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Believing is Seeing (King’s Cross Church)

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INTRODUCTION

After touching Jesus’ hands and side and believing, Jesus said to Thomas, “because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed” (Jn. 20:29). There is a particular blessing in hearing the good news that Jesus is risen from the dead and believing. In fact, while sight has a good function, it is not the controlling or foundational faculty. What you believe colors what you can or will be able to see. Living by faith doesn’t mean living in an imaginary world; it means living with the certain knowledge that some things are true even though you can’t see them and with that knowledge seeing everything more clearly.

THE TEXT

“And behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus…” (Lk. 24:13-35)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Luke sets up this story by highlighting the uncertainty of the women and the disciples having found the tomb empty and hearing a message from angels (Lk. 24:1-12). With that uncertainty and unbelief lingering, two other disciples began walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus that same day, talking about everything that had happened, and Jesus joined them, but they didn’t recognize Him (Lk. 24:13-16). Jesus asked them what they were talking about and why they were sad, and they asked Him if He was the only pilgrim in town who didn’t know what had happened to Jesus of Nazareth (Lk. 24:17-24).

Jesus responds, chiding them for their unbelief, and proceeds to explain from Moses and all the prophets that the Messiah had to suffer before being glorified (Lk. 24:25-27). When the disciples drew near their destination, they urged Jesus to come with them, and when He sat down with them, and blessed and broke bread and gave it to them, their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus, and He vanished (Lk. 24:28-31). Making sense of the glorious Bible study on the road, the two immediately returned to Jerusalem and told the others who had also heard that Peter had seen Jesus (Lk. 24:32-35).

THE BLIND ADAMSON FAMILY

Instead of grabbing the shoulders of Cleopas and the other disciple and looking them in the face and saying, “It’s me! It’s me!” or saying, “Oh fools and slow of heart to recognize that I’m standing right in front of you,” Jesus locates the foolishness and unbelief in their failure to remember and believe the Bible (Lk. 24:25). We have a hard time believing this, but one of the central messages of Scripture is that we cannot see or understand anything rightly apart from God and His Word. While the serpent promised a greater vision and wisdom, when the eyes of Adam and Eve were “opened,” they actually became blind and foolish (Gen. 3:5-7).

This doesn’t mean unbelievers can’t see or understand anything; nor does this mean that Christians magically see everything clearly. But it means that because of sin and separation from God everything is distorted, disoriented, and muddled. We desperately need the spectacles of Scripture and the Lasik surgery of the Spirit. Jesus says that having unconfessed sin is like having a log in your eye (Mt. 7:3-5). This is one of the reasons Jesus heals so many blind people during His ministry. He came to give sight to the blind Adamson family (Eph. 4:18).

MOSES, THE PROPHETS, AND RESURRECTION PROOF

So beginning with Moses, Jesus explains how the Scriptures teach that the Messiah had to suffer before coming into His glory. Jesus may have begun in the Garden with the Fall and promise of the seed of the woman and the skins that covered their shame: there needed to be blood shed by a substitute so that Adam and Eve could live. He may have talked about the covenant promises pictured in circumcision, barren wives conceiving, Isaac received back from the dead in a type, Joseph’s suffering and glory – all stories of human weakness and death turned to strength and life. He could have traced the same themes in the Exodus, the sacrifices, the bronze serpent, the story of Job, many of the Psalms (16, 22, 69, 116), and prophecies of the Messiah (e.g. Is. 53, Jer. 20, Zech. 3). The Old Testament is all about Jesus.

This story illustrates what Jesus taught in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, which is about the rich man’s greed blinding him until it was too late and he died and found himself in torment in Hades (Lk. 16). When the rich man asks if someone might be sent back to warn his five living brothers, Abraham says that they have “Moses and the prophets.” And when the rich man argues that they would be more likely to repent if someone rose from the dead, Abraham says, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Lk. 16:31). If you will not believe God’s Word, then you will not believe even if someone rises from the dead (cf. Jn. 11:43-53, Mt. 28:11-15). Believing is seeing.

APPLICATIONS

Cleopas might be the same as “Clopas,” the husband of another Mary (Jn. 19:25), and they may be the two disciples going to Emmaus. Early tradition said that the two disciples may have been Clopas and his son Simeon, who was the second leader of the church in Jerusalem (after James). Another early tradition suggests that this Clopas was the brother of Joseph (father of Jesus), which would make the lack of recognition even more striking: not recognizing his own nephew.

Regardless, there’s a striking echo and reversal of Genesis 3 in this story: whereas two people ate food sinfully and their eyes were “opened” and they became ashamed of their nakedness and afraid (Gen. 3:6-7). Here, in Luke, we have two disciples filled with fear and shame, not seeing clearly, but in the breaking and eating of the bread with Jesus, their eyes are truly opened. While they only see Jesus for a moment, they suddenly see everything very clearly.

This story is one reason why the Reformation tradition has argued for the Word and Sacrament to go together and in that order. Hearing and believing the Word is the prerequisite for seeing and communing with Jesus rightly. But even then, the breaking of bread has a way of revealing what the Word says. What is it about the breaking of the bread? It’s receiving the gifts of God, giving thanks, and sharing them, and so seeing them by faith for what they really are.

Eyes are powerful gifts, but they are not simple mechanisms. Our eyes are loaded with biases and blind spots, prejudices and presuppositions. You need Jesus to show Himself to You in the Word and breaking of bread so that you can see Him crucified and risen, and by seeing Him, see your spouse, your family, your roommate, your neighbors, your job, your everything rightly.

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Crisis at the Temple (Palm Sunday 2023)

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Introduction

The Triumphal Entry was an episode in the ministry of the Lord that had a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning was when the disciples came back to the Lord with the donkey and colt, placed their garments on them, and seated the Lord there (Matt. 21:6). The middle of this event was when Jesus entered the city, and Matthew says that the whole city was moved (v. 10). So this middle was the procession itself. The culmination of this Entry, the climax of the day, the crowning event of what happened, was the cleansing of the Temple (v. 12).

The Text

“And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them. And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there” (Matthew 21:8–17).

Summary of the Text

As I have reminded you often, this great multitude was not the same crowd that was calling for the Lord’s crucifixion a short time later. They spread garments and palm branches in the road (v. 8). Now the crowd ahead of Jesus, and coming up behind, were all crying out for the Son of David to save them, which is what Hosanna means (v. 9). They were also saying, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord (Ps. 118:26), and “Hosanna in the highest.” When He entered the city, the whole place was shaken. Who is this (v. 10)? The crowd answered that it was “Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee” (v. 11). And then we come to the climax of the Entry. Jesus went into the Temple, expelled all the buyers and sellers, flipped the currency exchange tables, and the chairs of those who sold doves (v. 12). He said they had transformed the house of prayer for all nations into a thieves’ den (v. 13). Then some blind and lame people came, and He healed them (v. 14). When the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things He did, and the children who were still calling out “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were really displeased (v. 15). They sought to rebuke Jesus with the words of the children (v. 16), and Jesus answered them with the psalmist (Ps. 8:2). From there, Jesus returned to Bethany a few miles away (v. 17).

The Nature of the Event

Moderns are often misled by the fact that Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. This seems to us the sort of mount that a pacifist would use. But throughout the Old Testament, it was a mount of nobility or royalty. Deborah spoke of it (Judg. 5:10), Jair, a judge in Israel, had 30 sons who rode on 30 donkeys (Judg. 4), and Abdon was similar, with his sons and grandsons riding them (Judg. 12:14), and the princes of Israel, David’s sons, fled from Absalom on mules (2 Sam. 13:29).

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation; Lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass” (Zechariah 9:9).

Given this symbolism, and the prophecies concerning it, and what the people were shouting, Jesus was making an audacious claim to the be the King of Israel, the Messiah of God.

But these were not just words—it moved on to an authoritative action, one that challenged the economic center of Jerusalem.

An Authoritative Evaluation

The gospel of John tells us that Jesus had cleansed the Temple once before, at the beginning of His ministry (John 2:13-17). This was an event that declared that the House of God was diseased. Here in Matthew, the priest has now come a second time to inspect the House, and this time the house is to be dismantled (Lev. 14:44), not one stone left upon another.

Lord and Christ

If we are with the crowds of Palm Sunday, we are crying out, “Hosanna,” which means that we are calling for God to save us. That is our plea—Lord, save us.

But although this is used as a term of praise, it is not like Hallelujah, which simply means God be praised. Hosanna contains a petition, and the petition is for salvation, forgiveness, and deliverance. “Oh, Lord, hosanna, save us.” But from what?

Ultimately, this request is always for God to rescue us from ourselves. We are the ones with the problem, but it is also the case that we are the problem. We are the problem that all of us have.

But here is the difficulty. It is not possible to greet Him at the gates of the city with your palm branch, and then somehow to prevent Him from going up to the Temple and flipping over all of your tables. He is the Savior who interferes. He is the Lord Christ, and cannot be received in one of His offices and not in another.

He is the Son of David. Receive Him as such.

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The Earth is the Lord’s

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THE TEXT

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me, but not all things edify. 24 Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being.

25 Eat whatever is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience’ sake; 26 for “the earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness.”

27 If any of those who do not believe invites you to dinner, and you desire to go, eat whatever is set before you, asking no question for conscience’ sake. 28 But if anyone says to you, “This was offered to idols,” do not eat it for the sake of the one who told you, and for conscience’ sake; for “the earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness.” 29 “Conscience,” I say, not your own, but that of the other. For why is my liberty judged by another man’sconscience? 30 But if I partake with thanks, why am I evil spoken of for the food over which I give thanks?

31 Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 32 Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God, 33 just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved (1 Cor. 10:23-33).

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