Easter 2026
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning. Happy Easter, y'. All. We are In Luke chapter 24 today, verses 13 through 35. Nearly 2000 years ago, almost like. Exactly like 30, 33 AD is when the resurrection happened. Nearly 2000 years ago, some women who were followers of Jesus, they walked to the tomb expecting to carry the spices and to take care of his body and the humbling act of service that they were going to give. But when they arrived at the tomb, they were startled because the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.
> He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.
And then they went back and they told the company, they told the rest of the followers of Jesus. And then some of the 12 disciples came and they verified his body is not there. And then began to unfold this message that went forth throughout the day and for all the days that followed up until this day that Jesus is alive. That for 2000 years that message has spread and spread, that it's so immersed in so many different parts of the world. It's so immersed here in the South. There are churches all around right now that are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that are singing songs that make much of the empty tomb, that are preaching messages about his resurrection. There's a familiarity with this message. So much so that if we did call and response like this, if I said, he is risen, you would say, he is present in me. Y'. All. We don't even do that here. I'm not against it. We just don't. But it's. You're so familiar with it that you just are prompted. You jump right into it. We know this. We know this message. It's so clear here. But what I want us to see this morning as we look at Luke 24, is that it's more than just a message that we are. That we know, that we're familiar with. This is something that has to hit us deeper. And that's what we're going to see this morning. So I'm going to pray for us. Then we're going to walk through this wonderful story from Luke 24. Pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you might help us be present in a way where your good news that you are alive, that you resurrected, and all that comes with that would come to bear on our hearts. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
So, same day, the message that his body is gone, and they're trying to figure out what's going on, there's some confusion. And then we get to Luke 24, to a story that's only in this gospel. And we're going to pick it up in verse 13 says that very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. Let's pause there. Two of them. So we're going to learn the name of one of them in a moment. It's Cleopas. Okay. And then the other one we never get the name of. We don't know much about Cleopas. We don't. He's not talked about a whole lot. And then another unnamed person which could have been his wife, could have been just another guy, we don't know. But these two, it's going to be clear from the context as we read followers of Jesus, they've been following Jesus quite some time. They are walking on their way to a village called Emmaus. And they were talking with each other, verse 14, about all these things that had happened. So they begin to discuss all of these things on this seven mile journey to this village called Emmaus. Now, seven miles, that's about a two hour plus walk if you stop to do anything, maybe a little bit longer. But they've got the time and they're talking about all the things that have happened. A Good Friday, that we just celebrated on Friday, the events of the morning on Easter morning.
> And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?"
In verse 15, while they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. So they're talking about all the confusion of where, where is Jesus? Is he actually risen? Is he alive? And all of a sudden Jesus, who's walking from Jerusalem, just starts walking with him. And in that moment you would think they're just going to be so overjoyed. We found him. He's here. He is risen. But it says, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. So Jesus supernaturally puts a veil over their eyes. He's a stranger to them, some type of Jedi mind trick. Just, just, I am not Jesus, I am a stranger. And he just starts walking with them.
> "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?"
Verse 17. And he said to them, what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk? So he's a stranger who just jumps in to the conversation, uninvited, I might add. He just jumps on in. I was at Peacewise with someone from our church about a month ago. And if you're at the main cafe area of Peacewise, all the tables are on top of each other. So I'm sitting at a table talking to someone from our church, and then someone beside us is listening in on the conversation. And then all of a sudden, she's like, I can't help but overhear your conversation. And I've gotten older and maybe a little bit grumpier in some ways. And I'm just like, I bet you can't just. We're having a conversation. You don't have to. You don't have to. But I fought it. I put it down. Because I'm like, that's selfishness. We're called to be everyday missionaries. Yes. Join the conversation. Kind of weave her way into it. That's fine. But Jesus does this. He just kind of weaves his way into the conversation and just says, what are you guys talking about? And it says, and they stood still, looking sad, which could be because they're introverts and don't want them in the conversation. Probably not more. Has to do with the substance of what he's about to say right here. Then one of them named Cleopas answered him.
> "What things?"
So Cleopas looks at Jesus and says, basically, are you living under a rock, bro? You're coming with us from Jerusalem. This is all that anyone has talked about for a week. That Jesus of Nazareth came down on the Sunday before, and he traveled in the city, and they shouted hosanna. There was this great hope for this great prophet, for this great leader, for this great rabbi. And then they crucified. Where have you been? Do you not know what has happened these days? And y', all. Jesus responds with one of my favorite responses in all of the gospels, says.
> "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened."
I'm just going to be honest. Jesus is playing dumb. He knows good and well what things. And as God, he foreordained them as man. He lived them out and felt all the suffering and the power that came with the cross and the resurrection. He knows good and well with things, but he's being coy and he's playing dumb, which for me is helpful because I play dumb with my kids. Sometimes I will witness something that I see them, you know, fighting. And I've. I've. I've seen it all. And I kind of come up and I'll say, hey, what's going on here? Why is. Why. Why is there crying? What. What happened? Just because I want to hear. What do you have to say? And I hear some version of, well, what happened was, is that I was here, and then she was running, and she ran, like, right into my fist. And it's like, oh, that's a. That's a spin. We're gonna have to talk about that after you get disciplined. Like, that's. He says, what things? He plays dumb. He wants to hear what they have to say. Which I think gives us a partial permission structure to do this if it's for a good thing. So if you're ever wondering, is that sneaky? Kind of. But Jesus does it, and he's perfect, so we'll rock with it. He says, what things? And this is where we see the sadness come out. This is where we see their dashed hopes and the confusion. They give a pretty succinct summary from Palm Sunday to Easter. And they said to him concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word, and before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him, which is what we celebrated on Good Friday, that Jesus Christ gave himself over to be arrested, to be condemned, to be nailed to a cross. They say they crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one who would redeem. To redeem Israel. We had hoped that he was the Messiah, the one who was going to fix all of this. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these. These things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it, just as the women had said. But him they did not see. So they tell it all. They tell all the events from Palm Sunday to Easter. And now that Jesus is caught up on the matter, he has something to say about this.
> "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself."
Now, mind you, they still don't know it's Jesus. He's just a stranger. Supernaturally, he's got their eyes veiled. And these two followers of Jesus hear from this stranger, you foolish ones, O slow of heart, to believe all the prophets have spoken. You thought that hope was lost at the cross. You thought that was the end of hope. You don't know that was the very beginning of it. And then he Begins to walk through the Old Testament, begins to walk through from Moses, the law to the prophets, this is going to be Genesis to Malachi, and it begins to interpret to them all the things in the scriptures concerning himself. Y', all. There are moments in history that I just wish I could have been a fly on the wall to witness greatness, to witness a conversation like this happen. Like, if you could have been there. The moment that two people who were talking together realized that if you milked a cow, that you could actually systematize milking and have tons of milk, and the whole history of humanity was blessed because someone discovered something like that. And for those who are lactose intolerant, someone eventually discovered that you could milk almonds. And now we have that. There are moments of greatness that you get to witness that you just wish you could be there to see it. This is one of those moments where Jesus begins to walk through the Old Testament to point to all the different places where he is there. There's so many pictures and images and covenants and moments throughout the Old Testament that point to Jesus Christ. Some would call them Easter eggs. There you go. That are hidden, that point forward to what he is doing in his word. So for a moment, I just want to dream a little bit. We don't know what the substance of this conversation is, but for the moment, I just want to imagine what are some of the places he went to. Where in the Old Testament did he go to to point to himself? Did he start in Genesis 3? Did he start when the curse is being handed down to Adam and to Eve? And all of a sudden, in the middle of this curse, there's this declaration of hope, really the first declaration of the Gospel, that one day that the seed of Eve, the offspring of Eve, would crush the head of the serpent, which is the first declaration that there is a day coming that someone in the line of Eve will come and he will crush the head of evil and Satan and defeat the power of sin and death. Did he start there? Did he keep flipping through Genesis and he gets to the story of Abraham and Isaac on the mount, and he said, do you. Do you remember when Isaac was put on the altar being sacrifices Abraham's one and only son, the promised Son. But then God intervenes and says no and spares him. Do you not see that? That pointed one day to the day when God the Father would not spare his one and only Son, that he'd be raised up on an altar, on the cross to be crucified for the sins of man. That he keep flipping through the Old Testament and get to Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and see, hey, do you see Moses? Do you see how Moses, this mediator, which is a man in the middle between God and man, mediated this covenant, that they would follow the law and they'd be in the promised land. It would go well for them all. That was pointing forward to the day when one day the mediator of a better covenant, Jesus Christ, would come and he would stand between God the Father and mankind, taking on the sins and fulfilling all the perfect righteous requirements of the law. Did he go We've been walking through first and Second Samuel. Did he go to Second Samuel 7? We went through that about a month ago, which is the Davidic covenant, the covenant with David. We looked and we saw how there was a promise that in the line of David there would be someone who would bring an eternal throne, an eternal kingdom, an eternal house, that he take them there and say, do you see how that points forward to the day that one day Jesus Christ would establish an eternal kingdom, an eternal throne. Did he keep taking them through the prophets to show how all the prophets spoke of him? Did he reference how Isaiah called him the man of sorrows, of how Jeremiah called him the righteous branch of how Ezekiel called him the one shepherd, how Daniel calls him the Son of Man, how Hosea calls him the Son who was called up out of Egypt, how Joel calls him the Lord who pours out his spirit, how Amos calls him the tent of David, how Obadiah calls him the Lord who brings his kingdom? Did he go to the story of Jonah in reference back what he taught in the Gospels, that the sign of Jonah, Jonah being in the belly of the fish for three days, points forward to when he would be in the belly of the earth for three days and he would conquer death by stepping out? Did he go to Micah and say that he calls him the ruler from Bethlehem? Did he go to Nahum that says that this is the stronghold and the day of trouble? Did he go to Habakkuk and reference how Habakkuk calls him the Messiah, the Anointed One, which is the language of expectation, that they've been sitting in the for hundreds of years before Jesus comes? Did he go to Zephaniah that calls him the King of Israel, to Haggai, that calls him the Greater Temple, to Zechariah that calls him the king who rides in on the colt, which just happened the week before on Palm Sunday? Did he finish in Malachi, when Malachi talks about How John the Baptist prepared the way for him. He could have gone anywhere from the Old Testament and said, this all points to me that the entirety of the Old Testament is pointing forward to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, man. To be there and to witness and to wonder, what did he walk them through? What a glorious moment to see. And it made quite the impression on them, whatever he walked them through. Because at the end of all of them, they asked him, why don't you spend the night with us?
> "Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent."
So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent that Jesus has left such an impression on them, this stranger, that they can't know who he is. Yet they said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're coming with. You're staying with us tonight. So he comes. He stays. So he went to stay with them.
> When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight.
So they finally get down, ready to eat, and Jesus takes the bread, just like he did a few nights ago when he instituted the Lord's Supper. And he breaks the bread and he hands it to them. And supernaturally the veil is removed and they can see Jesus. And I like to imagine that Jesus was just grinning ear to ear, just, it was me. It was me that walked him through the Scriptures. It was me. And then they don't have a moment to, like, jump across the table and embrace Him. He just gone, just vanishes, supernaturally leaves the building and they're just left hanging, like, what just happened? And then on, in response to this, says,
> "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?"
And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the 11. And those who were with them gathered together, saying,
> "The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon."
Then they told what happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. And they, after he vanishes, they just like, we got to get back to Jerusalem. I don't think it took them two hours. I think they sprinted. I think they sprinted all the way back to Jerusalem and they burst through the door where the disciples and all the followers of Jesus are trying to figure out what happened. Comparing and contrasting all the events of the day. And there had to be a moment where they just were like, wait, okay, you are. You're not going to believe what just happened. We just spent, like the whole afternoon with Jesus and we didn't even know he's Jesus. Like, we couldn't see him. He did something to our eyes, and then all of a sudden, he broke the bread and boom, he was there. And then he was gone. But I'm telling you, he's alive. He is risen. And that story has been told and retold and retold for the last 2000 years.
Now, there's so many parts of this story that you could post up in that you could focus on. There's not one way to approach this text. I want to focus on one phrase as we close out. It's the immediate aftermath of Jesus appearing to them and then vanishing. It's what they say, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us? The scriptures, they had. Their eyes were veiled the whole time they're with Jesus until then, but they. They make the connection to something that was happening within them. Like, did our hearts not burn within us when he. When he walked us through the Scriptures, when he taught us what all these events were supposed. Did he not. Did you feel it? Yeah, I felt it. Did you feel it? I felt it. Did our hearts not burn within us when we encountered the resurrected Jesus Christ as he declared the message of the gospel to us? That's where I want to spend the rest of our time, is trying to understand this. It's important to understanding this passage. But more importantly than that, it's one of the most important questions that you could reckon with in your entire life. So let's try to understand this. What they're pointing to is something very specific, and it's very rich how they respond. They're not talking about the literal heart. So when the Scriptures speak about the heart, this is not the literal organ that is pumping blood through your body. What they're talking about when in the rest of the Scriptures, when it speaks of the heart, the heart is the inner self. This is your inner self. And what they're tapping into is, did our. Did our hearts. Did our inner self not burn within us? Were those affections that we were sensing not stirring within us? As Jesus, the resurrected Savior, walked us through the gospel throughout the Old Testament, explained to us the story of redemption from Genesis to him? Did you not sense that holy stirring, that holy burn within us as Jesus began to connect all those dots. That is a picture of what it looks like for God to work within us. This is what it means for the. For the Spirit of God to come at work within us and to change us. And it leads us to the most important question that you could ever reckon with. Does your heart burn within you when you hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Does your heart stir within you when you consider the message of this Jesus? Because here's the deal. You can hear that message over and over and over again. You can know it, you can recount it. And I could. I could walk through it all. I could. We could go through the Old Testament and point out all the places where God is weaving his redemption story together, leading to the cross and the empty tomb. That we could talk about how when you flip from Malachi into the Gospel of Matthew, that Jesus, God takes on human flesh and dwells among us. We can look at how he ministered to the people, how he taught the people, all the miracles that he performed. We can go all the way to the end of each of the gospels where he's betrayed by Judas, where he's abandoned by his friends, where he is given over to Pilate, where he is nailed to a cross, where the full cup of God's wrath is poured out on him. And we can keep going to what we celebrate today, that he was resurrected and that he walked out of the tomb. And that the power of the resurrection, the meaning of the resurrection, means that death doesn't have. That's what we just sang. That death doesn't have to have a grip on us, that through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, we can be made new from old to new, from dead to life, that we can step into an eternal life. And we can keep flipping through the pages and we can celebrate that all of this happens by grace, through faith alone in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. We can see how you can't earn this relationship with God, that you must trust in what Jesus has done. We can look at all of this and consider it. And, and, and what I would. What I would suppose is that many of us are familiar with that. We know that message. We know it. We've heard it. We've heard it over and over again. The central question is not do you know that message. The central question is, does your heart burn within you when you consider that message? Does God stir in you affections, worship, love, joy towards Him? That is the question that we must reckon with. That's what Ephesians, chapter One is getting at in verse 18, when it says, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you? What are the riches of his glorious inheritance? In the saints, the question is, have the eyes of your heart been opened enlightened when you consider the riches of the glorious inheritance that he secures through through his redemptive work? Does your heart burn and stir within you when you consider this? There's an old Puritan pastor named Jonathan Edwards from hundreds of years ago. He has a work called Religious Affections. It's a collection of his writings that are put together. And in this. In Religious Affections, what he's trying to do is make a distinction between false religion and true religion. So dead religion, that's a name only, and true religion, that is a relationship with God that is uniquely different. And he tries to separate this out, even goes to Luke 24, this passage, to be able to help us see that there's something different about true religion, about true relationship with God. There's something about this zeal and this love and this wonder and this worship and this wonder that he stirs within us that exemplifies a new life in Christ that is true, that is different than this false religion that may know all of these things, but God hasn't stirred within this individual affections for him. And when getting to the description of this false religion, I want to read what he wrote. He says here, their love is cold, their desires languid, their zeal low, and their gratitude small. How they can sit and hear of the infinite height and depth and length and breadth of the love of God in Christ Jesus, and of his of giving his infinitely dear Son to be offered up a sacrifice for the sins of men, and of the unparalleled love of the innocent and holy and tender Lamb of God manifested revealed in his dying agonies, his bloody sweat, his loud and bitter cries and bleeding heart. And all this for enemies. He says that you can know these things. You can sit and hear about the height and the length and the depth of the love of God that you can picture and have pictured before you this infinite, infinitely dear Son who is raised up on a cross. And we can bear witness by reading the Gospels. We can hear about his agonies and his suffering and the love that it took to stay on that cross for us. And that he does this all, all this for enemies, to redeem them from deserved eternal destruction, and to bring to unspeakable and everlasting joy and glory. And hear this and yet be cold and heavy and sensible. And regardless that we can be familiar with that message and have a heart that is cold, apathetic, does not care heavy, does not inspire to move insensible, just lacks complete sensitivity to the message of the gospel, regardless, does not consider it, does not regard it, that that is what he's getting at with this false religion.
Friends, I, I, I want you to hear this very clearly. I think there are many of us in the south that are very familiar with this message. We know it, we know this message. But knowing doesn't save you. The question is, is that when you consider this message, if you know it, are your is your love cold? Are your desires? Is your zeal low? Is the gratitude small? Do you know it? But it that knowledge does inspire love and worship and affections towards Christ and faith and repentance and obedience and delighting in him over all things. Because if that isn't the fruit of what you say you believe, then the reality is you don't believe the message. Familiarity with the message of the gospel doesn't save. And Jesus may be looking at you this morning and saying, oh friend, slow of heart to believe. Slow of heart to believe this you might know all the Sunday school answers from growing up, and you might wear a cross around your neck and you might be a good, decent person who lives a good, decent life, will one day have a good decent funeral. Or people talk about you as a good, decent man or woman and none of that saves, none of it. What saves is encountering this resurrected Savior. And then your heart begins to burn within you. Your heart, your affections begin to stir within you. And my hope is on this Easter morning as we celebrate the goodness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that he is alive, that he is risen indeed, and all of the eternal implications of hope that come with that. My hope this morning is that as you consider this message, that you might sit honestly before the Lord and you might begin to ask yourself, do I have actually believe this in a way where my heart burns for him, where my heart is stirred for him, where my affections are growing for him. And if you come to the maybe painful reality that that is not the case, my hope this morning is that you would begin to burn, that that stirring would happen in your heart. And I've walked with people long enough to know that sometimes this happens. Sometimes you can feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit beginning to work in your heart. And maybe right now you're trying to convince yourself out of this. Maybe you're trying to say, let's just get to brunch. Let's just get to the rest of the day. I don't want to reckon with this. I don't want to lean into this reality. I just want to move on. I want to press on. But I want to invite you to lean into the heat of that discomfort. Because what Jesus offers you, if he begins to stir and in your heart is a wonderful relationship with him. That is what we say every single Sunday here. That is far better than anything this world has to offer. Everything that you could possibly build your life upon in this world is nothing in comparison to Christ. Paul says it is rubbish in comparison to him. That what you are missing out on is eternally wonderful. So do not deny the heat that is burning within you. Do not run from it. Do not explain it away. Lean into it. I'm going to pray for you in a moment. And my hope is that as I pray, maybe for the first time, you'll lean into the heat. You'll begin to let the Spirit take over your life in a way that transforms you into a new creation in Christ, into someone who loves, worships, follows, and delights in God from now into eternity. But hear this. You must. You must pray. And you must ask Jesus to take over your life. That this cannot be in head knowledge only. This has to be a surrender of the heart to him.
So I'm going to pray at the end of all of this. I'm going to be outside that door over there, that connect corner. And as I pray, if you for the first time are choosing to follow Jesus Christ, come talk to me. If you came with a Christian this morning who loves you, talk to him or her. But don't run from the heat. Let it take over. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that right now you might open the eyes of our heart to the reality that you loved us so much that you came. You didn't leave us in our sin and our rebellion against you, but you came and you went to the cross to die for our sins. And that you conquered, you walked out of the tomb conquering the power of death and sin in our lives. And Lord, I pray if there's anyone here this morning that has known this message from their youth, that maybe is young and knows this message can recite it back word for word, but they've never had the burning desire of the stirring of affections towards you. Lord, would you melt their heart this morning? Would you work in their heart this morning? Would you bring them to life and that life into eternity. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
Band's going to come up, we're going to sing and we're going to worship Christ because he's worthy of our worship and worthy of our praise. And if this morning, if that moment right now, you just prayed to follow Jesus Christ, I want to invite you again. Come find me out there at the connect corner. Talk to a friend that brought you, but don't run from it this morning, lean into it.