Beginning with Moses

Two tired travellers trudge along a dusty road at the end of a long day. A stranger falls into step beside them. And he asks the one question they do not want to answer: why do you look so sad?

It is the Sunday after Jesus was crucified. Two of his followers, one of them named Cleopas, are walking from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles away. Their hearts are heavy. They had hoped Jesus was the one who would redeem Israel. But he was handed over and crucified. And now, to make everything more confusing, some women from their group went to the tomb that morning, found it empty, and said angels told them he was alive. As the two walk and talk it over, Jesus himself comes near and walks with them. But their eyes are kept from recognising him.

The stranger asks what they are discussing, and they stop, faces gloomy. Cleopas says, are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who does not know what has happened? And they pour out the whole story. Then the stranger speaks. “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” It is not cruel. It is like a teacher saying, you had the answer in front of you all along. “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

Imagine that walk. Seven miles of the greatest Bible lesson ever given. Perhaps he spoke of the first promise in the garden, the child who would crush the serpent. Of Abraham, and the blessing for all nations. Of the lamb at Passover. Of David's son, the shepherd, the Branch. Of the suffering servant in Isaiah. Luke does not tell us which passages. He just tells us that all of them were about Jesus. When they reach Emmaus, the stranger acts as if he will go on. They urge him, stay with us, it is nearly evening. At the table he takes bread, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to them. And suddenly their eyes are opened. It is Jesus. And he vanishes from their sight. They say to each other, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?”

They run all the way back to Jerusalem that same hour, in the dark, and find the eleven disciples saying, the Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon. As they are telling their story, Jesus himself stands among them. He shows them his hands and his feet, and eats a piece of fish in front of them. Then he says, “These are the words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” Then he opens their minds to understand the Scriptures: that the Christ should suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Where was Emmaus? Luke says it was sixty stadia from Jerusalem, about seven miles. But no one today knows for certain which village it was. At least three places have been suggested over the centuries, including Amwas, Abu Ghosh and el-Qubeibeh, and scholars still debate it. One manuscript tradition even reads a hundred and sixty stadia instead of sixty.

Beginning with Moses. You can read it in Luke chapter twenty-four, verses twenty-five to twenty-seven and forty-four to forty-seven. Through this Christmas series we have walked through many of the promises Jesus may have opened on that road. The child in the manger was the one they all pointed to, and the risen Lord showed his friends that their Bible had been telling his story all along. So here is a question to carry with you. Jesus showed that the whole Bible points to him. Which Old Testament promise in this Christmas series surprised you most?