By James Riley Strange, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Religion, Samford University
Victory Shared
Luke 24:44–49
The distinctive story of the resurrected Jesus in Luke includes the famous “Emmaus Road” incident, in which two disciples (we learn the name only of Cleopas) walk and talk with Jesus but do not recognize Him until He breaks bread, blesses it and serves it to them.
In today’s passage Jesus has just appeared to the 11 disciples back in Jerusalem. With some differences, the end of Luke overlaps the beginning of Acts.
The whole of Scripture points to the truth of Jesus. (44–45)
Jesus repeats what He told the two on the road (v. 27). His phrase, “the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms,” refers to the divisions of the Jewish Scriptures: Law, Prophets and Writings. There was not yet a New Testament. Notice that, just as “their eyes were opened” (by the Holy Spirit) to recognize Jesus in verse 31, so Jesus “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” Jesus’ first followers needed divine help to interpret the Bible. In just a minute Jesus will remind them of God’s promise that the Spirit will empower them to preach.
The cross and empty tomb are central to the gospel of Jesus. (46–47)
Why did they need Jesus’ help? Jesus’ claim that Scripture predicts the Messiah’s suffering, death and resurrection provides the key. No verse of the Old Testament explicitly says this and Luke does not tell us what verses Jesus used. He might have referred to Psalm 22, Hosea 6:2 and Isaiah 53 (see Acts 8:32–35). This suggests that, before Jesus, few people understood these passages to be about the Messiah, but about someone else, maybe even about all ancient Israelites. Hence the 11 did not know their Scripture predicted the Messiah would suffer, die and rise again in order to cause people to repent. Today’s disciples have their own challenges in understanding Scripture but we have the same help available to us as Jesus’ first disciples did.
But understanding is not enough. The 11 must proclaim “repentance and forgiveness of sins in His name.” To whom? “To all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (see Acts 1:8). In the Bible “nations” often refers to gentiles. As with the “Great Commission” of Matthew 28, Jesus is inaugurating the mission to the Gentiles we will see begin to unfold in Acts. Jesus’ followers make the cross and empty tomb the center of their proclamation with the hope that people will turn to God as a result.
We are to share the message about Jesus. (48–49)
Jesus reminds the 11, “You are witnesses of these things.” But in Acts a new group of people who are not witnesses take up this task, among them Stephen, Barnabas, Silas and most famously, Saul of Tarsus. All of these become prophets “mighty in deed and word before God and all the people” (v. 19), modeling their mission on Jesus’ ministry.
We are like those new followers in Acts. We also did not witness Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Like them we bear witness to the power of the risen Lord and to the Holy Spirit, whom the Father promised, and whom helps our brothers and sisters around the globe to proclaim Jesus “boldly and without hindrance” (Acts 28:31). We too “have been clothed with power from on high” so that we might, as Albert Schweitzer said, accomplish “the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time.”
Like the first disciples and the new believers in Acts, we have God’s help to see Jesus, to understand our Bible and to do what God tells us to do. Thanks be to God.
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