Dan Werthman: Thank you, Angela.
Dan Werthman: Did you see the sunrise this morning?
Dan Werthman: It came up, by my checking, it came up at 6:21 this morning, and many of you were probably still sleeping.
Dan Werthman: Some of you might've been up with kids or grandkids, you know, doing whatever you do on Easter morning, hunting for Easter eggs.
Dan Werthman: Some of you here are some young parents here this morning.
Dan Werthman: You might have been up much earlier than that with one who woke you up.
Dan Werthman: I remember a time, maybe some of you do as well, where Easter services were, in most churches, there was a sunrise service.
Dan Werthman: So imagine all the effort that you put into getting your family dressed and ready and here this morning at this time for an 11 o'clock service.
Dan Werthman: Back that up several hours.
Dan Werthman: Imagine getting your family all ready to get dressed and get to an outdoor location before sunrise for a sunrise service.
Dan Werthman: Many of us used to be part of that.
Dan Werthman: "Did you" or"have you seen the sunrise?" That is, that's a question that I was repeatedly asked about 32 years ago.
Dan Werthman: My wife and I, at that time my new wife, Cindy, and I, we were in Bar Harbor, Maine for our honeymoon.
Dan Werthman: It was in August.
Dan Werthman: And people, when we'd go into shops and restaurants, would repeatedly asked,"Have you seen the sunrise?" And of course we'd seen sunrises before, but they said,"No, no, no.
Dan Werthman: You have not seen a sunrise til you see the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain." Now, if you've been to Maine, you may or may not know this: on the Maine coast there are, maybe they wouldn't be mountains by Tennessee standards, but there are some at least high hills.
Dan Werthman: One of them, right on the coast near Bar Harbor, is called Cadillac Mountain.
Dan Werthman: And just where that is located, you can look this up on a map, where that is located.
Dan Werthman: If you're on the top of Cadillac Mountain, when the sun comes up, you are the first one in the United States, the continental United States, to see the sun come up.
Dan Werthman: So the last day of our trip there.
Dan Werthman: We got up early before the sun came up.
Dan Werthman: We drove up to the top of Cadillac Mountain.
Dan Werthman: You can see a picture on the screen of what we encountered.
Dan Werthman: A whole bunch of people were there with their cameras ready to see the sun come up, and it came up like any other sunrise that I've seen.
Dan Werthman: But I guess at least I can say on that particular day, I was one of the first people to see the sunrise come up over the United States.
Dan Werthman: There's a more relevant question this morning: have you seen the Son"S-o-n" rise?
Dan Werthman: What do I mean by that?
Dan Werthman: I mean, is the resurrection this Easter morning, is the resurrection of Jesus Christ real to you?
Dan Werthman: I mean, is your life different because Jesus rose from the dead?
Dan Werthman: I mean, in asking that question, is the very same power of God, the power of God that Ephesians tells us was at work raising Christ from the dead, is that power at work in you, transforming you?
Dan Werthman: Have you seen the son rise?
Dan Werthman: When we think about the solar sunrise, most people miss the solar sunrise.
Dan Werthman: Many of us are asleep at that time on any given day.
Dan Werthman: Many of us, even if we're awake, we're indoors, or even if we're outside, where we're not looking in that direction.
Dan Werthman: Most people miss the solar sunrise.
Dan Werthman: But many people, maybe even most people, miss the Son rise, the"S-o-n" rise.
Dan Werthman: In other words, most people, many people, miss the transforming power of Christ's resurrection at work in their lives.
Dan Werthman: And we see an example of that in the text today, that what Angela just read out of, Luke chapter 24 verses 13 through 32.
Dan Werthman: Two people on the road to Emmaus that missed the Son rise that first Easter morning, that missed the significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Dan Werthman: Who were these two people, and what were they doing when this happened?
Dan Werthman: Well, we read in verse 13,"Now the same day--" that Easter morning, that first resurrection morning--"the same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus." Who were they?
Dan Werthman: Well, we're told that they're part of the"them", that if you look back in verse 19 is being discussed.
Dan Werthman: The 11, the 12 apostles minus Judas, who died, plus those who were gathered around them.
Dan Werthman: These weren't, probably, part of the 11, what we think of as the apostles, but they were part of that immediate group right around them.
Dan Werthman: They were, they were followers of Jesus.
Dan Werthman: They were disciples of Jesus.
Dan Werthman: And we're not told much about their identity.
Dan Werthman: Verse 18 tells us that one of them was a man named Cleopas.
Dan Werthman: Cleopas is not named elsewhere in the New Testament.
Dan Werthman: There's a reference to a Clopas in John's Gospel, but different individual.
Dan Werthman: We're not even told who the other person was.
Dan Werthman: We're not even told whether the other person was a man or a woman, and many people think it was a woman.
Dan Werthman: Many people think this is Cleopas' wife who was walking along with him on the road to Emmaus.
Dan Werthman: I think that picture fits, because that's a picture we can all relate to.
Dan Werthman: We're here as men and women and, in many ways, as we're going to see, we are like this man and probably this woman, walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the morning of the resurrection.
Dan Werthman: Where were they going?
Dan Werthman: Again, Emmaus, we don't really know where that is other than it's seven miles from Jerusalem.
Dan Werthman: They think it was probably west of Jerusalem.
Dan Werthman: That's significant because the angels, the angels who were at the tomb, we're told in Matthew's Gospel and Mark's Gospel, the angels not only announced that Jesus had risen from the dead, but they said that Jesus is going to Galilee up in the north and that his disciples were to go to Galilee and meet him in Galilee.
Dan Werthman: So you can figure out the geography here.
Dan Werthman: These two followers of Jesus, rather than going north to Galilee, they were going west, southwest, to Emmaus.
Dan Werthman: They were going the wrong direction from where they've been directed by the angels.
Dan Werthman: Why would they be going to Emmaus instead of Galilee?
Dan Werthman: Well, we don't know for sure, but the fact that they were disregarding the angels' message seems to indicate to me they had some doubts about that message.
Dan Werthman: They may not have believed that Jesus really had risen from the dead and would meet them in Galilee.
Dan Werthman: And so what I think this man and probably this woman were doing is they'd given up.
Dan Werthman: They were giving up, and they were going home.
Dan Werthman: They were going back to Emmaus.
Dan Werthman: They were done with what had happened.
Dan Werthman: I think we can relate to that.
Dan Werthman: Many of us can.
Dan Werthman: Maybe you started out as a child going to church, and you heard about Jesus, and you heard about his resurrection, and you embraced that with some degree of faith, but as you aged and you went through life, the hurtful things of life, the setbacks, the disappointments, those kind of knocked you off-kilter.
Dan Werthman: And you got to a place where you were discouraged about following Jesus, and you began to doubt.
Dan Werthman: You haven't become necessarily an atheist, but maybe you are a practical agnostic.
Dan Werthman: You're not really sure what you believe about Jesus anymore.
Dan Werthman: And so in some sense, even though you might be here this morning, there might be some of you that, like this man and probably this woman, you, in terms of your faith, you've given up, and you're going home.
Dan Werthman: Then in verse 15, we encounter what I think is the strangest thing about this particular resurrection appearance.
Dan Werthman: Jesus himself came up and walked along with them, verse 16:"but they were kept from recognizing him." Why didn't they recognize him?
Dan Werthman: Well, we don't know.
Dan Werthman: Luke doesn't give us any details.
Dan Werthman: Mark fills in one detail.
Dan Werthman: Mark 16:12 tells us that he appeared in a different form, and so apparently, Jesus had a normal human form.
Dan Werthman: He wasn't glowing or anything like that, but he had a human form that they didn't recognize immediately as the Jesus that they knew, that they had been following.
Dan Werthman: They think he's just a fellow traveler on the way to Emmaus.
Dan Werthman: Jesus prevented them from recognizing him.
Dan Werthman: They were prevented, or kept from, recognizing who he really is.
Dan Werthman: Why would Jesus do that?
Dan Werthman: Why would he prevent them from recognizing him?
Dan Werthman: And I mean, just to bring that home, how is it that this happens to us?
Dan Werthman: Are there ways in which we miss seeing the Son rise because we somehow don't recognize him, even though he's right there, present in our lives?
Dan Werthman: Well, I think we get a hint of why this happened to these two in verse 25, when Jesus says to them,"How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken." Now,"foolish" in this context,"foolish" is not an insult.
Dan Werthman: He's not making a derogatory comment about their intelligence; it's a statement about their spiritual dullness.
Dan Werthman: You and I, we are spiritually dull.
Dan Werthman: We are spiritually foolish when we overlook or we ignore what God has made plain to us, what he's revealed to us in his Word, how that Word connects with the events of our lives.
Dan Werthman: So a foolish person is not an unintelligent person.
Dan Werthman: There's many intelligent people who are foolish people.
Dan Werthman: A foolish person is a person who ignores what God has clearly revealed, who ignores what God has revealed because they really want their own agenda, their own desires, their own preferences.
Dan Werthman: And so as a result of sticking with what they want, they lose the discernment to see what it is that God is doing right in front of them, right around them.
Dan Werthman: And that's the case, I believe, with Cleopas and his companion.
Dan Werthman: I mean, after all, they had the facts.
Dan Werthman: Look in verse 23:"They had heard the accounts that the angels at Jesus's tomb said that he was alive." They'd heard that.
Dan Werthman: Or verse 24:"They had heard from the other disciples who had actually gone to his tomb that they didn't find his body in the tomb, that the tomb was empty." These two had the facts, and yet they still didn't believe.
Dan Werthman: Why did they not believe, even though they had the facts right in front of them?
Dan Werthman: Why is it that you and I struggle to believe, even when we have the facts in God's Word right in front of them?
Dan Werthman: Well, I think we're much like these two.
Dan Werthman: Verse 25, referring back to verse 25.
Dan Werthman: Jesus says they didn't believe all that the prophets have spoken.
Dan Werthman: They didn't believe all that the Bible had said about him and what God was doing.
Dan Werthman: They were selective in their belief.
Dan Werthman: Verse 21 indicates that there were some promises in the Old Testament that they loved.
Dan Werthman: They loved the promises in the Old Testament that the Messiah was going to redeem Israel.
Dan Werthman: I mean, I'm sure they loved promises, prophecies like Daniel 7:14 promising how the Son of Man would be given dominion and glory and a kingdom, and that all of the peoples in the nations and languages would serve him.
Dan Werthman: That's the kind of Messiah they hoped for.
Dan Werthman: That's the kind of M1essiah they could get behind and believe in.
Dan Werthman: But Jesus had been arrested.
Dan Werthman: Jesus had been defeated.
Dan Werthman: Jesus had been humiliated, crucified, killed.
Dan Werthman: Jesus was dead.
Dan Werthman: So maybe they had been mistaken about what they hoped, and maybe he wasn't the promised Messiah after all.
Dan Werthman: Maybe he was only a prophet.
Dan Werthman: Notice that's how they refer to him in verse 19.
Dan Werthman: What happened to their belief?
Dan Werthman: What happened to their belief is what happens to our belief all too easily: they had an agenda that Jesus didn't fulfill.
Dan Werthman: And that hits close, that hits home close to me.
Dan Werthman: I don't know about you.
Dan Werthman: How about you?
Dan Werthman: Just like the disciples, I am slow to believe all that the Bible has to say about Jesus.
Dan Werthman: We impose our own desires, we impose our preferences, we impose our agendas on what we read in the Bible.
Dan Werthman: We pick and choose from the Bible, and we match up the scriptures we really like, and that's what God should be like.
Dan Werthman: That's how God should interact with us.
Dan Werthman: This is who Jesus should be and what he should do.
Dan Werthman: We don't believe all that the Bible says about God and Jesus and his purposes, and as a result, it keeps us from seeing the Son rise.
Dan Werthman: Well, how did Cleopas and his companion actually come to recognize the risen Jesus?
Dan Werthman: They tell us in verse 32:"They experienced a burning within their heart as Jesus opened the scriptures to them." And by the way, here is one of the reasons why we depend upon scripture, why we are reliant upon scripture as we worship.
Dan Werthman: Here is the power of the Bible: that when it is accurately taught under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, under the illuminating work of the spirit of Christ.
Dan Werthman: When that happens, when the Bible is taught, and the spirit of Christ illuminates it, it sets our hearts on fire.
Dan Werthman: It burns the truth within us.
Dan Werthman: Mark describes this, or Luke describes this, in verse 27:"And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.""Moses and all the prophets", that phrase simply means"all of the Old Testament".
Dan Werthman: So what was going on here?
Dan Werthman: Well, it's about seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus.
Dan Werthman: I do a lot of walking.
Dan Werthman: A good pace is about three and a half miles an hour.
Dan Werthman: So they had like an hour and a half, two hours.
Dan Werthman: They got this amazing sermon.
Dan Werthman: I wish we had that sermon recorded and we could have heard that, as Jesus took them all the way through the Old Testament passage after passage, pointing to how each of these scriptures pointed to Jesus, pointed to what he did on the cross.
Dan Werthman: And in all of this, he showed them what they were missing, what they were overlooking, what we miss, what we overlook.
Dan Werthman: We see it in verse 26, that"the Christ had to suffer and then enter his glory." We overlook that.
Dan Werthman: We don't like that message of suffering in our lives anymore than Cleopas and his companion and the other disciples did, but the reality is he had to suffer to be the savior.
Dan Werthman: Now, Luke doesn't tell us what particular Old Testament passages Jesus explained to them, but there's a few key ones that come to my mind that he probably touched on.
Dan Werthman: I bet he began at the beginning, all the way back in Genesis, and I think of that promise of God about the Messiah all the way back at the fall of man and woman, in Genesis 3:15:"He will crush your head and you will strike his heel." I bet Jesus explained to them how this is a promise that the Messiah would come to crush the head of the serpent, the devil, to destroy, to crush his rebellion, to finally destroy him at the end of time.
Dan Werthman: But that, in order to do that, God would first allow Satan, the serpent, to strike his heel, to make the Messiah suffer, to send the Messiah to the cross.
Dan Werthman: He had to suffer to be the savior.
Dan Werthman: I bet Jesus took them to the life of Abraham and the promise that God gave to Abraham to make out of him a great nation.
Dan Werthman: I bet he explained the Abrahamic Covenant.
Dan Werthman: I bet he took them to Genesis 22, when God led Abraham up on Mount Moriah and said,"Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and sacrifice there." And how it wasn't until Abraham had the knife raised above Isaac, his only son, ready to plunge it in his heart, when God stopped him and provided a ram in the thicket as a substitute.
Dan Werthman: I bet Jesus explained to them what a vivid picture this is, of what God the Father did in offering up his only son to suffer in our place, as our substitute, and therein open glory to us.
Dan Werthman: He had to suffer to be the savior.
Dan Werthman: I bet Jesus took them to the Exodus.
Dan Werthman: As God led the nation of Israel out of Egypt and through the desert to the Promised Land, and how, on the eve of that very last plague in Exodus 12, that horrible plague when God was going to strike down all of the firstborn children in Egypt, how God provided the Passover and instructed them to slaughter the Passover lamb, to put some of the lamb on the doorposts, on the doorframes.
Dan Werthman: In other words, God provided a way that they could save their children.
Dan Werthman: He provided a substitutionary sacrifice of a lamb to be slaughtered in their place, and as they killed that lamb, and they took the blood of that lamb, and they put it on the doorpost, that blood was a sign that they were covered by God's mercy and grace.
Dan Werthman: This same illustration is what the Apostle Paul picks up on in First Corinthians 5 when he makes it absolutely clear:"Christ is our Passover lamb who is substituted for us." He had to suffer to be the savior.
Dan Werthman: I bet Jesus took them through the Psalms.
Dan Werthman: In Psalm 22, that great psalm of David, the psalm that was at once both the expression of David and what he was going through, and at the same time, it was something that pointed to what the Messiah would do when he came.
Dan Werthman: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And we know from the Gospel of Mark 15 that this is the very same thing that Jesus Christ cried out from the Cross just before his death.
Dan Werthman: He cried out with a loud voice,"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?""My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He had to suffer to be the savior.
Dan Werthman: There was probably many more passages that he took them through in that hour-and-a-half-to-two-hour sermon.
Dan Werthman: Just one more that comes to mind: the song of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53, how the Messiah was pierced for our transgressions.
Dan Werthman: He was crushed for our iniquities, and surely they and we and anyone who considers the details of the crucifixion of Jesus realizes how Jesus the Messiah fulfills this.
Dan Werthman: How his hands and his feet were pierced with the spikes that nailed him to the Cross.
Dan Werthman: How his side was pierced, where the spear that was thrust into it by the centurion to ensure that he was dead.
Dan Werthman: How his head was crushed with a crown of thorns.
Dan Werthman: How he felt the crushing weight of carrying his own cross to his own crucifixion, his own execution.
Dan Werthman: And he did this all, as Isaiah says, for our transgressions, the ways, in other words, that we wander away from God.
Dan Werthman: He did this all for our iniquities, the ways that we violate the boundaries that God puts around us.
Dan Werthman: He did this all so that our transgressions and our iniquities would be put as far away from us as the east is from the west.
Dan Werthman: He had to suffer to be the savior.
Dan Werthman: You know, his unfolding of the scripture, this walking sermon, I think we can say, you know, probably lasted an hour and a half or more.
Dan Werthman: And you notice in the text here, they don't immediately get it.
Dan Werthman: They're like you and me: they hear scripture, we hear scripture, and we don't immediately get it.
Dan Werthman: They had to ponder it.
Dan Werthman: The Holy Spirit had to stir it in their minds and their hearts.
Dan Werthman: Their moment of illumination, we're told in Luke's account, came that evening when, verse 30:"they were gathered around the table, and this stranger took bread,, and he gave thanks and he broke it, and he began to give it to them.
Dan Werthman: Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him." I don't think this was any great mystical moment.
Dan Werthman: I think this was simply the spirit of Christ illuminating the word of Christ so that they could see the physical Christ, right there before them, who had been there all along.
Dan Werthman: I think the Spirit brought to their mind what it was that Jesus had said just a few nights earlier, on the eve of his execution, when he broke the bread and said,"This is my body, which is broken for you." This is the same illuminating power of the Holy Spirit that is at work in us today.
Dan Werthman: The Spirit does this very same work in us.
Dan Werthman: The Spirit of Christ takes the word of Christ, and as he works at in our hearts, in our minds, he makes the presence of Christ, the reality of Christ, there, apparent, real to you and to me.
Dan Werthman: Has he done that in your life?
Dan Werthman: Is he doing that this morning?
Dan Werthman: Have you seen the Son rise?
Dan Werthman: Do you see in the scriptures that this savior had to suffer for you in order to bring you into glory?
Dan Werthman: Do you see why it is that he had to suffer for you?
Dan Werthman: Romans 3 tells us why: there is not one of us who is righteous.
Dan Werthman: Not one, not me, not you.
Dan Werthman: None of us are good enough to stand in God's sight.
Dan Werthman: There is no one who understands God.
Dan Werthman: There is no one who seeks him, all who turn away.
Dan Werthman: That's a description of your and my rebellion against God, and in our rebellion against God, God's justice demands that our rebellion be punished, but the savior suffered this punishment in your place and my place.
Dan Werthman: He had to suffer to be your savior.
Dan Werthman: He had to suffer to be my savior.
Dan Werthman: Do you see in the scripture God's unfathomable prevision of this lamb, this savior, this Isaac, who suffered to bring you into glory?
Dan Werthman: First Peter 3:"Christ died for sins once for all the righteous--" that's him--"for the unrighteous--" that's you and me.
Dan Werthman: Why?
Dan Werthman: In order to bring you to God.
Dan Werthman: In order to open glory, to open heaven to you, and this is the only way that you or I can know God and know the promise of an eternity and glory with him is by Jesus Christ covering our unrighteousness with his righteousness.
Dan Werthman: He had to suffer to be your savior.
Dan Werthman: He had to suffer to be my savior.
Dan Werthman: Do you see in the scriptures this Easter morning how the one who suffered for you was vindicated by his resurrection, how if the resurrection hadn't happened, we would never know whether all these promises had been effective.
Dan Werthman: But in raising him from the dead, he vindicated and he proved that it is effective for your salvation.
Dan Werthman: He makes the hope of salvation real by rising from the dead.
Dan Werthman: And the passage that John Andrew read earlier, 1 Peter:"In his great mercy, God has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection from the dead." He had to suffer to be your savior.
Dan Werthman: He had to suffer to be our savior.
Dan Werthman: And so I come back to the question I asked you at the beginning: have you seen the Son rise this Easter morning?
Dan Werthman: I don't-- I'll just be blunt.
Dan Werthman: I don't assume that just because you're in church on Sunday morning or Easter morning, that you've seen that, that the resurrection of Christ is real to you.
Dan Werthman: So again, this is a question that I hope the Holy Spirit Burns into you, even as you leave today: have you seen the Son rise?
Dan Werthman: Is the resurrection of Jesus Christ real to you?
Dan Werthman: Is your life different because Jesus Christ rose from the dead?
Dan Werthman: Is the very same power of God that raised Christ from the dead at work in your life, transforming you?
Dan Werthman: And here's the baseline question: do you know Jesus as the risen son of God?
Dan Werthman: Do you know Jesus as your savior?
Dan Werthman: Do you know Jesus as your Lord, as your king?
Dan Werthman: And if you don't, or you're not sure, you're not sure whether you've seen the Son rise, in this sense, even this morning, you can ask God to do the same illuminating work in your heart that he did in the hearts of these two disciples on the way to Emmaus.
Dan Werthman: You can ask him to open the scriptures to help you see by the illuminating power of his Holy Spirit what is promised in scripture about Jesus, about the Messiah, about the salvation that he offers to you and me, that we can't see without the Spirit's illuminating work.
Dan Werthman: You can ask the Holy Spirit, you can ask God to, by his Holy Spirit, make your heart burn within you, to make his truth light up with fire within you.
Dan Werthman: You can pray that prayer this morning.
Dan Werthman: He is risen.
Congregation: He is risen indeed!
Dan Werthman: Let's pray.
Dan Werthman: Lord Jesus, I am Cleopas.
Dan Werthman: I'm sure many of us could identify with that man, probably that woman, walking on the road to Emmaus.
Dan Werthman: We have all the facts in front of us.
Dan Werthman: We have the biblical accounts, the eyewitness testimony of what you have done, Jesus, what you did at the cross, what you did at the empty tomb, and yet we struggle to believe.
Dan Werthman: We have our doubts.
Dan Werthman: We need, Lord God, what you did on the way to Emmaus, we need that illuminating work of your Holy Spirit to help us see the risen Christ in the word of Christ through the spirit of Christ.
Dan Werthman: Lord Jesus, if there are some this morning who that has never yet happened, I pray this morning that that would be their prayer:"Lord, burn in my heart your truth.
Dan Werthman: Show me the risen Christ." Lord, for many of the rest of us, we've had that moment, but we are maybe at a place this morning in our faith where we feel we've drifted far from you.
Dan Werthman: Burn that anew in our hearts.
Dan Werthman: May the reality, Lord Jesus, that you are resurrected, you are ascended, you are returning in glory, may that become more real to us.
Dan Werthman: Lord Jesus, we worship you.
Dan Werthman: You are risen.
Dan Werthman: You are risen indeed.
Dan Werthman: Amen.