023 - Great Expectations

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink.

Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. Wow, that's not what I expected. Yeah, well, what did you expect?

Well, I don't know. Based on what? 2020 is not what I expected, so what's 2021 going to be? Oh man, what do we expect from this year?

I think we need to have our expectations reset by God. What do you say? Oh, indeed. Well, we'll find out too, guys.

That's exactly what happened to them today on More Than Ink. Well, a wonderfully warm welcome to you on this nice day after New Year's. I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy, and we've made it into 2021. We are in 2021, and now we have 2020 vision. Oh, that's bad.

Because 2020 hindsight, get it? Yeah, I get it. Okay, never mind.

We won't talk about that anymore. So bad. But it does lead us to the point that since we're in this day, usually it's January 2nd or so when you start thinking forward into the new year. You don't think about that much on the first, but the second you do, it's like, okay, back to life. Well, and for a lot of us, 2020 was a year of unmet expectations, actually dashed expectations. Dashed expectations. And just never knowing what was coming next.

Just when you think it can't get any worse. Right. It does. Right.

So that's what makes this passage we're going to look at today so interesting in this context. Yeah, if things don't go exactly the way you think they're supposed to, or actually not just exactly like, but I mean not even close. Or massively wrong.

Massively wrong, yeah. Then how do you get out of that hole? That despair can just kind of envelop you. And maybe you look at 2020 that way. Maybe you look forward into 2021 the same way.

It's a big black hole. And what are your expectations going forward, right? Have they been changed at all by what we've been through this last year? So we're going to really hit on expectations and despair and the key to changing all of that. And our best way to look at that is to follow with a couple of guys on a road from Jerusalem to Emmaus who are dealing with the despair of the situation. And we're walking into a new life that didn't match what they thought it was going to be. And this was either the day of the resurrection or shortly after. Exactly, yeah.

And they still don't believe it. It's tough. Let's just read the text.

Yeah, so if you're in that position you can identify with these guys. So just climb on with us and we're going to read. We're in Luke 24. We're going to read the whole passage.

Then we'll go back and point out some observations. So Luke 24, 13. Okay, so yeah, starting in verse 13. Now, and behold, two of them were going that very day – okay, so it is the day of the resurrection – to a village named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about these things which had taken place.

While they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him. Now, I'd sure like to stop there and talk for a second about – Okay, we can. I mean, well, let's just make a note of that.

Make a note. Preventing them from recognizing Him, because that's a really interesting statement. Okay, so we'll read on. And He said to them, well, what are these words that you're exchanging with one another as you're walking? And they stood still, looking sad. And it stopped them in their tracks.

What? And one of them named Cleopas answered and said to him, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem unaware of these things which have happened in these days? And he said to them, well, what things? And they said to him, the things about Jesus the Nazarene who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people. And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.

Indeed, besides all this, it's the third day since these things happened. But also some women among us amazed us when they were at the tomb early in the morning and they did not find His body. They came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women had said.

But Him? They did not see. And He said to them, oh, foolish men, slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.

Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory? And then, beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. And they approached the village where they were going and He acted as though He were going farther. But they urged Him saying, stay with us for it's getting toward evening and the day is now nearly over. So He went in to stay with them. And when He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it.

And breaking it, He began giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him and He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, weren't our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us? And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them saying, the Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.

They began to relate how their experience is on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread. Wow. Yeah. So let's go back and try and capture their emotional state before Jesus shows up. I mean, they clearly are bummed.

Maybe you're bummed about what's going on and what you expect is going to happen. But they were bummed. Let's kind of look at that a little bit and see how bummed they were and figure out what was controlling their thinking before Jesus showed up. Yeah, let's go back to that question. What really did prevent them from recognizing Him?

Because they're just reviewing for themselves all of their dashed expectations. They had gone to Jerusalem for the Passover, gone to Jerusalem expecting this one they'd been following to be recognized and proclaimed as Messiah. And the crowds even had done that when He entered down on the donkey.

And they were convinced He was the Messiah. Right. Yeah.

But how do you square that with the fact that He's dead? Right. And He's gone it seems like. Yeah.

That's a problem. I mean, we looked at some passages in the Old Testament a few weeks ago about the fact that His throne will be forever. So how can the, if this is the Messiah, maybe we're mistaken because He's dead.

Yeah. And He's gone. So it's an honest, it's an honest despair in a way because they had really invested a lot of their emotional and intellectual confidence in who Jesus was. And it's looking like the circumstances are working against that. Yeah, and not only that, that things have gone from bad to worse. That it's like suddenly they were with the guy who was famous. And so they, by extension, were famous too. But now He's dead and they don't believe that He has resurrected. Or they don't believe the witnesses who told them they had. And the guys who were with Him, closest to Him, are in hiding.

Right. They're all scattered. So these guys are going back where they came from. So it looks like the plan is all off. Jerusalem's too hot for me.

We're getting out of town. Everyone was wrong. I mean, it's just really, it's really a bummer because they were so excited about who Jesus was. You can see it in the Gospels. And Jesus warned them this was going to happen.

But, you know, their expectations are so deeply planted that He would come in, be the redemption of Jerusalem, as little Anna said. I mean, He was going to be the guy. But He's gone. So how can you argue with the fact that He's gone? But they did, I think they did remember the three days come back from the dead. Because they say this is now the third day and He's still gone.

He's still gone. Because they personally hadn't seen Him yet. Right.

Exactly. Isn't it amazing that they're going back where they came from and they're on the road actively kind of trying to verbally work this out. How could we have been so mistaken?

How were our expectations so misplaced? And Jesus comes to them on the road. Yeah, yeah. I think for me it's an instructive thing that when you're in the midst of a bad situation, you almost always find someone else you can commiserate with. Unfortunately, that may not always be the best place to go because you end up amplifying each other's despair. Well, and the verbal processing repetitively doesn't always get you anywhere. It just keeps you in the pit. Yeah, yeah. And because you don't see, you know, if I wrote a better story. Right, right.

I'd have two of them going and one of them would be godly and the other one wouldn't. And the godly man would say, well wait, you know, even though things aren't unfolding the way we thought, let's go check the scriptures again. Maybe we were wrong. Right. But they don't do that. They're just recounting the bad story. Right. They're recounting the bad story, the events that happened.

And I think it's just kind of making them swirl further and further down. I don't think they're really getting much perspective. Because the only perspective that's going to change them is the Word. Right.

And they're not doing that. And that, I think, answers my question at the beginning. That's what prevented their eyes from recognizing Jesus when He came to them. They were so fixated on their own crashed disappointments and unmet expectations that they just had no eyes to see Him with when He came.

And one guy's blindness was not helping the other guy's blindness. Well, and you know, I recently have been studying Lamentations and so when I read this in preparation for talking about it today, suddenly it connected with Lamentations 3 where Jeremiah says, you know, my soul is rejected from peace, I've forgotten happiness. This is Lamentations 3, 17 and 18. My strength has perished and so has my hope from the Lord.

My affliction, my wandering, my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. Right. He's doing the same thing. Doing the same thing.

He's totally fixed on the circumstances. Spiraling down. Telling the bad story over and over and over again. And unfortunately it's what we do naturally. It's what we do.

We just revisit the story over and over and then we actually expand on it and think, oh my gosh, it could even get worse. Right. So that just arrives you crazy. Right. But then in Lamentations 3 comes that beautiful section where he says, but this I recall to my mind.

A little light. The Lord's loving kindnesses never cease. So he comes to a place where he literally actively turns his mind from focused on those horrible circumstances to what God has actually said about himself. Yeah. What we call the real reality.

And the circumstances don't change at all. Right. But Jeremiah changes. Yeah. The heart.

When he recalls to his mind the word of God that tells him about the ultimate reality of the universe. Yeah. So that brings us back to Luke 24.

Yeah. So these guys are not helping each other. They're not quoting scriptures to one another.

We don't think. So Jesus decides we need to change this. But I think it's interesting that he doesn't take them to task instantly. He doesn't berate them instantly. I mean, they're dealing with honest things. He instead, he just says, well, you know, so what's going down? What's troubling you?

What are you talking about? I like that because when God comes near or when he lifts his face upon us, as we talked about last week, he's listening first rather than speaking. And God is intent on hearing your heart. So he gives them the opportunity. Well, and then they do. They just dump it into the ears of this guy that they think is a stranger.

A stranger, yeah. But, you know, for us, you know, when Jesus comes to us and says, now, what is troubling you? Yeah. We have an opportunity to then lay it all out. This is one of the things I learned from my study of Lamentations. We have freedom to dump our sadness, our disappointment, our anguish. What a great access we have to the King to just pour our hearts out. Yeah, to lay it out.

Just pour it out like water, says Lamentations. And this passage tells me he wants to know. I mean, just spill it, guys. What's the deal? Yeah, so what were they hoping?

Yeah. Because they said, we had a hope, but it got smashed. Yeah, in 21, I just, I hear that all the time, but we were hoping that it was He. We thought He was the guy. We thought He was the, you can hear such dashed expectations and hopes.

And it just almost breaks my heart to read that. Well, and look how they identify Him. Not as Messiah. They said He was a prophet, mighty in deed and word, in the sight of God, and the people loved Him. He was just a prophet. They downgraded Him.

Yeah. Because they were disappointed. Because they had identified Him as a Messiah before. Exactly. But then He died. Then they're saying, well, maybe He's not the Messiah.

Maybe He's just a prophet. We can go with that. Right. We can go with that.

He was a prophet and they killed Him. Well, that's what we've always done. I think that was kind of the outcome of their discussion together.

It's like, look at this, look at this, look at this. Not the Messiah, but we'll give them prophet status. And so when they recounted Jesus, it's kind of what they do. And we were really hoping. We were hoping He would be the one. But that hope has perished, just like Jeremiah said. That hope has perished.

Yeah. And they don't discount what they saw. I mean, early on there in 19, He was mighty in deed and word in the sight of God. I mean, He had all the credentials, everything lined up. And we weren't alone.

All the people saw this as well. But somehow, the chief priests and the religious authorities got Him killed. So in face of that, He can't be the Messiah, right?

Right. I mean, their logic is okay, but they're not remembering the bigger picture. And they even carry the story as far as the empty tomb. The women had come back and told them, hey, we found the tomb, just like they said, but we didn't see Him. We found the tomb the way they described it, but we didn't find Him. They did find Him when they went to the tomb, but Peter and John, when they went, didn't. So it's like, oh, so should we believe that? I mean, if the women saw Him, okay, that's one thing. But if Peter and John, who Jesus counts as big guys in the kingdom, and He didn't show up to them? I mean, maybe everyone's mistaken, and maybe the women are just kind of hallucinating. I mean, it's all just falling apart.

But the tomb was empty. That's a big data point. We don't know how to deal with that. But the resurrected Jesus, who has come to them and met them in this place of disappointment, turns the conversation. And that's what I like.

He let them finish the story. Fully identify their issues. Exactly. Lay it out there, boys. Lay it out there, boys. And He doesn't interrupt them.

He says, just put it out there. But Him, we didn't see. That's the last words they had, and that's what they wanted. They wanted to see Jesus. Well, guess what? They're going to get their wish right now. I like that. We wanted to see Him. Oh, you foolish men and slow of heart to believe.

I really like that because He could have berated them in a very cruel kind of way. But He basically says that you're not ignorant, but you're not willing to fully believe what you already know. Right. It's a belief issue. And it's not a willingness not to, it's just a slowness of heart. And I get that because circumstances does blunt our heart's willingness to believe sometimes. Okay, but biblically, the idea of a fool is one who doesn't take God into account, right?

I think it's Psalm 14, and Proverbs also says the fool says in his heart, there's no God, right? God's not relevant. God's not doing anything. Where is God in this?

Yeah, and that's basically what they're saying here too. If this was the Messiah, God was asleep because He's dead. So isn't your God big enough to raise the dead? Right.

He's the God of the living, not of the dead. So this is really a pretty foolish position to take based on what they already knew and should have embraced. They should have said instead, like if I was writing the perfect Bible, they should have said, it's the third day, but He'll show up because He said He would. But they don't do that.

But they don't. And Jesus says, you know, let me connect the dots for you. Wasn't it necessary for the anointed one to suffer these things, to enter into His glory? Right. And so beginning with Moses, He unpacks for them all the things in the scriptures concerning Himself while they're walking on the road.

Yeah. And in that two to three hour journey, they could cover a lot of ground, both on the ground as well as through the scriptures. And we all say, man, I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall. We can't be a fly on the wall.

Fly on the road. Yeah, we have the same Old Testament scriptures they had. Exactly. Exactly. We have them.

We just don't read them. Yeah. And I like the fact in 27, it says Jesus didn't actually, He didn't give them the new knowledge, but what He did was He explained them. And we were looking earlier, this word used other places to mean interpreter to translate like a translator does. That's how it's mostly used.

Yeah. And we're using this in the sense of, look, you knew this, this is written here. Now let me explain that to you, what that means, because they may not have connected the dots. So now He connects the dots and explains what these things meant all the way through.

It's interesting. This is another layer on John 1 18 when it says, no man has seen God, but the living, the only begotten Son who's in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. It's not the same Greek word there, but the idea is the same, that He has opened and completely explained, completely declared who God is in the person of Christ. And God is intent on you understanding.

Absolutely. He's not going to make a fool of you or berate you on the spot just because you can't connect the dots or not willing to connect the dots. He wants you to understand. I think Psalm 32 says that. He doesn't want us to be like a donkey or something and pull a bit left and right and you go left and right.

He wants you to understand. And so here's Jesus carefully and respectfully and dramatically explaining what's in the Old Testament that they knew because He wanted them to understand. And they still haven't yet recognized that this is the one. No but at this point, the resurrected Christ, they're responding positively to just the word. Right. That's a great thing. They're going, oh, right.

Oh, right. And I think if Jesus had done it in reverse order, if He'd revealed who He was and says, okay, boys, listen. I don't think they would have been listening as well because here in their despair and their struggle, they're listening very carefully. Well and He has engaged them, right?

He's opened the scriptures and said, you know, well, don't you see here that it's evident that like Isaiah 53, He had to be crushed, He had to be given. So you know, their minds are working. He's engaged them in connecting the dots themselves. Yeah. Yeah. It's a wonderfully tender thing in the midst of a really difficult situation for them. So if you're in a difficult situation and you're trying to say, I don't understand what's going on. I thought this is going to be like this.

I had these expectations. Young Christians usually have this expectation that life would be rosy and just, you know, there's no problems or difficulties and then things go bad and they say, well, I was expecting something different. Right. That can happen throughout your entire Christian life, not just newly Christian. Not just as a new believer. You ask yourself constantly, I don't understand, I don't understand. And so God, like what Jesus does right here, can say, well, tell me what's on your heart, what's on your mind, what's messing you up. Come on, just dump it here and we'll work on this. And He lets you dump it and He says, okay, let's work on understanding. Because the real question is, are you teachable? Are you open to allowing the Spirit of God, the Lord Himself, to change your mind as He unloads and opens the scriptures to you? And I think sometimes that's where we get stuck. We think we've already understood it completely. There's nothing new to add to this picture. I've got it and it didn't happen. So are we in humility before the Lord saying, okay, like Habakkuk said, I'm going to stand in my watchtower and see how God's going to answer me and how I should turn when I'm reproached by Him. Where was I wrong and how should I repent?

How should I turn? Yep. And that willfulness about not wanting to believe will stop your ears from being able to hear very well. Right. So let's just move the story on because we've just got a few minutes left. They finally do recognize Him.

And how? Oh, it's so amazing when they say, well, stay with us. And they sit down to dinner at the inn and they were still talking. But in verse 13 it says, when He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it and breaking it and began giving it to them. And suddenly their eyes were opened.

The peg drops in the hole and they knew Him. They said, oh, we've seen this before, the blessing and the breaking of the bread. Well, it had only been a couple of days since the Last Supper.

So these guys were probably among that group that was there. When they saw Jesus say, this bread that I'm breaking is my body broken for you. And then the writer Luke in his gospel uses exactly the same phrasing. He blessed it and broke it and gave it to talk about this event, to talk about that event at the Last Supper, and also the event of the feeding of the 5,000 in Luke 9. So the whole idea of the breaking of bread became very synonymous with who Jesus was. But they had seen the man that they identified as Messiah and who didn't meet their expectations at the cross do this. Break the bread. Bless it.

Break the bread and give it. And suddenly they recognized not only what He said, but who He is. Their eyes were opened.

He was acting now as He has acted in the past. And that's a key for us understanding and recognizing God's presence right now. And connecting what He did with what He said about Himself and who God is. And that He was faithful and He actually did. They're saying third day and here they are on that day.

Day of the resurrection. We didn't see Him and now they saw Him and they're kicking themselves. Yeah. And the idea is that they recognized Him, they experienced, oh, this is, we've been here before. It's like a deja vu moment only in reality. Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, if I was writing the narrative again, and I'm thankful I'm not the author of the Bible, but if I was writing the narrative, then the first thing out of their mouths after Jesus disappears would not be what they said. It would be something really, really, really different. What they said was, you know, we're not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining, literally opening the scriptures to us. Weren't our hearts burning? And in a way it's self-indicting. It's like, that should have been enough to call us in. Right.

Like lit on fire. Yeah. Yeah. And we saw that Jesus during His ministry, during His ministry, He was the person who spoke with authority. I mean, I can hear a little regret in their voice that, you know, that should have been enough for us, but man, our hearts were burning.

Wow. But the Lord in His grace met them here and gave them this very unique experience. He met them. He came to them. He came to them.

In the middle of their despair. But they had to invite Him to stay. Right.

And eat dinner. Right. Yeah.

But that's a good word for us. In the middle of your despair, in the middle of your horrible circumstances, He's intent on coming to you. And Lord, come and break the bread to me.

Yeah. He wants to sit down. Well, that's the revelation thing. I stand at the door and knock. You know, if you open the door, I'll come in and sit down and we'll eat together. And sit down and we'll eat together. Oh, I love that passage.

So that's exactly where we are here. That's the heart of God. He wants you to understand. He wants you to understand in a gentle kind of way, but He's going to give you the whole thing. He's going to give you understanding that you never had before, if your heart desires for understanding. He'll give it to you. And what He's going to give you is Himself.

Yeah. And the text says that that very hour, they pick up their skirts and race back to Jerusalem a couple hours down the road to connect and say, we've seen Him. He really is alive. And at the very end there it says, and they told how He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread. In the breaking of the bread.

How about that? In the breaking and giving of Himself. Suddenly they saw that the cross had to happen, that this anointed one had to die in order to accomplish their salvation. Right. And the penny drops and they get it.

All of that came to them in the breaking of the bread. I like too the fact that they just didn't stay in Emmaus and say, well, I guess it's still on, but you know, we'll hear how the boys are doing later on. They go, nope, we are back in the game. We are back in this. Right. We're back in the middle of it.

And they go two or three hours back to Jerusalem to tell them we saw them too. We're back in this all over again. So as you go forward into 2021, what's your attitude toward those broken expectations? And are you going to carry forward into this year a teachable heart that says, oh, Lord Jesus, break the bread to me. Reveal yourself to me. Show me who you are and where you are and how you are enough for me. And cry out to Him about your real circumstance. Say, this is where I'm at, God.

If you read the Psalms, you see that in the first half of a lot of the Psalms, He just dumps His heart. This is where I'm at. And then He listens.

You need to do that as well. Keep your heart to God and ask Him for understanding and listening. And we want for 2021 not to be just more of the same.

But what if it is? You don't have to be the same because Jesus can give Himself to you and you can be different whether your circumstances are different or not. Exactly. So hey, thanks for being with us. Next week, we're going to go back to John. We've been studying through John and we really look forward to continuing that. And we're kind of coming, we're actually in the Passion Week in John. Our very favorite parts of John.

It gets intense, but just fascinating and great-looking. So join us next week. I'm Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we hope you join us next week in this new year, 2021. Blessing to you. Bye. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. I think we should leave that alone.