which he deals with them. But I think everything will get better. Every step along the way of this journey seems to me to get better, because I want you to think of the the objects of his interest.

Who is he interested in? I am so thankful. It doesn't tell us it was James and John. I am so thankful it doesn't say it was Peter and his wife. Because if it was James and John or Peter and his wife, I think the Lord's only interested in the big names.

But it's two nameless disciples. Two nameless individuals, just ordinary, everyday believers. Now, you won't be insulted if I tell you that all of us here are just ordinary, everyday disciples. We are not the big names.

We are not the the important movers and shakers in the work of God. We are just unnamed disciples walking the road. So that tells me he has a deep interest in each one of us. You don't have to be a James and John, don't have to be a Paul, don't even have to be a Timothy or a Titus.

You can just be a Secundus or a Tertius or a Quartus, just somebody named by your master as a slave. Just the ordinary, everyday believer. And he has a deep interest in them. You recall, don't you, back in the Old Testament when Sarah, Sarah at that time, when she expelled Hagar and Hagar went into the wilderness.

And she sat down and you recall the angel of the Lord appeared to her in the wilderness scene. Remember how she called that place, the name of that place, thou God seest me. Now, if you really take the Hebrew of all that, what she is saying is, why would God ever have an interest in me?

Why would God ever look upon me just a poor handmaiden to Sarah? That's the idea, the absolute amazement that God would have an interest in me. Isaiah chapter 40, where you have a picture of Israel going into captivity, a tremendous chapter in Isaiah 40.

Jacob says, surely my judgment is overlooked by God and he has forgotten me. God could not have an interest in me. Look at all that's happened. Look at all I've been through, all the difficulty, the trial, the captivity, the chains.

My judgment has been overlooked by God. And God says, have you not heard? Don't you know? He said, I name the stars, the billions and billions of stars. I name them all. And I take care of them all. He says, there's no searching of my understanding.

He says, I don't become weary. And he says, those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall man up with wings as eagles. They shall run, not be worried. They shall walk and not faint.

So he's giving us encouragement here that not one of us is overlooked by the tender care of this sojourner on the Emmaus road. Nameless disciples. He cares for them. Why did he care for them? Oh, they were spiritually cold in heart or they, no, he cared about their emotions, cared about their emotions.

What manner of communications are these that you walk together and are sad, sad. He cares about the emotional well-being of his people. Paul tells us in Romans, we are to weep with those that weep and rejoice with those that rejoice.

We should have a care for the emotional well-being of each other, of fellow believers. Believers go through trial and it causes tremendous emotional strain at times. And we should be supportive where we can.

But here is one who is deeply interested in the emotional well-being of his people. I don't know if you know, if your margin of your Bible tells you how far 60 furlongs was, three score furlongs. It's about seven miles.

Now, I walk pretty fast. I do it for other reasons, but I walk pretty fast. I can walk close to four miles an hour on a fairly regular clip. I doubt these people walk four miles an hour if they're walking together and talking.

So let's cut it down to three miles an hour. That meant the Lord spent over two hours. With two disciples. Walking with them. And add in then sitting at the table with them after the meal was, the Lord must have spent three or four hours.

With two people whose name is what we don't know. Because he was concerned with how sad they were. The risen Lord. The one who has come through death, the one who has triumphed over sin and Satan and hell and all the forces of hell.

He cared enough. For two nameless disciples. To spend an evening with them, four hours of time, likely. Just for them. Just devoted his time. For them, I think the only thing that is more touching is what you read of in John, chapter 21.

You recall, the disciples had gone fishing and they at the command of the Lord, they cast their net on the right side of the ship and they brought their haul to land. And when they got there, they found already a fire of coals and fish and warm bread.

And the Lord said, come and eat. And then amazingly. Amazingly, it says he took. He took the fish and the bread. And he served them. The risen Christ acting as a waiter, feeding his people. What a savior.

What a Lord we have. I think it's almost a picture of heaven. He's going to make it his personal responsibility to make sure every believer. Is as full. As possible. Not a food, but as full of him, as full of joy as they could possibly be his own personal set of responsibility.

The Danger of One-Sided Truth

How he intervened. But I want you to look at the two themselves and what occupied them as they moved along the Emmaus road. Now, just bear with me. Just look at the text again. Look at verse 14. It says they talked together.

Verse 15. They communed together and reasoned. Verse number 17. Their communications that they had one to another. Now, you'll have to get out your Vines dictionary or your computer Bible program and look at this later.

But these are all very, very distinct in different words. There are two that are the same. The communication is the idea of the words you are using. But they talked. They conversed one to another. And they reasoned.

They tried to understand as they were talking. But I want you especially to think of what we have with the Lord Jesus Christ says at the end of verse 17, the communication you have one to another. The idea is you're throwing it back and forth to each other.

Now, you know what that's like, right? You're talking to somebody. But here, what was happening is these two people were just reinforcing each other's grief. You can hear it, can't you? What happened?

We thought it's. Yeah, you're right. It just everything went wrong. How could it possibly be? We must have been wrong. Yes, we. And they're reinforcing each other's negativity. Just just building on each other and becoming more and more filled with grief.

They're the idea is throwing something back and forth. They're throwing back and forth between themselves. All of this negative talk, all of this despair, all of this sense of hopelessness. And into it, all the Lord interjects himself.

What manner of communication? What are you talking about? Why are you sad? And after they have unloaded all their burden, the Lord Jesus begins to interject what is going to bring light and what is going to bring joy.

What was their problem? Why were they sad? I mean, you know, their Lord had been crucified. Why were they sad and why were they saying we had hoped it would have been he which would have redeemed Israel?

Could I just point out the danger of one sided truth? Now, what I mean by that is just this. They had plenty of scriptures that told them of a coming Messiah who was going to reign and rule on the earth and establish God's kingdom on earth.

They had lots of scriptures. And those are the scriptures they love to read and think about. But the scriptures that told about a Messiah who would suffer and die. They hadn't paid attention to. So there were scriptures that they love to read because of all the good things that were said.

And all the future prospects, but the scriptures that told of a suffering Messiah. So when the Lord Jesus Christ speaks to them, you notice three times over, he uses the word is the word that is used is all.

He expounded them in all the scriptures, not just some. We have a danger sometimes of just picking and choosing versus that appeal to us at a particular time. Now, I say that because there have been believers who have gotten themselves into tremendous spiritual downturns because of one sided truth.

You know, you come back from the doctor with a diagnosis. Not a good one. And it looks like there's not much hope. And you turn to the word of God and you read there in your read, happen to be reading an Exodus chapter.

Is it 15? No, it's 14, 13 about Israel coming out of Egypt and coming to Mara and casting in the tree. And the Lord reveals himself as Jehovah Rafika, the Lord that heals. That's it. I'm going to be healed.

I know I'm going to be healed. God is the God of healing. He's going to heal me. And so we grab one part of the scripture and we run with it. And when the disease gets worse and worse and worse, we begin to question God.

Begin to question his faithfulness. And somehow we have forgotten that the Bible speaks about believers dying. That in the New Testament, we read about people who were sick and were not healed and did not rise from deathbeds.

Even the Apostle Paul had to leave some behind who were sick. Trophimus have I left and so on. And so that God does not choose. I mean, if we push the idea of divine healing to its limit, that mean no one would ever die, which is ludicrous.

But we tend to gravitate to things that make us feel like we can claim this, you know, name it and claim it, as they would say in some parts of Christendom. But balancing scripture, there is a balance to scripture that we have to maintain.

And here were people and the whole reason their hopes were dashed is because of unbalanced truth that they held. And so the Lord Jesus Christ, as he deals with them, again, you'll notice that we are reminded here in verse number, let me pick it up again, verse number 25 slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself.

He gave them a balanced presentation of scripture. Later on, he was going to tell his own ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to rise from the dead. It was absolutely necessary. And so he is going to balance their thinking.

And I think it is so vital for us to have balanced thinking. Just mentioning to someone earlier this week, never assume that a lack of blessing is God's punishment on an assembly. There are 10 famines in the word of God.

Now, there are famines of food, but we know spiritual famine and we know famine in gospel work in the sense of a failure to see blessing as we'd love to. Famine had at least you could add to this, but had at least two purposes.

One was to touch our consciences. Is there something we need to get right with God about? So whether it's the the days of a limelight, the days of Gideon, the days of David, when there was famine because the bloody house of Saul famine can touch our consciences and say, I've got to get that right with God.

But famine can also test our commitment. Am I willing? Like a Boaz to stay in the field, to stay in the land, even though there are days of famine. I'll stay because this is where God has put me. This is where God is.

And I want to stay here. With him. And because he stayed, days of blessing did eventually come. But we can never just assume that blessing is related to the fact that we're doing so well spiritually. Never forget Romans chapter two, the goodness of God leads to repentance.

Now, I have known it in my own life that at times when you expect God's chastening hand because you feel I'm away from God, I have failed and you're expecting the two by four to come down on your head.

Instead of that, God blesses you. And it humbles you and you feel you always feel unworthy of his blessing, but there are times when you just feel like you want to crawl in the dust that he has blessed despite my failure, the goodness of God.

So God's blessing sometimes comes when we least deserve it. And he withholds at times when we're being faithful, but he wants to test our commitment. So balancing is so vital in our Christian life to take all of scripture together and to appreciate how it applies in our own particular lives.

Christ the Reserved Guest and Host in the Home

We're not going to get through all of this, but I'll just highlight a few things. You will notice the Lord Jesus as the. Reserved visitor, he doesn't force himself, doesn't intrude, he made as though he would have gone further.

That same expression is used once, is it in Luke, where he was walking on the water and he would have gone and they had to invite him in. He will not force himself into your life or into your home. But if you make room for Christ in your home, you'll notice there's a role reversal.

The guest became the host. The one whom they thought they were providing for, provided for them. And we read here how that he sat at meat, he took bread, blessed it, break and gave to them. And then we have not only the open sepulcher at the beginning of the chapter.

Now we have opened eyes, open scriptures. He opened the scriptures. He opens their eyes, opens their understanding. Could I just that this begs to be said, so I'll just take a minute. They learn Christ in the routine of life.

Just opening their home, inviting a guest in, having a meal in the everyday routine of life. They learn something more of Christ. Learn to have everything become a window. Into the heart of God. Everything that are around us can be a window into Christ and his greatness where I live.

And I didn't even check here. It's probably the same here where I live because of so so much ambient light. Very, very difficult to see the stars at night. You can see some, you can see a few. But I was once in a part of the world where I was literally away from civilization.

And I'd love to go back because I looked up at the sky. I had never seen so many stars. Absolutely brilliant. They say that there are over a billion stars in our Milky Way. And there are probably a billion galaxies out there.

So you multiply billions by billions and you get kind of big numbers after a while. And you may question, why did God have to make such a huge universe if all he's interested in is this little globe, this little speck, this dust that's hurtling around in the Milky Way galaxy?

Well, there are many reasons, but one of them and the one that I love to think about is this. If that's how great creation is, the creator must always be greater than his creation. So God has given us a creation so vast just to give us a little insight into his greatness.

So everything around us, the variety in nature, the beauty of nature, the tremendous diversity. What are there, 9 ,000 different species of birds all with their own individual song. No two birds have the same song.

20 ,000 different species of fish and the God of variety, the God of creativity, the God of beauty, even nature gives us insight into the character of God. And everything that we do has the potential.

We can learn God in the ordinary of life. I'm not minimizing ministry meetings such as this, gatherings of the Christians, Bible readings, but we can learn God in the ordinary events of life. Family life, a very humbling thing that I once read, and it has been a challenge to me through most of my married life, is this.

If all my wife knew of the love of Christ was how I loved her, what would she appreciate of the love of Christ? You understand what I'm saying? Husbands are commanded to love as Christ loved. My love for my wife should be a miniature.

I know it's a flawed copy, but it should be a miniature display of Christ's love for his church so that I should be my wife should be learning something of Christ's love by how I love her. And every day and every day thing and children should be learning something of what the father is like by what their father is like.

So in everyday family life, in everyday relationships, employee, employer, there is material that we can begin to get insights into. Here were people who learned Christ at a meal. Now, maybe they saw the wounds in his hands.

We don't know. Or maybe just that their eyes were suddenly opened. It was it was time for him to leave. But nevertheless, we see the learning of Christ in just the routine of life. The outcome was their hearts were so thrilled with what they had learned of Christ that they wanted to share it with others.

And so they rushed back those seven miles to Jerusalem. It may be that one of the reasons the Lord Jesus Christ. Moved with this couple, along with trying to dispel their sadness, was that he wanted them back in Jerusalem.

He wanted them all together. He wanted his people to be gathered together. And so they retraced their steps and they returned to Jerusalem. We come then to the upper room and reminded in verse 33 down to verse number 40 and so on that 49.

The Upper Room: Resurrection, Scripture, and Mission

Their hearts were filled with joy. Their minds were focused on the scriptures. Their hands were filled with work. So you have something of what an assembly should be. Hearts that are focused on Christ.