Luke 24:13-53

Bringing the sermon home:

A major theme in all four of the Gospels, but especially in the Gospel of Luke, is the need to have the eyes of your heart opened to see Jesus rightly. This thread is woven through all four of the passages in Luke’s Gospel that we have examined since Christmas:

• Luke 2:21-40 – “A Child Appointed”
• Luke 9:51-62 – “Follow Me”
• Luke 19:11-48 – “Reign Over Me”
• Luke 22–23 – “Finished”

The theme of spiritual sight reaches its climax in the conclusion of Luke, as Jesus appears to two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus, “but their eyes were kept from recognizing Him”. There are several factors contributing to their failure to see Jesus rightly, but ultimately it was God who kept them from seeing, for only God can grant spiritual sight.

And what is it that God uses to open spiritual eyes to see Jesus rightly? What did these two disciples need? It wasn’t about visibly seeing the resurrected Christ. What they needed was to see Jesus in God’s written Word and in the enacted parable of the Lord’s Table. May we open His Word and likewise be given the eyes to see.

(See follow-up article here.)