Vintage Faith Community

In Luke 24, Dr. Luke recounts the story of a couple of bewildered disciples walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus a few days after Jesus’ crucifixion. As they walked, they discussed the recent events, trying to put it all together in a way that made sense. As they talked, they were suddenly joined by a stranger. Luke tells us it was Jesus, but the two disciples don’t recognize him. As they recount the events to this stranger, it is clear they could make no sense of Jesus’ death: “But we had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel.” The death of Jesus had thoroughly dashed their hopes. Adding to their sorrow was a confusing piece of the puzzle: some of the women of their group went to the tomb and found it empty and the body gone. At this point the stranger speaks up: “O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” N.T. Wright says it well: “The response of the stranger is to tell the Story - differently.” Jesus opens the Scriptures and takes these two disciples on a whirlwind tour of the Story, from Genesis to the Prophets, showing the necessity of the Messiah’s death and resurrection. Jesus had to die and then enter into his glory. The death of Jesus was no hope-dashing conspiracy; it was the climax of the Story! The Messiah, as the new Adam and the Servant of Israel, had to take on the full weight of creation’s rebellion. It was the only way God could destroy sin without destroying the people that he loved. “On the cross he drew the full force not only of that despoiling [of creation], but of his own proper, judicial, punitive rejection of it, on to himself. Read in this way, the multiple strands of idolatry, sin, evil, wickedness, oppression, violence, judgment and all the rest throughout the Old Testament come rushing together and do their worst to Je- sus. He takes their full force, and does so because that was God's purpose all along.” All along, this has been God’s purpose: to destroy sin and rescue his creation by putting himself in our place and taking the punishment we deserve.