The Disciples’ Hearts Burned within Them

Unaware that they were traveling with the resurrected Jesus, two disciples gladly heard Him explain the Scriptures on the road to Emmaus. Listen today on Things Unseen as Sinclair Ferguson discusses the relationship of the Old Testament to the incarnate Christ.

This week, we’ve been reflecting on Things Unseen on the resurrection, and we can’t do that, surely, without wishing we could have been a little bird flying behind the two disciples who walked to Emmaus on Easter Sunday, or maybe their pet dog if he or she was able to understand the Aramaic they probably spoke. They’re dispirited because they’d hoped that Jesus was the Messiah, and they’re confused because they’ve heard a rumor among the disciples that Jesus is not in fact dead, but alive. And then the unrecognized Jesus joins them and explains that the Messiah had to die and rise again. The prophets had said as much, and for an hour, or perhaps more, he interprets their Hebrew Bible to show them how that was true, but they still don’t recognize Him.

It is probably dark when they reach Emmaus, so they invite Jesus to stay with them for a meal. And at this meal, Jesus seems to become the host, or at least they invite Him to act as host, and as He breaks the bread, they recognize him. Just as mysteriously as He appeared on the road, He disappears again. The two disciples are so excited they get up and they make the return journey to Jerusalem. They burst into a room where the other disciples are gathered, and they’re about to say, “We met Jesus on the way home, and He sat at our table; He’s alive,” when they must have realized the atmosphere in the room was entirely different from what they’d expected. The disciples in Jerusalem already knew Jesus was alive and He’d appeared to Simon Peter.

I want to draw one lesson out of this passage that may seem a little strange to many of us, but I think it’s important for those of us who are preachers. You probably notice that this passage has become a major proof text for preaching from the Old Testament in many seminaries and training courses for preachers and teachers. It’s become a major emphasis: how to preach Jesus from the Old Testament. I think people who speak on preaching to preachers often choose to speak about this, and that’s all well and good. There are even books that will tell you six or ten ways you can preach Christ from virtually anywhere in the Old Testament. But there’s a problem, and I think a misunderstanding, that’s sometimes evident.

What is often forgotten in this is that in this passage, it’s the Jesus of the Gospels who’s explaining how the Old Testament bore witness to Him. I say that because, too often, this kind of preaching sounds as though the Old Testament is like a puzzle whose solution is Jesus, and then the sermon stops. Little or nothing is said about the Jesus who appears in the Gospels. So, at the end of the day, Christ, who is Himself the incarnate One, is not really preached to us, but Christ the solution to the plot line problem. But it’s the incarnate Christ we actually need, not the explanation of the plot line merely or the solution to a literary riddle. We need the Christ proclaimed in the Gospels, the flesh and blood Christ, the Christ who was tempted in all points as we are, who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities because He felt them Himself. We need the Christ who touched lepers, who delivered men and women captured by Satan and in bondage in sin, who loved with a love that drew people to Him.

I sometimes wish that those who teach preaching and teaching in whatever context emphasized the absolute necessity of knowing how to preach Christ from the New Testament, because too often the same preacher who’s determined to show how to get to Christ from the Old Testament doesn’t actually seem so determined to get to Christ from the New Testament, or particularly from the Gospels. So, we should never forget that it was the Christ of the Gospels who helped these two disciples see how the various parts of the Old Testament bore witness to Him. In fact, in Luke 24, the litmus test that Christ has been preached is not in verse 27, but in verse 32, when the two disciples said, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” That’s the preaching that we need, the preaching for which we should pray—heart-burning preaching. So, whether we’re preachers or hearers, let’s pray that we’ll hear that kind of preaching.