On the day of the resurrection, two of the followers of Christ were leaving Jerusalem and were walking along a road to a village called Emmaus, and they were talking among themselves about all the events that had taken place the last few days. While they were discussing these things with each other the risen Jesus approached them and began walking alongside them, even though they did not recognize who he was. Jesus asked them what they were talking about when he approached them and they were stunned that he seemed to be the only person from Jerusalem who did know about the events that had taken place. As they talked about how Jesus the Nazarene had been delivered up by the chief priests and rulers to be crucified, and how discouraged they were, because they said, “But we were hoping that it was He who is going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things have happened.” When they got through explaining to Jesus what had happened, and how there had even been some testimonies about visions of angels, and a empty tomb, which obviously had not convince them that He had risen. Jesus spoke up and said to them in response, “Oh foolish men and 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?” Jesus then, beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, explained to them the things concerning Himself and all the Scriptures. What Jesus explained to them; what they didn’t understand, was that all their hopes had been fulfilled already through His death, burial and resurrection. Because they did not understand what the Old Testament Scriptures had prophesied concerning the coming King, they thought that they had missed it, and that even though Jesus was a great man of God, obviously He was not the coming King who was to inaugurate the kingdom of heaven. Sometimes we can miss what God is doing because we’re looking for it to look like something different than the way it is unfolding. Jesus said it was necessary for the Christ to suffer these things to enter into His glory, and His glory was the putting to death an old order, and the old humanity, and the raising up and birthing a whole new world, and a whole new order, and a whole new humanity. They didn’t understand that everything had to be summed up in Him, and therefore everything fallen and out of order had to be taken into his person and crucified, and buried; and then in His person, in His resurrection, all things were made new. The kingdom of God; the kingdom of heaven, was birthed was inaugurated, and a whole new citizenship in Christ to fill it, and the King of Kings had now entered into His glory, to reign over His kingdom forever. They left Jerusalem dejected, thinking everything that they had hoped for was dead; instead the Messiah had fulfilled the prophetic promises, not only to Israel, but to the whole world. Everything had already changed. Nothing would ever be the same again. It turned out that thee problem wasn’t that they had hoped for too much; the problem was, they had hoped for too little, for the fulfillment of their hope was much bigger than they could’ve ever imagined.
