What does First B Jackson teach about road to emmaus?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the road to Emmaus has come up repeatedly in Easter preaching as the passage that puts a name on the gap between knowing something and truly believing it. The two disciples walking home to Emmaus had heard Jesus say, more than once, that he would suffer, die, and rise on the third day. They knew the facts. They had even just retold them to the stranger on the road. And yet their hope was already in the past tense: 'we had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel.' Pastor Blake, Pastor Carl, Pastor Travis, and Pastor Mark have all paused on that detail, because it is not a flattering portrait of the disciples, and it is not meant to be. These were people with more information than anyone, and they were the last to believe it.
The walk itself is the heart of what gets taught. Jesus came alongside the two disciples without being recognized, let them tell the whole story, and then, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, walked them through everything in the scriptures that pointed to him, covering the full seven miles. The recognition did not come during that long conversation, though something was clearly happening in them. It came at the table, when he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, an unmistakable echo of Thursday night. Their eyes opened, he vanished, and they got up that same hour and walked the seven miles back to Jerusalem. Carl noted what they said to each other on the way: did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road?
All four messages use the same local landmark to make the distance feel real, comparing the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus to the walk from First B out to the old Wilson schoolhouse. The point is not geography but weight: that is a long walk for people in grief, and they did it twice in one day once they had seen him. The road to Emmaus, as it has been taught here, is about what it looks like when the risen Jesus opens scripture to people who are slow of heart, and what happens to them when he does.
Taught from Luke 24:13-35 · Luke 24:1-12 · Luke 24:36-49 · Matthew 16:21 · Romans 6:4-5
The passage taught · 1 Thessalonians 2:8
8 Even so, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you, not the Good News of God only, but also our own souls, because you had become very dear to us.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- April 14, 2024 Why Do You Seek the Living Among the Dead Luke 24 traces the risen Jesus from an empty tomb to the Emmaus road, showing confused disciples how Scripture always pointed to a suffering and risen Christ.
- April 14, 2024 Why Do You Seek the Living Among the Dead Luke 24 sermon on the resurrection and the road to Emmaus: why the disciples struggled to believe the good news, and what it means to be witnesses today.
- April 17, 2022 Why Do You Seek the Living Among the Dead Easter Sunday sermon tracing Luke 24 and Acts 1: an empty tomb, a road to Emmaus, and a risen Christ who calls ordinary people to be His witnesses.
- April 17, 2022 Why Do You Seek the Living Among the Dead Easter Sunday sermon tracing Jesus' resurrection through Luke's Gospel: the empty tomb, the road to Emmaus, and the call to be witnesses to the risen Christ.
- April 1, 2018 Knowing and the Resurrection Easter sermon on Luke 24 and Acts 1: two disciples walk to Emmaus not yet recognizing the risen Jesus, and what it means to truly know the resurrection.