Luke 24 LUK 24
In this closing chapter of Luke, the Blessed One is seen expounding to those sorrowful travelers, in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
We are told that their eyes were holden, that they should not know Him. There was a distinct purpose of God in their eyes being holden, as we shall see presently, but the Blessed One is seen here connecting the Scriptures with Himself, and all that happened to Himself.
It is a blessed thing to hold fast to all this grace of the heart of Christ. He will never give up even the feeblest of His own. He does not leave them. He does not say, I leave you now; you have turned away; you have become hard in your hearts. On the contrary, as we have seen, He went after them; He journeyed with them.
What is He doing all this time? Just what He always does. He is making Himself necessary to them, indispensable to them. There is only One that is indispensable to us, and that is Jesus. There is only One worthy of that place in our souls, and that is Christ. There is not a thing in this world we could not do without, but you cannot do without Him. He is truly the indispensable One. We often think we can manage without Him, and then in all His blessed love He allows us to find out our insufficiency, and deals with us in His love, and leads us to discover that we cannot do without Him, and thus we sing
As weaker than a bruised reed,
We cannot do without Thee;
We want Thee here each hour of need,
Shall want Thee too in glory.
A Little Spark a Little Flame
This unfailing love of His is what kindled the fire in their souls, and in addition, there was all the wonderful skill of His love in doing it. Love is the most skillful operator in the world. He draws their hearts out, and He goes with them and lights up this fire. Observe how easy it would have been to extinguish it. I grant it was but a little spark; still, He fans it, ministers to it, adds the fuel of His grace to that little flame which He Himself had kindled.
Then notice what happens. As they journeyed they drew near to the village whither they went, and the evening was upon them. But He (oh, the blessedness of it) had become necessary, so necessary to them. This mysterious Stranger who had walked that road with them, had imprinted Himself upon the fleshy tables of their hearts. He who had walked as the unknown Stranger, as far as they were concerned, had so gotten possession of their affections and souls, that when the moment comes that He would withdraw, when "He made as though He would have gone further," then it was that they "constrained Him." Luke 24:28, 29.
How blessed all this is! The deepest love was manifested in that action of the Blessed One. If you look at it merely from the outside, you would fail to see the blessedness of it. But He drew off that He might draw out. Though He essayed to leave them, His heart was toward them, and He had so gotten into the affections and souls of those poor disciples that they could not go in without Him. "They constrained Him, saying, Abide with us; for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent." v. 29. How gladly He went! That is why He drew off. Forever blessed be His name, He loves to be constrained. He kindled the fire in their souls, and when He had opened the door, He went in to abide. He was constrained.
It is the same in respect to ourselves. By faith we can have Christ with us now. It is an immense thing to have His own blessed person spiritually with us, to have His company, His presence, and to know He is with us according to His word. "I will not leave you comfortless [orphans]: I will come to you." John 14:18. We need the sustainment, comfort and joy of that blessed presence as He conducts us and leads us on step by step. What a blessed reality it all is! It is not that it belongs to a chosen few. Far from it; it is the portion of all His people; it is for you, beloved friends. You may have Him in your home as your companion, your friend, to walk beside you, to solace you, to cheer up the lonely moments of your life. How blessed it is!
“Abide with us; for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent." Do you think it was difficult to constrain Him? Do you suppose He wanted much pressing? He wanted just as much constraining from them as would kindle into a holy flame that ebbing fire in their hearts. Then we are told, "He went in to tarry with them." v. 29. He became their guest, for I have no doubt they entertained Him. Beloved friends, there is nothing that entertains our Lord Jesus Christ more than a weary, desolate heart that turns to Him.
Entertaining the Lord Jesus
You can bring nothing to Him as attractive as a weary, heavy-laden heart. So He was entertained in a double way. He was entertained, no doubt, because of the circumstances. They were broken-hearted, sad, cast down. He accepts the external entertainment set before Him. He went in, and while He sat at meat with them He took the initiative. He can never go into any scene where He is not first and last. But He took, as the head of the house would, the bread into His hands and He broke it and gave to them.
This was not the Lord's Supper. It is most important to have correct thoughts as to the Lord's Supper. It was the ordinary meal they were partaking of here, but nevertheless, it was the breaking of the bread which the Blessed One was pleased to make to their souls, the sign of His death. As He broke that bread before them, the reality of His death on Calvary's cross passed from the symbol in His hands, by His own power in its reality, into their souls. He brought Himself before them, as the One who had been dead.
Jewish Thoughts and Aspirations
Now you see the reason for their eyes being holden until this moment. Had they recognized Him, and accepted Him previously, it would have been a kind of substantiating of all the Jewish thoughts and aspirations which were so alive in their souls. They are to know Him as the One who died, the One who passed through death. And so it was that until now their eyes were holden. Now would come the overthrow of everything that was merely egotistical in Judaism, and it was this very thing that ruled in their breasts at that time. They must now know Him as the One that died and rose again, as the One alive out of death. He broke the bread before their eyes as the risen One, and immediately their eyes were opened. But the moment He, by this symbol, conveyed Himself as the risen One really before their eyes, He vanished out of their sight.
How blessed and how wonderful to think of it! What they had been looking for, what had moved in their souls before, was expressed in their words, "we trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel." v. 21. What had shattered all their living hopes was the fact of His death. It was the death of the heir to them, and their hopes, which centered in earth, were all broken up and scattered to the winds by His death. But now Christ, in His wonderful grace and love, has led them step by step to this point. There He was Himself before them in His death (in symbol), yet as the risen One; their opened eyes rested on Him thus for an instant, and then the Savior vanished out of their sight.
Consequences
Let us now look at the consequences of this for a moment. There are two things that are perfectly beautiful here. "They said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?" v. 32. Now I do not think we ought to depreciate that. We ought not to make little of it, and yet we ought not to make everything of it. What was it that made their heart burn while He talked with them and while He opened the Scriptures to them? Was it not Himself? Do not suppose that anything He does is small or trifling. It was He that did it. It was He that lighted that fire, He that kindled that flame. It was His love that struck, as it were, the match in their souls.
All these exercises, under the Lord's blessed hand, lead to that which next comes before us— communion. But you must have burning to lead to communion; you must have burning of heart to lead to communion of heart. That is the road to communion. The heart is set on fire by the kindling’s of the love of Christ; the heart is delighted as the word comes from His own blessed lips, and He leads on to this moment. He Himself is before us, really and literally back from the dead, a living Person. That is just what it was with them. What made all the difference now was that He was there before them. It was not merely Himself in Scripture, although He had been before them in Scripture, in His own interpretation of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms. And what a wonderful interpretation of Scripture that must have been! Not a flaw in it. Oh, what divine harmony and perfectness as He conducted them through the Scriptures, and said, as it were, I am there, and I am there, and I am there! There was not a scene that He did not fill, not an event of which He was not the crowning figure, not a circumstance that did not revolve around Him.
He, in His own blessed person, was now a reality before their eyes. It was more than report, it was reality now. He was there present to the gaze as alive from the dead, alive out of the death which He had undergone in the deep, eternal love of His heart for them. He Himself had changed everything, altered everything, and brought in an entirely new order of things. Then it was they rose up the same hour of the night. Farewell now to weariness! It did not matter that the day was far spent, that the shadows of the evening were cast upon their path: they rose up the same hour to go to the very place to which He was going. That is communion. They have gotten into communion now with His own thoughts. He brings them to the place where He Himself was going. W. Turpin