Yesterday was Resurrection Sunday! I hope you were able to celebrate with joy and gladness with fellow brothers and sisters in the church. I hope you were able to give some time to reflecting on the incredible news that Jesus is alive. In this second-to-last part of our series, we are talking about the topic du jour. When Jesus’ followers started learning of the incredible news of His resurrection, they were slow to believe it. It took Jesus’ helping them to finally see them come around to it. The same is true of us today. Let’s explore how together as we talk about seeing what’s true.

Seeing What’s True

Did you ever have one of those Magic Eye books when you were a kid? We only ever had one, but I remember looking through it all the time. Could you ever actually see what was hidden in those strange images? For the longest time, I never could. I would look from every angle and try every trick, I’d try every strategy that was supposed to work, but nothing ever made a difference. Then I finally learned the secret that started working for me pretty consistently. You have to cross your eyes and slowly uncross them. Once I learned that, I was good to go. 

You know, if you think about it, there are a lot of things in life like that. You can see one thing with apparent clarity when you first look at it, but with a little bit of help you can suddenly see a great deal more than merely meets the eye. Maybe it’s a movie. I remember going to see a movie called, The Woman in Gold, in theaters a few years ago. It’s a big deal for us to actually go to the theaters to see something, and this was it. I was admittedly a bit skeptical going in, but it turned out to be an incredibly compelling story that was exceedingly well told. Perhaps it’s a person. He was a little tough to get to know first because of his prickly exterior, but once you got through that shell, he turned out to be an absolute gem of a human being. Both of those examples, though, are problems we can solve on our own. We just do the work. But sometimes getting to that deeper level to see what’s really there is not something we can do on our own. In order to get there, we need help. This morning I want to tell you a story about something that fits squarely in this latter category. 

This morning we are in the fifth part of our Easter teaching series, A Story of Sacrifice. For the last few weeks, we have been working our way through Luke’s Passion Story. All four Gospel authors include their version of Jesus’ final week on earth before His death on a cross. Luke’s version—which is perfectly consistent with the other three—gives a bit more attention to the sacrificial nature of what Jesus was doing. This journey has taken us into all kinds of places—judgment and hope; a reminder of the importance of righteousness; a clear-eyed reflection on the intentionality of Christ; and, finally, a cross and a sealed tomb. From there, of course, we know He didn’t stay dead but that was a whole lot more shocking to His followers than perhaps it should have been. As a result, they couldn’t see what was right in front of them. They needed help. If you have your copy of the Scriptures handy, join me in Luke 24, and let’s see how this all unfolded. 

Luke tells us that “on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared.” So, what’s going on here? Well, where did we last leave Jesus? Dead and in a tomb, right? But by the time Joseph and Nicodemus—two of Jesus’ secret, highly positioned followers—were able to get their hands on His body from Pilate, it was so late in the day on the eve of the Sabbath that His followers couldn’t finish the traditional Jewish burial process. They just washed up the body, and gave it a temporary wrapping, planning to finish the work after the Sabbath—early in the morning on the first day of the week. 

Starting in Luke 24:1 like this feels a bit out of the blue, but that’s just because Luke gives important context clues at the tail end of chapter 23, which seems a bit inconvenient until we remember that he wasn’t thinking in chapters when he wrote. Those came later. In Luke 23:55, we find out who the “they” here are. “The women who had come with him from Galilee [the only ones of Jesus’ followers other than John who had the courage to show up at the crucifixion] followed along and observed the tomb and how his body was placed. Then they returned and prepared spices and perfumes. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.” 

So, sundown came—which is officially when the Sabbath begins—and they had to call a halt on everything. They could have gone back after sundown on Saturday, but trying to do everything they needed to do in the dark wasn’t going to work, so early Sunday morning it was. And when they arrived at Jesus’ tomb, “they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.” Matthew tells us how this actually happened. An angel appeared sitting on top of the huge stone sealing the tomb’s entrance and scared all the Roman soldiers there guarding the tomb at Pilate’s instruction and the religious leaders of the Jews’ request so badly they all passed out. Their bodies would have presumably still been littering the ground when the women showed up to finish their work from Friday afternoon. We’re not told that, but we’re also not told they got up after passing out from fear. 

The tomb’s being open was certainly convenient for them, but it was also not what they were expecting. Mark tells us they were actively wondering on their way there what they were going to do about the heavy stone when they arrived. When they got there and saw the stone was rolled away, they did not start jumping for joy because Jesus must have been alive. John tells us that their first response was to freak out because someone must have stolen the body. Luke here tells us they were absolutely baffled by the situation. “They went in but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground.” 

If they weren’t expecting the tomb to be open and Jesus’ body to be gone, they really weren’t expecting to see a couple of angels there. They reacted to them like pretty much everybody else reacts to angels in the Scriptures, by freaking out. Now, this was one of those moments when you have to wonder a bit what these angels were thinking. I mean, they knew what was going on. They knew the incredible victory their Lord and ours had just won over the forces of sin and death. They knew that our path to eternal life and a right relationship with God had been opened by Jesus’ death and now resurrection. But we didn’t know any of that. These women didn’t know any of that. They just knew there were angels, and that they were terrifying. 

After giving the women the standard “do not be afraid” greeting that angels pretty much always give people in the Scriptures, the angels jumped straight to the point: What on earth are you doing here? Don’t you know what has happened? “‘Why are you looking for the living among the dead?’ asked the men.” Now, what do you suppose the women there thought in response to this question (if they were even able to process coherent thought just yet)? They were thinking something like, “What do you mean? We’re not looking for the living among the dead. We’re looking for the dead among the dead. Jesus is dead. We saw that with our own eyes.” They could clearly see what was going on. Jesus had died and now His body was missing. Someone must have stolen the body. It’s not like it just got up and walked away on its own. It was probably jealous Jewish officials launching one last attack to make sure His movement got squashed entirely out of existence. Just like one of those Magic Eye images, they were looking at what was on the page in front of them, and they could only see one thing: nothing. 

What they couldn’t see was what was really going on. It took the angels’ reminding them, helping them to see what was really there. “He is not here, but he has risen! Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, ‘It is necessary that the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day’?” But the women didn’t remember that. None of Jesus’ followers did. None of them were expecting Jesus to rise on the third day in spite of His having told them that was going to happen not just once, but multiple times. It simply didn’t register with them. It was too far outside of what they understood to be possible, even with God’s involvement. They could see one thing, and that was it. 

Now, sure, after the angels’ reminder, they remembered Jesus’ words. “And they remembered his words.” But remembering and registering are not the same thing. And when the women returned to the group to tell the rest of the group what they discovered, there was not a celebration of the good news. Instead, there was fear and confusion and skepticism. “Returning from the tomb, they reported all these things to the Eleven and to all the rest. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them were telling the apostles these things.” And don’t miss this next part: “But these words seemed like nonsense to them, and they did not believe the women.” They didn’t believe them, and they had to see for themselves. “Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. When he stooped to look in, he saw only the linen clothes. So he went away, amazed at what had happened.” The word translated “amazed” there doesn’t exactly mean “impressed” like we would normally think about it. It would perhaps be better translated as “wonder,” as in Peter was shocked the women really were telling the truth about what they saw and was trying to make sense out of it. He saw the image, but couldn’t see what was really there. 

Now, Matthew and John both tell us about the first appearance made to the whole group when He suddenly appeared among them in the upper room that evening, and we’ll take a look at that next week, but Luke tells us about another appearance that happened before that one a little earlier in the afternoon. Check this out now in v. 13: “Now that same day two of them were on their way to a village called Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem. Together they were discussing everything that had taken place. And while they were discussing and arguing, Jesus himself came near and began to walk along with them. But they were prevented from recognizing him.” 

That last part there is interesting, and we honestly don’t know what to make of it. Perhaps they were prevented by God from recognizing Jesus for some reason. It could be, though, that they were prevented by their own lack of faith. They didn’t believe the women, they obviously still didn’t believe Jesus’ own words, and so their blindness was self-imposed. The Greek voice here is passive meaning this inability was something done to them, which points us back in the direction of God, which, again, seems odd. But Jesus Himself talked about how God sometimes allows for faithlessness and willful blindness to the truth to persist even in the face of hard evidence to the contrary as a form of judgment. To stick with our theme this morning, they could only see the one image, and nothing else was going to register. 

Jesus, for His part, played coy. And you know He had to be laughing hysterically on the inside at what almost amounted to a practical joke. My boys watch a lot of Dude Perfect videos. There’s one from several years ago when the guys were playing hide-and-seek in a giant Bass Pro Shop location. The one guy who was hiding brought in some professional stage makeup artists to make him look like an old man. The other four guys searching for him must have walked past him a dozen times each, but none of them recognized him. They weren’t looking for him like that, so they were blinded to what was right in front of their eyes, which, watching from home, was hilariously funny. 

All Jesus does is walk up to this pair (and where He came from we have no idea), and asks what they’re going on about. “Then he asked them, ‘What is this dispute that you’re having with each other as you are walking?’’ They were so caught off guard by the utter cluelessness of this question that they stopped dead in their tracks. “And they stopped walking and looked discouraged.” When one of them finally responded, he was almost ugly to Jesus in his disbelief at Jesus’ cluelessness. “The one named Cleopas answered him, ‘Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that happened there in these days?’” He might as well have said, “Are you stupid?” 

Jesus doesn’t miss a beat. “‘What things?’ he asked them.” So they brought Him up to speed…about everything that had happened to Him. “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet powerful in action and speech before God and all the people.” How interesting to see that some of His closest followers still didn’t at this point see Him as much more than that. “And how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. But we were hoping that he was the one who was about to redeem Israel.” Do you see how thoroughly they couldn’t see? 

They keep going, and it doesn’t get any better. “Besides all this, it’s the third day since these things happened.” That may be a reference to the women coming back and telling the group about the angels’ reminder of Jesus’ words in Galilee. But the men didn’t believe them. “Moreover, some women from our group astounded us. They arrived early at the tomb, and when they didn’t find his body, they came and reported that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive.” They even apparently doubted the women had really seen the angels. It was just a vision. No wonder they couldn’t see Jesus standing in front of them! “Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they didn’t see him.” 

Well, at this point, Jesus could have pulled back the curtain for them and let them in on the grand secret. He could have opened their eyes right then and there to what was going on. But instead, He strung them along just a little bit further. Pretending to be a random stranger who just happened to be really well-versed in the Scriptures, Jesus chided them just a bit. Didn’t they understand what the Scriptures have to say about the Messiah and all He would face? “He said to them, ‘How foolish you are and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Wasn’t it necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory?’” 

And maybe you’re wondering why it was necessary for Jesus to face all that He did in paying the price for our sins. Don’t you wish you could have been there when Jesus went on to give them a full Bible study on the matter while they continued making their way to Emmaus? “Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures.” Maybe you think I’m a pretty good teacher; maybe you don’t. But I’m no Jesus. This would have been an amazing thing to witness. 

At this point, they were reaching the exit for Emmaus. Jesus made like He was going to keep on walking, but the pair was sufficiently intrigued to urge Him to come on with them and let them buy His dinner. So He did—Jesus always accepts our invitations to fellowship—and as they were eating dinner in a scene reminiscent of the meal they had just enjoyed with Him a few days before, Jesus took some bread, blessed it, broke it, and shared it and everything finally clicked for them. “It was as he reclined at the table with them that he took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, but he disappeared from their sight. They said to each other, ‘Weren’t our hearts burning within us while he was talking with us on the road and explaining the Scriptures to us?’” Yeah, you think? 

They couldn’t see what was right in front of them until they could. Then they couldn’t not see it. Once you have figured out a particular Magic Eye image, you can’t unsee it. You can find it quickly and easily every time you look at it thereafter. Your whole frame of reference for that image has been irrevocably changed. Nothing with respect to that image can be the same again. 

Now listen to me here: As much as we might like to think otherwise, we are a whole lot more like the women and these two disciples on the road to Emmaus than we’d perhaps like to believe. You see, just like them, we can’t see Jesus for who He really is unless and until He helps us. And really, it should make perfect sense why that is. What Jesus offers doesn’t make any sense from the standpoint of the world. First, He offers eternal life. When He rose from the grave, He defeated death once and for all and paved the way to a right relationship with God and permanent citizenship in His eternal kingdom. All we know from our view, though, is that life ends and that’s that. Since Jesus came and went, no one else has ever gotten up from the grave like He did. 

Then there’s this: because Jesus rose from the dead, our hope isn’t in this life any longer. We can put our trust in Him for more than merely the boundaries of life in this world. Because we have that permanent citizenship in an eternal kingdom, we can endure all manner of pain and suffering and persecution and oppression and sickness and loss and financial hardship and hunger and loneliness and on and on the list goes because we know that all of those things will be made right in God’s perfect kingdom. All the world sees is problems that need solving as quickly as possible and no matter what the cost might be to achieve that.

Because Jesus died and rose, our sins can be forgiven. That means freedom from all the guilt and shame of our sin. That’s a good thing for sure. More than that, though, the availability of forgiveness to us means that we can forgive others. No matter how grave the sin they’ve committed against us is, Jesus covered it and declared it forgiven in Him. This means we don’t have to settle for unforgiveness and the bitterness that naturally creates in our souls. We can love our enemies just like He loved His enemies (a group that once included us before we placed our faith in Him). The world only knows hating its enemies, seeking to destroy them, and getting vengeance against those who have wronged us. 

We could go on here, but I hope you get the point. We can’t see Jesus and the implications of His being alive anymore than His earliest followers could. Not on our own anyway. It all does not compute. Error 404. File not found. We can’t see it. 

This is where Jesus comes in. Jesus wants us to see it. He wants us to see what is true. And why not? He gave up His life so that we could. Just like He helped the women, and just like He helped Cleopas and the other disciple on the way to Emmaus, He will help us see Him as well. He will help us see beyond the surface to the real depth and richness of the world that exists just beyond what we can access by ourselves. He will help us see what’s true. If we let Him, Jesus will help us see what’s true. If you let Him, Jesus will help you see what’s true. 

Of course, making such a statement begs a rather obvious and significant question: How? How does Jesus help us with this? Let’s say you are ready to put your faith in Jesus so that you can see what’s really true about this world. After all, if you let Him, Jesus will help you see what’s true. So, how does He help? What does His help look like? How does it come to us? 

Well, it starts with our receiving His offer of life, placing our faith in Him, and His Holy Spirit’s coming to dwell in us. Having the Holy Spirit in us gives us an entirely new lens through which to see and make sense of the world. If you have experienced that, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t it probably sounds like so much nonsense to you. But, the idea that Jesus had risen from the dead seemed like so much nonsense to those women who were searching for His body at His tomb…until they realized it wasn’t. Then it all made sense. I honestly don’t know how to explain how this works except to say you’ve got to experience it for yourself. Sometimes the Holy Spirit simply gives understanding that we didn’t have before. This never comes independently of a context of the Scriptures, prayer, and the church, but it does come as we remain in Him. And when it does, when you have received Him, it’ll all make sense. It won’t make sense until then. If you haven’t given your life to Christ, today is a very good day to do that very thing. 

From there, Jesus calls us to His word. As the writer of Hebrews noted, God’s word is living and active. His Spirit is active and in through His word, using it to shape and guide us in coming to reflect His image more and more, in coming to make kingdom sense out of the world around us. Our being in the Scriptures regularly and consistently is, after the Holy Spirit, the single most important source of help to see what really is that Jesus gives us. He has preserved it for us. It’s up to us to use it. If you aren’t in the Scriptures on a consistent, daily basis, you aren’t growing in your faith like you could be. You won’t until you are. If you will let Him, Jesus will help you see what’s true. 

Jesus also gives us help as we pursue a relationship with Him through prayer. When we talk to Him, and open ourselves up to hear from Him, He’ll talk back. This talking back will take all kinds of forms. It may be an audible voice although that’s admittedly rare. It may come through an understanding of a passage of Scripture you didn’t have before. It may come through a wise or encouraging word shared by a fellow church member. It may come through some other means. But it will come. Jesus wants for it to come for us. He wants us to see. If you will let Him, Jesus will help you see what’s true. 

One more just to complete the picture: Jesus’ help comes through His church. Jesus’ help comes through other people who have pledged their lives to Him and His cause and who have the position as our brothers or sisters in Christ to speak into our lives offering hope and encouragement and challenge and accountability. When others speak Jesus to us, that’s Jesus speaking through them. When others lift us up, that’s Jesus doing the lifting. When others teach us, that’s Jesus helping us grasp the Gospel. When others love, that’s Jesus doing the embracing. When others point us toward truth, that’s Jesus’ helping us see. If we will let Him, Jesus will help us see what’s true. 

There’s just one last thing. If you have experienced this; if you have received Jesus’ help, don’t keep that to yourself. Look back at the text with me one last time: “That very hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and those with them gathered together, who said, ‘The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!’ Then they began to describe what had happened on the road and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” What did they do? They went and told everybody else they knew. Jesus had helped them see what was true, and they were not going to keep that news to themselves. If Jesus has helped you see what is true, don’t keep that news to yourself. Tell someone—tell everyone—what you have seen and heard. If you let Him, Jesus will help you see what’s true. And when He does, it’s time to start spreading the news.