What Happens When We See Jesus? Series: Seeing Jesus
Luke 24:35-49 Apr 22, 2007
Intro (before Corporate Prayer):
A small boy once approached his slightly older sister with a question about God. "Susie, can anybody ever really see God?" he asked.
Busy with other things, Susie curtly replied: "No, of course not silly. God is so far up in heaven that nobody can see him."
Time passed, but his question still lingered so he approached his mom: "Mom, can anybody ever really see God?" "No, not really," she gently said. "God is a spirit and he dwells in our hearts, but we can never really see Him."
Somewhat satisfied but still wondering, the youngster went on his way. Not long afterwards, his saintly old grandfather took the little boy on a fishing trip. They were having a great time together - it had been an ideal day. The sun was beginning to set with unusual splendor as the day ended. The old man stopped fishing and turned his full attention to the exquisite beauty unfolding before him.
On seeing the face of his grandfather reflecting such deep peace and contentment as he gazed into the magnificent ever-changing sunset, the little boy thought for a moment and finally spoke hesitatingly:
"Granddad, I - I - wasn’t going to ask anybody else, but I wonder if you can tell me the answer to something I’ve been wondering about a long time - can anybody - can anybody ever really see God?".
The old man did not even turn his head. A long moment slipped by before he finally answered. "Son," he quietly said. "It’s getting so I can’t see anything else."
A Prayer Exercise:
I want to begin this time of prayer with a question: in this past week, where did you see God? I’ll back up a bit while you think about that: last week I issued a challenge, as we start a new season in the Christian year, moving from the cross and the empty tomb at Easter and towards the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes in power: the challenge was this: to set aside 10 minutes each day to see God: 10 minutes of reading your Bible and praying, with the desire to see God. So I want to follow up with the question: where have you seen God in the past week? Doesn’t have to be in your ten minutes, but I hope some of them are!
Where do we need to see God at work, and what do we really need Him to do?
Bridge:
In this new season, between Easter and Pentecost, we are looking for Jesus by re-telling the stories about His appearances between the resurrection and the time He was carried up into heaven. Scripture says there were forty days, where Jesus appeared to His followers to prove He was alive and to teach. Last week we looked at Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene, right outside the empty tomb. This morning, we are going to look at a story that happened later that same day…
The story begins on a road. Two disciples, we don’t know their names, but they are leaving Jerusalem and walking seven miles to a place called Emmaus – more than a 2 hour walk. They are perplexed, trying to figure out what the cross means, trying to understand what went wrong, what happens next, they are deep in conversation when a man suddenly joins them and their conversation, and begins to walk with them, ask them questions, hear their story, and then He responds. In Luke we are told that they didn’t recognize it was Jesus, but it was and Jesus begins to teach as they walk along and He walks them through the OT Scriptures and made it very clear to them that everything that happened to Jesus was exactly the way Scripture said it would happen. There is more to the story, but eventually they are able to see that it IS Jesus, and so in their great excitement they jump up and walk all the way back to Jerusalem – another 2+ hours, and here is what happens:
Luke 24:35-49 (NLT)
35 Then the two from Emmaus told their story of how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along the road, and how they had recognized him as he was breaking the bread. 36 And just as they were telling about it, Jesus himself was suddenly standing there among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. 37 But the whole group was startled and frightened, thinking they were seeing a ghost!
38 “Why are you frightened?” he asked. “Why are your hearts filled with doubt? 39 Look at my hands. Look at my feet. You can see that it’s really me. Touch me and make sure that I am not a ghost, because ghosts don’t have bodies, as you see that I do.” 40 As he spoke, he showed them his hands and his feet.
41 Still they stood there in disbelief, filled with joy and wonder. Then he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he ate it as they watched.
44 Then he said, “When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. 46 And he said, “Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. 47 It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.’ 48 You are witnesses of all these things.
49 “And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.”
Telling The Story: vs 35-36
I love where the story starts – the two from Emmaus, back with the 11 disciples and others, and notice what they did: “told their story”. Very simple – they told the story of how they were walking, talking, wrestling with the events, and then Jesus appeared to them. And they just simply tell the story.
My friends, this is the heart of evangelism. It really is that simple – we tell our story. You don’t have to be a Bible school graduate, you don’t have to be able to explain a detailed theology of salvation, you certainly don’t need to preach a sermon – just tell your story. Share about how you were walking along some road, struggling to understand or cope or make sense of your world, and then you met Jesus.
On Friday morning I spent some time on the phone with a friend from out of town, not a Christian, who is going through a very difficult situation. I listened, cared, offered a little bit of counsel, and I told just a tiny bit of my story. I shared, “I hear you feeling very alone in this struggle, and just want to share that in my life, when I’ve gone through similar feelings, I know that because of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, I am never truly alone.” It was simple, it was my story, and it is God’s plan for evangelism. Remember the word used most often in Scripture, especially by Jesus: “witness”. A witness is someone who has seen something and shares it with others. You have seen God do something in your life, now share it!
As the Emmaus road disciples share their story, Jesus appears. It is beautiful in the passage, and I want to say, this still happens! Not physically like in the passage, but I promise you that as you share your story, Jesus will be there. You will know it, you will feel it, and I pray that the person to whom you are sharing will know it and see it also.
I don’t want to belabor this point, but I do want to add one more thing. Most of us desire more of God – we want to see Him, we want to know His presence, we want to live in His power: well if that is true for you, step out into a place where you really need Him. Like in a conversation with someone who doesn’t know Jesus, where you are sharing your story. Or into a ministry where you cannot do it in your own strength, you need God’s strength. Or even a need in your own life that you haven’t given up control of – you are still trying to “handle” it instead of stepping into the place where you let go and give it up to God, and humble yourself and admit the need.
Jesus Speaks To Fear And Doubt: vs 37-46
Jesus appears, and the reaction is one we might anticipate: “the whole group was startled and frightened, thinking they were seeing a ghost!” Jesus speaks right to that: ““Why are you frightened?” he asked. “Why are your hearts filled with doubt?”
Don’t you love how direct Jesus is? Straight to the issues – fear and doubt. Now, if we try to imagine ourselves in the disciples’ place, those are pretty natural and understandable responses, we would be afraid and we would have doubts also.
Maybe some of you do right now. Maybe there is fear in your life – a fear of loss, a fear of death, a fear of being out of control, a fear that others will find out that you are not the wonderful person you have been pretending to be, a fear that your secret will be found out. When Jesus appears in your life like He did to the disciples, He asks the same question: “why are you frightened?” And He offers the same answer to the fear: “look… see that it is really me!” It is Jesus – God in the flesh – crucified but resurrected – cut down but not destroyed – dead but now alive – it is Jesus, with you. And when the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God of the Universe comes and stands with you, beside you, with your hand in His, all the fears are suddenly put in a completely different perspective. Loss – small compared to the gains of living with Jesus. Death – already defeated by Jesus, now just a threshold from this good life to an even better one. Control – we gladly give up the illusion that we are in control and discover true freedom. Exposure – well Jesus already knows all that, and loves us anyway.
Or maybe you have doubts. Maybe you’ve even come to church for a long time, but you are not convinced that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He died and rose again. Maybe you’ve decided that this whole Christianity thing is based on an illusion – that the disciples saw a ghost or a memory or some sort of spirit, but Jesus didn’t really come back from the dead.
This is an important story, where Jesus gives two proofs of His resurrection. First was the physical proof – Jesus says, “touch me… see the wounds, feel my flesh and bones”… and then Jesus goes one step further and eats some fish – to eat you need physical teeth to chew, saliva, throat muscles to swallow, a stomach and a digestive system, etc. Jesus did this to demonstrate His literal, physical resurrection, to prove that He was not a ghost, but that He was actually physically raised from the dead.
The second proof was Jesus explanation from Scripture. He did a Bible study with them – where He began at the beginning and walked them through the OT prophecies and demonstrated how everything that happened to Him, including the resurrection, was foretold thousands of years earlier. I encourage you to dive in and study those same themes, and discover the same thing: Jesus’ death and resurrection fulfilled all the prophecies written about Him.
The Command And The Promise: vs 47-49
The conversation then turns to what comes next – the message that needs to get spread. Here is the message: “There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.” It is a message of hope. Forgiveness. New life. For “all who repent”.
And Jesus makes it clear that the job of getting the message out falls on those who have seen. The “witnesses”. The people with a story, the people who have been forgiven, the people who can go and tell others that Jesus is alive – they know it because they have seen it.
This command comes with a promise: “And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.”
The promise is of power. The power of God, brought by the Holy Spirit. This translation uses the word, “fills you”, most others use the word “clothes you”. The original idea was of being covered, of slipping into some clothing, of being surrounded and covered and clothed by this power of God. The point is that it is the power of God, it was promised by Jesus, and the disciples were supposed to stay put until they received this power. THEN they were to go and be witnesses.
It is important to notice what the power is for. There is a lot of emphasis on the power of God in many parts of the Christian church today, but I often feel like it misses this point. Often that power seems to be about “me” – God’s power for me to have a great life, God’s power for me to be healed, God’s power for me to materially wealthy, God’s power for me to feel peaceful and comfortable. I get uneasy with that emphasis, because I’m worried we miss the point: God’s power comes to equip the disciples to be witnesses. To empower their witness, to demonstrate the truth of the resurrected Lord Jesus to those who have not heard and believed. Which brings me back to my earlier point, that if we want to live in the power of God we need to be stepping out into places where we need the power of God, and specifically in this passage and this context to be God’s witnesses to a world that has not yet seen, experienced, and come to know the Risen Lord Jesus.
What Do We See?
We want to see Jesus. That is our desire, that is why we are sharing these stories. What do we see of Jesus in this story? That He really is alive. That He addresses fear, and doubt. And that He empowers us by the Holy Spirit to share what we have seen with others who have not seen.
Here is my challenge, and our application. Engage in your 10 minutes a day of seeking to see Jesus. Dive in, commit, explore, seek. And now, on top of that, share what you see. Step out of the place of safety and into a place where you need God’s power to give you boldness, and clarity, and opportunity.
And as we do, may God’s Kingdom come and His will be done.
