The Stranger at the Table

Okay, Anne's going to come and read for us from Luke's Gospel.

Luke chapter 24, verse 13.

Luke 24:13

What is this conversation that you're holding with each other as you walk?

And they stood still, looking sad.

Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him,

Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?

And he said to them, What things?

And they said to him, 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.

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.

And he said to them,

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.

So they drew near to the village to which they were going.

He acted as if he were going further,

but they urged him strongly, saying,

Stay with us, for it is towards evening, and the day is now far spent.

So he went in 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.

They said to each other,

Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on this road,

while he opened to us the scriptures?

And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem.

And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together,

saying, The Lord is risen indeed and has appeared to Simon.

Then they told what had happened on the road

and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Amen.

Well, the writer Luke that we've just read from in Luke 24,

he is a master storyteller in his gospel.

And I think the two most moving stories in all the gospels

are when Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15,

and then this story, The Road to Emmaus,

where Jesus approaches these two minor characters

that really have played no role up until this point.

And in the first, the prodigal son,

the very famous prodigal son story, Luke 15,

Luke gives you the, Jesus gives you the heart of the father,

that the father longs to pursue prodigal sons and daughters

and bring them home.

And he wants to throw a feast for them.

He wants to give you a banquet.

In the other, I think, most moving story, Luke 24,

we have a mirror of the normal Christian disciple here.

And it's so ordinary.

It's so normal.

It's showing us our own lives.

Jesus meets us on the road.

And then where does that road take you to?

It takes you to the table.

At the very end, he takes them all the way to Emmaus,

and he lays out for them a feast.

There's bread broken.

And in the same way, the two most moving moments,

I think, in the gospels, perhaps,

are when we see that God wants to pursue you

and bring you all the way to the table.

And that's exactly what we have here

in the road to Emmaus story.

In the ancient world, kings would win great victories.

Julius Caesar won many great victories.

And when he would, he would go out

and he would parade through the streets of Rome.

Pomp and circumstance, crowds would gather.

That's the classic work of the ancient king.

Now, this is Resurrection Sunday.

The greatest victory that there's ever been has taken place.

Death has been defeated.

That's a big one.

That's a big win.

And there's no pomp and circumstance.

There's no parade.

Instead, where is Jesus?

On Resurrection Sunday,

he is doing something disconcertingly ordinary,

extraordinarily ordinary.

He's on the dusty road with two minor characters

going to a no-name village, Emmaus.

We don't even know where it is.

We saw that in week one.

And what we're being shown here is that Jesus,

like the rest of the gospels,

continues to show up in ordinary people's lives.

He wanted to go to the fishermen and the tax collector

and the prostitute and the person who was out

of the center of the social order.

And here, he's doing the exact same thing.

He's showing us the paradigm of the Christian life.

That's why Luke calls Christianity the way.

It's the same Greek word that gets used here in Luke 24

for the road,

that Jesus continues to show up on ordinary roads

to ordinary people like us.

And eventually, you realize that it's not just that

he's come to walk with you on your road,

but that you're now walking on his road.

And he is the journeyman.

He's the one that has already gone before you.

He's already paved the way for you.

And he is bringing you all the way to the table,

all the way to the table.

And so what we read about here is the end of the normal road

of the Christian life is to finally arrive at Emmaus

in verse 28 and to sit down with Jesus Christ at the table

and then to see him, to wake up.

And so if there's one verb in the passage

that really becomes the paradigm structure

of the whole story, it's all about sight.

So their eyes are closed.

They're kept from seeing him in verse 16.

And then you can see in verse 31 and 45,

first, he opens their eyes by opening scripture.

He explains the Old Testament,

how the cross was necessary from the Torah,

the first five books of Moses and the prophets

from Joshua all the way through to Ezekiel and Jeremiah,

then to the writings, the Psalms and further.

And the language Luke uses, it says,

when he opened the Bible

and he showed them Jesus in the Old Testament,

he opened their eyes to see, he opened their minds.

The second way he gives sight to the spiritually blind

in this passage is he brings them to the table.

And so in verse 32, when they sat down,

he broke the bread, we're told they could see him.

One commentator I found this week

gives a really helpful summary.

This is week, if you're visiting today,

this is week three, looking at the same passage,

the road to Emmaus.

And so I just summarized the past two weeks.

And I found a commentator this week

that I thought summarized what we've said so far,

really hopefully.

And so this is what he writes.

It is both a wonderful, unique, spellbinding tale

and a model.

And Luke surely knew this

for a great deal of what being a Christian is

from that day to this day

is the very thing we see in Luke 24.

The slow, sad dismay at the failure of human hopes,

the turning to someone

who might or might not be able to help,

the discovery that in scripture,

though unexpected,

there lay keys which might unlock the central mystery

and enable us to find the truth.

Then the sudden realization of Jesus himself

warming our hearts with his truth

as the bread is broken at the table.

So today we come to the table,

the bread being broken at the table from verse 28.

Jesus is in the business of giving human beings sight

from their blindness.

He does so with the word last week

and with the table this week.

And so let me give you this morning two realities,

two realities that the table of Emmaus teaches us

that we were made for,

two things that you were made for

that the table of Emmaus shows you.

And then just one thing you can do with that today.

Okay, so first the two realities.

The first is this,

we shall be like him.

And the way the New Testament works

is the writers of the epistles,

they draw on the wonderful works of God

throughout the history of redemption

and they take from God's wonderful works,

truths, statements, we call that doctrine.

And you've got this great moment

in one of John's letters, 1 John,

where he gives you, I think, two statements of doctrine

that are basically just the unfolding

of the Emmaus table.

And here they are.

This is what John says in 1 John 3, 2.

We know that when Jesus appears one day,

number one, we shall be like him.

And then number two,

because we shall see him as he is.

So there's the two realities that we were made for.

These are just the doctrinal statements

of the road to Emmaus.

And the first is,

one day you shall be like him.

Now, we talked in week one

about how Jesus shows up on the road

to these two travelers

and they can't see him.

They're spiritually blind,

but also they're physically blind in that moment.

The physical blindness stands in

for spiritual blindness.

And they can't see him

because of spiritual blindness.

They thought he was gonna redeem Israel from Rome.

They wanted circumstantial salvation,

not salvation from their sins.

But there's another reason they can't see him.

And the other reason they can't see him

is because Jesus' body was different.

They can't tell it's him

because he did look different.

And so we see that in John 20.

Mary Magdalene is there.

She's in the garden with Jesus.

She thinks he's the gardener.

And she can't see that it's Jesus.

He's different.

And then in John 21,

the disciples are fishing

and they look out

and they think it might be him.

Even when they're on the beach with him,

John says,

they thought it was him,

but they dared not ask.

Jesus looks different.

You know that if you've seen somebody,

you know somebody,

a beloved who's died.

Early degradation of a human body

causes a person to look different.

And boy,

what must that difference be

in a resurrected, glorified body?

If death causes us to look different,

how does,

what could resurrection possibly do

to the human self?

And here,

one of the reasons they can't see him

is because Jesus is not the same anymore.

He looks different than he wants to.

So this is what the theologians say.

They say this,

the very same body of Jesus

that hung on the cross,

that died,

the very same body

that died on the cross

now operates under a new condition,

a new set of physical laws.

Now, what we have here

is the very same body

of Jesus Christ,

yet they can't tell

because he's changed.

And just later on in this passage,

Luke 24, 39,

he goes,

he shows up with the 11

and he says,

look at my hands,

look at my feet,

see the scars.

What is he saying?

He's saying,

it really is me.

This is my body.

So it's very important to see

that Jesus is saying there

in that moment,

the body that died on the cross

is the body

that is standing before you.

Look at the scars.

Look at my hands and my feet.

After that,

he picks up a piece of cooked fish

and eats it.

He's not a ghost.

Ghosts don't digest fish.

But Jesus' resurrected body

died just a fish.

He breaks bread.

He eats the meal with them.

He digests the bread.

He's a real physical body.

It is the body that he died with,

that he is raised with.

But at the same time,

it's different.

And so in this moment

at the Emmaus table,

he eats with them

though he vanishes.

Later on,

he shows up to the 11.

The door is locked

though he appears in the room

without going through the door.

And what we're seeing

in this moment

is that there is something the same

and something new.

Sometimes people will talk about

the resurrection body

as if it's like a caterpillar

going into the cocoon

and becoming a butterfly.

And that is not a good metaphor

for the resurrection.

Jesus is not like a caterpillar

that went into the cocoon

and became a butterfly.

No, because he's not transforming

from something that he once was,

a mere caterpillar,

into this gorgeous butterfly.

No, he is him.

This is him.

It's his body.

Yet, what we're seeing

is an image,

a reality

of what it's like

to have an Edenic body

in the midst of

a corrupted space-time.

We've got here

a body that belongs in Eden

existing within

the corrupted world.

And you're just getting

a slight,

very mysterious,

to be sure,

glimpse

of what that kind of body

behaves like.

And the promise

of the road

to Emmaus,

of the table,

is that as they sit

across him,

it's implied,

they shall be like him.

And John comes later

and says it

in 1 John 3.

He says,

you will be like him.

Your physical body

will be just like his.

You will eat fish.

You will break bread

and digest.

You will be a physical body,

but you,

at the same time,

will be transformed.

He,

Paul says,

in 1 Corinthians 15,

he said,

the metaphor you need

is that his body

was sown into the ground

like a seed

and that it's raised up

imperishable.

The perishable goes down,

but the imperishable comes up

and that the imperishable

is now,

quote,

Paul says this,

a spiritual body.

Now,

that sounds almost like

he's saying,

you will become

a great spirit,

but that's not

what he means.

Spiritual body

in 1 Corinthians 15,

what does it mean?

It means,

your body will be transformed

by the Holy Spirit.

You will be a Holy Spirit

transformed body,

physical body,

just like Jesus Christ here

before he went into heaven.

Look,

when you,

I'll move on,

let me say this,

when you stand next to your grave,

the next time you do,

know that what you are really looking at

at that grave side,

for a believer,

somebody who has walked

the Emmaus road with Christ

by faith,

you are looking at a person,

you are there,

remembering a person,

who has been sown

into the ground

as a seed

that will come up again

as an imperishable body.

And if you come today

by faith,

walking the road,

Jesus has met you on the road

and you're walking the road

by faith,

your body will be sown.

Somebody will stand

at your graveside

and they will say,

they are a seed now

and they will be raised

an imperishable body.

How about it?

Do you want that?

You will be like him.

The gospel does not offer you

an escape from your body.

It offers you a healed body,

a resurrected body.

You will be whole.

You'll be you.

Jesus Christ's body

really was broken at the cross

like bread

so that you one day

can have a healed body,

a physical body

that is whole again.

He didn't come

to make you float

on the clouds.

He came to redeem

your whole being.

And that's what the first thing

the table promises you,

the future.

You will be like him.

Your body will be like his.

Secondly,

the last promise here,

1 John 3, 2,

what does it say?

Not only you shall be like him,

but you will see him

as he is.

Now,

verse 28,

it's the end of the day.

They've been traveling

down the road to Emmaus

all afternoon,

experiencing the greatest

Bible study there ever was.

And they're tired.

It's probably getting dark.

And here it says that

he acted as if

he were going farther than them.

So Jesus,

when they finally get

to where they were going,

Emmaus,

he acts as though

he's going to carry on.

Why?

He wants them

to want him.

He wants them

to invite him

into their home.

And so,

they respond.

It says,

they strongly urged him

to stay.

So it's,

I mean,

there's this sense

in that Greek verb there

that they sort of

kind of almost yank his arm

into the room

and say,

you're not going anywhere.

You know,

that was a very good

Bible study.

Please do not leave.

We want more.

And so they pull him in.

Now,

they're probably staying

at either

one of the travelers' homes,

Cleopas' house.

Seems like they're from Emmaus.

Or,

they're renting an inn.

And so,

Cleopas or the other guy,

the other person

is paying for it.

Whatever way it works,

it's definitely clear

that the text,

Luke wants us to see

that Cleopas

and the traveler

are the hosts.

They're bringing Jesus

into their home.

And they're going

to feed him.

They're going to pay

for whatever it costs

to have him.

And then that's where

the passage,

as it turns towards

the table,

begins this great reversal.

Because it's their house.

They're the hosts.

They're supposed to be

paying for everything.

And in verse 30,

when the bread is brought out,

it says that he took it,

he blessed it,

he broke it,

and he gave it to them.

Now,

these are the same four verbs

as the feeding

of the 5,000.

Three of the four verbs

show up

in the institution

of the Lord's Supper

the night before Jesus died

in Luke's Gospel.

Three of the four.

And at a first century

Jewish table,

the host,

the owner of the home,

the man in the family,

he has the job

to break the bread.

And so the way

you would start

a first century meal

showing hospitality

to somebody

is that the man

of the house

who owns the home

would begin the meal

by the breaking of bread.

They are the host.

They're meant

to be hospitable to him.

As soon as they sit down

at the table,

it's Jesus

that takes the bread

off the table

and breaks it.

And immediately,

there's a great reversal

happening.

They begin to realize

what Luke wants you to see

and that's that

he is the host.

He has become

the host of the meal.

This is his house.

He's the one in charge.

And when it says

he kept going,

he acted as if

he were going to go further

the whole time

you learn that

Jesus was actually

the one that was

showing hospitality

to them.

Now,

it is

very common

in Christian

evangelical

cultural idiom

to say things like

I invited Jesus

into my heart.

I asked Jesus

into my life

and that's how

I got saved.

And I understand

that language.

It's not bad.

There's so much

about it that's

so true, right?

But when we say

I became a Christian

because I invited

Jesus into my heart,

we're using language

that suggests

that we are

the master

of our own domain,

the master

of my heart.

I am the master

of my heart

and I very generously

opened the door

to Jesus

to let and said,

oh, you can come in now.

And when you come

to the Emmaus table,

what you find out

is that when you think

you're inviting Jesus

into your life,

he's actually the one

that's been showing

hospitality to you

the whole time.

You know,

when you think

that you are the host

of Jesus coming

into your heart,

it's actually that

Jesus has been the one

inviting you

into his home

the entire path.

You know,

he comes up

and shows up to you

on your road

and then eventually

you realize actually

this was his road.

And it's a simple truth,

a simple application,

but I think one of the things

the Emmaus table

says to us is that

you are not your own,

I am not my own,

that your life

doesn't belong to you.

You know,

it destroys the illusion

of control.

It breaks through

and tells you,

you don't,

it frees you

because you don't,

you don't have to be

in charge of your own life.

You don't have to make

your own meaning.

You can be liberated

by the fact that,

that God is actually

the one who's in control.

He's actually the one

that's showing you hospitality,

never you him.

And so every time

you invite him in,

it's only because

he's first invited you

into his life.

And so we've got

this wonderful

German catechism

from the 16th century.

Somehow I get

to a German reference,

50% of the Sundays

we have,

and here we are,

it's been a couple weeks.

And so the wonderful reference

from the Heidelberg catechism,

which says,

what is your only comfort

in life and death?

That I'm not my own,

but I belong

in body and in soul

and life and death

to the faithful savior,

Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the host

of this meal.

He's invited us onto his road.

He's invited us to his table.

And when they realize that

in verse 30,

they're at the table,

he's broken the bread

and given it to them.

All of a sudden we read,

they could see him.

Their faith now becomes sight.

And you see,

he showed up on their,

on their road,

in their lives.

He brought them down the road

by opening to them

the scriptures.

He showed them himself

through the scriptures.

And then here,

you know,

they needed to see

that the cross

was in the Old Testament

all the time.

That the cross

had always been preached

from the Old Testament.

Then as they sat down

at the table,

they finally could see him.

He opens their sight.

Now,

what is that?

What's going on here?

This,

what we're reading about

is the destination

of every single Christian.

So if you're a believer

in this room today,

if you walk with him

in some measure

by faith today,

the destination

of every single believer

is to sit down at Jesus,

sit down with Jesus

at the table

and to see him.

And the theologians

call that the beatific vision.

This is the paradigm.

What we're reading about

in Emmaus

is the paradigm

of the ordinary Christian life.

And the ordinary Christian life

ends the moment

that you sit down

at the table

with him one day

and your eyes are open

to see Jesus Christ

in person.

It's called the beatific,

the blessed vision,

the visio dei,

the vision of God.

It is the reality

you were made for.

It is the hope

of every single human being.

Now today,

you might desire

all sorts of things

and our desires

are such a jumble

of messes,

aren't they?

But the truth is

the reason that we're

never satisfied

in this life

with anything,

the best things

that we get,

we still ultimately

are discontent.

It's because

the desire underneath

every single desire

is that you would come

and sit at the table

with God

and see him.

It is the very thing

you were made

to be like him

and you were made

to see him.

You will see him

as he is

and that's the promise.

The Emmaus road

is the normal pattern

of the Christian life

and at the end

of the Christian life,

you sit at the table

at the banquet feast

with Jesus Christ

and you get to see

God face to face.

Now this is

the tension

of the Old Testament

and it really is

the most persistent

ache, heartburn

of the Bible.

The movement

from Genesis 3 forward,

there is a persistent

burning, yearning,

aching all throughout

that's woven

all the way to this moment

of longing to see God.

So you remember Moses

when he is on

the mountain of Sinai,

Mount Sinai,

what does he say?

He says,

please Lord,

show me your glory,

let me see your face

and the response

that God gives

is one of both

mercy and terror

at the same time.

You know,

he says to Moses,

no rebellious sinful human

could possibly see

the face of God,

my face,

and live

and so

the response is terror

that you were made

to see God

but the tension

of the Old Testament

is that you cannot

see God

because of your sin

and your rebellion

and yet God

takes Moses

and he puts him

in the cleft

of the rock

and allows him

to see just a glimpse

of his glory

and God is saying

to Moses there,

you know,

Moses was the one person

in the Old Testament

that's called

the friend of God

who can see my face

and yet when it came

time to see his face,

Moses couldn't see his face

and that's the tension.

How can a rebellious

sinful human being

see the very sight

that you were made

to see

and the face

of God

and David,

remember David,

we sang about it

Psalm 27

just a moment ago,

David says

in Psalm 27,

I long to see

the beauty

of God's face

in the land

of the living.

1 John 3, 2,

you shall be like him

in the land

of the living,

you shall see him

as he is

and David said,

I want to see

the beauty

of the face

of the Lord

in the land

of the living

and you see

all the tension

that's built up

in the Old Testament

of how are you

going to get

what you are made for

is found

when you come

to the New Testament

and Paul's words,

in Christ,

the veil is removed.

We all

with unveiled faces,

we will behold

the glory of the Lord

and we shall see him

as he is

and the great tension

that is the great problem

of being human

and yet sinful

is all culminating

to this moment

when you're being shown

in the Emmaus Road

that the very path

of the ordinary

Christian life

by faith

is that if you will

walk the road

by faith,

one day you will have sight.

You will have the very thing

you were made for.

Every desire

that has been unmet

in this life,

everything that you have chased

and has been just meh,

will one day find

its utter fulfillment.

It's great fulfillment.

Fulfillment in a way

you can't possibly understand today.

I can't possibly understand today

in seeing the beauty

of his face

at the table,

at the banquet feast

and just listen

to the language.

You know,

it shows up all across

the New Testament.

We read it

in our call to work,

I'm sorry,

Old Testament.

We read it

in the call to worship today

from Genesis chapter 3

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

where we long

for the condescension

of God

into the Garden of Eden

all the way

to Revelation 19,

the marriage supper

of the Lamb.

Isaiah 25 says,

Isaiah 25 says,

at the banquet feast,

he will swallow up death forever.

Isaiah 55,

come every one of you

who thirst to see him.

Come without money.

You don't need money.

Come without price.

You can come

to the banquet table

of the king.

It's been promised

all throughout the lineage

of the Old Testament

and this is the moment

where you're simply being told

this is not for

the all-stars

of the Bible.

This is not for

the heavyweights

of the Bible.

This is not just for Moses.

Moses was one

of the heavyweights.

David,

you know,

Mary,

this is,

this is,

what does it make you think?

This is for ordinary people.

People that don't even

have names,

minor characters

that are going,

that living in small towns

and places

that don't matter

that much.

I wonder if you could say

today,

would the psalmist

in Psalm 42,

as the deer pants

for flowing streams,

so my soul longs

for God.

As a deer comes

thirsting for water,

so my soul longs

to see God.

Whether or not

you feel that today

or not,

that is what you

were made for.

And what we're being

told here,

let me put it

in the words

of Augustine.

Augustine,

at the end

of the city of God,

that massive tome

he wrote about

the fall of Rome,

he uses these verbs

to describe this moment

and he says,

in that day

at the banquet,

we shall rest

and see,

see and love,

love and praise,

and that shall be

for us

the eternal Sabbath.

This isn't,

I think the reason

that this is

in the Road to a Man story

is because this isn't

the hope for the

Christian elite.

This is for anybody

who comes and follows

Jesus on the way,

who comes by faith.

God is,

God is keeping a seat

at the table for you.

So let me finish

with this.

One thing you can do

with this today

as we close

and it's simple,

come to worship tonight

because we're going

to celebrate

the Lord's Supper.

So I know it would be

wholly appropriate

for us to celebrate

the Lord's Supper

this morning,

but we are celebrating

the Lord's Supper tonight.

And the reason

that's the invitation,

the application

is because in verse 30

when Jesus breaks the bread

and he blesses it

and he gives it,

there are so many commentators

that for some reason

say,

kind of go out of their way

to get ahead of this

and say,

this is not the Lord's Supper.

And that is my very favorite,

by the way,

my very favorite commentator

on the whole Bible

goes out of his way

to say,

this is not the Lord's Supper.

However,

it's half true.

It's half right.

Why?

Well,

remember,

remember your Westminster

Shorter Catechism.

Okay.

Question 92.

Let's all say it together.

No,

I can't say it either.

Don't worry.

I definitely cannot say it.

I had to look it up.

I wrote it down.

In fact,

question 92,

what is a sacrament?

And here's the answer.

A sacrament is a holy ordinance

instituted by Christ

wherein,

and here's the key,

by sensible signs,

physical signs,

bread,

wine,

water,

Christ and the benefits

of the new covenant

are represented,

sealed,

and applied to us.

Here's the key word.

I know that's hard to listen to.

When in the sacraments,

we have sensible signs,

physical signs,

bread,

wine,

water,

that represent to us

the benefits

of Jesus Christ

in the new covenant.

That's the key word,

right?

Represent.

This isn't the sacrament

of the Lord's Supper.

No,

it certainly isn't.

Because in the sacrament

of the Lord's Supper,

when the bread is broken,

when the wine is poured,

you have a representation

of the most real thing.

But when the risen Lord Jesus

is sitting at the table with you,

you don't need the sacraments.

Are you at the Lord's Supper?

Well,

boy,

you are.

Every time you eat

with the risen Jesus,

you're sitting at the Lord's Supper.

This is the Lord's Supper.

It's not the sacrament,

but tonight we celebrate

the sacrament that points us

to this moment.

And see,

that's got to create in us

the question,

am I approaching the table

in the right posture?

And I don't mean that

in a way to say

that you've got to be

in the right condition

in order to come to the table.

Not at all.

You know,

there are a couple problems

I think that we have

as we come to the Lord's table

quite often.

One is,

we come to the table

routine

and just thinking about it

as mere memorial.

Only looking backwards

to the death of Jesus

and absolutely we should.

But what we're being told

about here

is that every time

you come to the Lord's table,

it is there

to create a stirring

in your heart

for the moment

that you will sit across

from the table

with Jesus Christ

and you will see him

as he is

and you will be like him

and you will stare

at the beauty

of God's holy face

at the banquet feast.

That's what the Lord's Supper

is there to do.

Not just a funeral,

not a mere memorial.

Jesus isn't dead.

He's pointing you forward

to this,

it's the end

of the road to him.

It's the end

of the Christian life

to banquet

with Jesus Christ himself.

The other problem

we have

when we come

to the table

is we often say,

you know,

do I really deserve

to sit at the table

with Jesus?

Have I repented enough?

Have I made myself

worthy enough?

And the answer

is of course not.

Of course you haven't.

Of course you've not

repented enough.

Of course you're not worthy.

And the promise

of the table,

the invitation

of the Lord's table

is that you do not come

on the basis

of your merits.

Don't treat repentance

as a merit.

No, you come

on the basis

of his merit.

You come

not because you have

strong faith

and great repentance.

You come

because you are weak

coming to a strong

redeemer.

And, you know,

the night that he was

betrayed,

he broke the bread

and he gave thanks

and he blessed it

and he gave it to them

just like he does

on the Emmaus table.

And in the ordinary

Passover meal,

there is lamb.

That's the main dish.

There's lamb on the table.

But that night

before he was betrayed,

there was no lamb there.

Not on the table.

There was no lamb

on the table

the night he instituted

the Lord's Supper.

Why?

Because the lamb

that was to be broken

was standing

at the head of the table.

The lamb of God

whose body was broken

to take away

the sins of the world

was the one

hosting that feast.

And here is

the resurrected lamb

at Emmaus

hosting this feast

and saying to you,

this is the promise

for you.

You,

you will sit

at a table one day

where Jesus Christ

will stand at the head

and he will break bread

and he will hand it to you

and you will see him

as he is

and you will be like him.

And that is the eternal Sabbath

and that is the everlasting hope.

I will close with this.

You know,

if you,

if you go out,

it is hard to do this

in Scottish summer,

but if you go out

in Scottish winter

in the highlands

in the middle of the night,

middle of the day maybe,

I don't know,

but middle of the night

and you try to walk

on a path

through the Monroe's,

you know,

it is pitch,

let us say it is pitch black.

Maybe you are in a forested area,

it is pitch black

and you get out your torch,

your flashlight

and you shine your light.

But when the sun rises

the next day,

when it is noontime

the next day,

do you keep your flashlight on,

your torch on?

No.

The sacraments

are your torch

in the middle of the darkness.

But when the sun rises,

when the feast actually comes,

when Jesus Christ returns,

you don't keep the torch on,

you don't need it anymore, right?

The sacraments are here

to give you strength

for the journey

in the darkness,

the road,

the road to Emmaus

until you actually get to Emmaus,

until you get to the celestial city,

until you get to the banquet table

and Jesus Christ himself,

the realest thing is there

physically with you

and that is the hope

of every human being,

not just for the Christian,

that is the hope of every human.

It is the only way

to be truly satisfied.

John Owen says,

no person shall ever behold

the glory of Christ

by sight

in the life hereafter,

who does not

in some measure

behold him

today

here

by faith.

And so that's the invitation.

You've got to walk

the road to Emmaus

by faith

if you want to

one day see him

by sight.

And so

come to the table

tonight,

come to the hymn

this morning

by faith.

Have you ever been to a,

you've been to a wedding reception

and they,

the feast,

they put the little placards

with your name on them

wherever you're supposed

to sit.

Jesus Christ has your name,

Christian,

at a place,

at his table

in the life

that is to come.

You got to walk

that road by faith now

and one day

it will be sight.

Let's pray.

Father,

cultivate our desires

to see Jesus.

Give us a vision

for the beauty

of the face of God

in the land of the living.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.