Luke 24:28-32 - Heartburn!

24:28,29

They eventually arrived at the village of Emmaus. Jesus continued as if He was going further on, but the two disciples urged Him to stay with them, and Jesus agreed to do so. The text implies that this was actually what Jesus had always intended, yet He wanted them to specifically ask Him to stay with them. There are some things that God will not do unless we ask Him. Now a daft way to approach this is to start asking questions like “what would Jesus had done if the disciples had not asked Him to stay?” Well I have no idea, and it isn’t a problem to God, so it should not be a problem to us either. What we do with our lives matters, and God has again and again encouraged us to pray and ask, so we should pray and ask!

24:30-32

Jesus then took bread, gave thanks and gave it to them. There are similarities between this, the Last Supper and the feeding of the five thousand. Is it this similarity that led to their eyes being opened? Or was their supernatural intervention at this stage? I tend to favour the latter. We know the spiritual blindness shared by all men is only removed by the work of the Holy Spirit. Then Jesus disappeared from sight. Now why did that happen? Perhaps we need to understand the purpose of these appearances, and the reality of the resurrection. First, this does not in any way imply that Jesus was a ghost! But it is definitely true that He now has a resurrection body, and that body is different from our mortal bodies. Resurrection is not merely a revival of the old body, but a radical transformation. Now the two disciples believed, the worst thing that could happen is that they would hold on to the risen Christ (John 20:17). Jesus needed to ascend to the Father and the Holy Spirit would be sent. We do not need Jesus here now! We do need to know that He is risen, but we do not need His physical presence. Indeed, that is a recurrent theme in the post-resurrection appearances.

The disciples remark that their hearts were burning within while Jesus talked with them and opened the Scriptures. Jesus’ presence is real, and now God makes His presence real to us through the Holy Spirit.