Sermon Synopsis
This sermon proclaims that the resurrection of Jesus Christ gives believers a true and living hope, not grounded in wishful thinking but in the reality of the risen Lord. Through the Emmaus road account, it shows that the empty tomb alone was not enough; Christ Himself opened the Scriptures and revealed that His suffering and resurrection had always been God’s plan. The message emphasizes that Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms all testify to Christ, and that the risen Lord still makes Himself known to His people as their hearts burn through the Word. The intended impact is to strengthen faith in the risen Jesus, deepen confidence in Scripture, and encourage believers to live in the assurance of His unseen but real presence.
Please note: This transcript is provided as close to verbatim record of the sermon.
A Living Hope
Resurrection Sunday Sermon Manuscript
Good morning, and happy Easter, happy Resurrection Sunday.
This morning I am going to speak on a living hope—the living hope that was read as the last reading from 1 Peter. We are begotten unto a living hope by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. So without further ado, let us turn to the Emmaus road and consider the resurrected Lord Jesus.
The Astonishing Claim of the Resurrection
We come to a place where we profess to believe, above all things, in a man who rose again from the dead. It may not seem surprising to us now, and yet how many people have been resurrected?
The Lord Jesus appeared to many. He appeared to more than five hundred, according to 1 Corinthians 15. And last of all, the last person He appeared to was Paul—that is, in the recognizable form as the Lord Jesus.
But today I want to talk about His appearance to two disciples, Cleopas and an unnamed one. And I want to refer to this verse:
“After this Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them as they walked along in the country.”
They went back and reported it to the rest, and they did not believe them either.
It was a difficult thing to believe in a resurrected Lord. It was so difficult that even when you had the witness of the women, the witness of the two disciples, and the witness of angels, they still did not believe. They were skeptical.
And yet, why do we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?
The Empty Tomb Was Not Enough
Let us read from Luke 24.
In Luke 24 we have an empty tomb seen by three women, and they saw the angels. They had not seen many angels before. These were bright, shining beings, seated, as we read this morning, at the front and at the end of where the Lord Jesus’ body had lain. And they told the women, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? The Lord Jesus Christ is risen.”
It was an open tomb for people to see. And they went and told the disciples. In chapter 24, verse 10, we read:
“Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James; and also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles. But these words appeared to them as nonsense.”
Who were these women? Why would they believe them? In those days people dismissed the testimony of women. That is how they thought in the old days, and so nobody believed them. They would not believe them.
But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. Stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings, and he went away to his home, marveling at what had happened. He was not sure, and he still had not believed.
Now Luke had spoken to many witnesses. He did not, of course, speak to John before John wrote his Gospel. And so, on that same day, here were two disciples.
The Road to Emmaus
Verse 13 says:
“And behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things which had taken place.”
They did not believe. And while they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him, whatever that means.
And He said to them, “What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking?”
And they stood still, looking sad.
One of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to Him, “Are You the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?” In other words, “You do not know what happened?”
And He said to them, “What things?”
They said to Him, “The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.”
They thought He would rescue Israel into being an independent kingdom, lead the fight against the Romans, lead another Maccabean revolution. And what happened? He was crucified. They delivered Him to the sentence of death and crucified Him.
So sad indeed. And besides all this, this is the third day since these things happened. He would be beginning to stink now. The women had gone to the tomb early in the morning with spices because the previous day was the Sabbath.
And they said:
“Some of the women among us amazed us. When they were at the tomb early in the morning, they did not find His body; and they came, saying that they had also 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 exactly as the women also had said; but Him they did not see.”
Then He said to them:
“O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”
And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
They were probably leaving the group they had been with. They had given up. They were disciples for three years, and now they were so disappointed that Jesus Christ, a young man, was dead. And they did not believe the disciples. It shows us how we need a living hope.
Their Eyes Were Opened
When they approached the village where they were going, He acted as though He were going farther. But they urged Him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is getting toward evening, and the day is now nearly over.” So He went in to stay with them.
When He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.
They said to one another:
“Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?”
And they got up that very hour.
The empty tomb was not enough. It was not enough, because somebody could have stolen the body. And this is what Luke, who is writing to a Gentile audience, is saying: the empty tomb is not enough. They had seen Jesus Himself, and they believed.
So He took the bread—the incognito Lord Jesus took the bread, broke it, passed it around—and then they realized it was Him, and He vanished.
The Lord Jesus in a Different Form
What does this tell us?
It tells us that His form does not matter. It does not matter what He looked like. He was unrecognizable. He was as one of them. So there was the Lord Jesus appearing incognito to them.
And yet His explanation of the Scriptures made their hearts burn within them. This is Luke’s revelation: they saw Jesus when He broke bread. The empty tomb was not enough evidence, and He opened the Scriptures to them and explained to them the whole matter.
What did He explain?
Moses and the Prophets Testify of Christ
Look at the Dead Sea Scrolls, written two thousand years before. They were found in the caves by the Dead Sea. These manuscripts are older than any other manuscripts we possess. All five books of the Torah are there—indeed, every part of the Hebrew Bible except the book of Esther.
And this is what is referred to as the books of Moses, the five books of the Torah. The Torah has been copied and copied and copied. It has not been changed in substance. Of course, whenever you copy, there will be mistakes, and those are corrected and preserved. It has been kept as a holy book in synagogues, treasured and preserved for us to read.
And whatever it was, the Lord Jesus explained to them from the Scriptures, from Moses and the prophets.
“Moses”—He shall crush your head, and you shall strike His heel. The Lord said that to the serpent.
That was the first thing that happened in the book. It was not a Plan B. It was not as if God did not know what to do and then changed His mind because Plan A did not work. This was always Plan A, as the book of Ephesians tells us.
Think of Abraham and Sarah. Think of the Spirit of God bringing life. Think of the sacrifice of Isaac, which you heard about on Good Friday.
Then Joseph—the wrongly blamed and then vindicated one. He was put into the pit, and he was rescued from the pit. He was then put in the house of Potiphar, where eventually he was given rule over everything except one thing. And one day that one thing came and tempted him: “Will you sleep with me?”
Joseph was good-looking, handsome. One day the one thing wanted him. He refused. He was put in prison. He refused to be tempted. He refused to give way to temptation. And then, from prison, he eventually became the number two ruler of the known world and saved it.
And what about the Passover lamb? And what about the feast of the sheaf of firstfruits? It is mentioned in Leviticus 23.
When you enter the land and reap its harvest, you shall bring in the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. And on the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it before the Lord, that you may be accepted.
So the day after the Sabbath—the Sunday, today—they take the sheaf and wave it because it is the promise of the firstfruits. And on that day they also offer a male lamb, one year old, without defect, for a burnt offering to the Lord.
And then the prophecies of Balaam: a star shall rise from Judah. Balaam, the great prophet—the one who used all his powers to curse Israel and blessed Israel instead. All his tremendous powers wasted, and he blessed Israel over and over again.
And what about David and Solomon? The promise of the Son of David: “You shall have a son, and he shall build Me a house, and he shall rule the house eternally.”
What about that? What about the promises of the Lord?
The Suffering Servant and the Burning Heart
And now you have the sufferings.
“Unto us a child is born,” in the book of Isaiah. “The government shall be upon His shoulders, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
And then in Isaiah 42: “Here is My servant.” I do not know exactly what the Lord Jesus said to them, but He began from Moses and the prophets and gradually made their hearts burn with the reality of His sufferings, with the reality of His opening up salvation to all the nations and not restricting it to Israel alone.
Isaiah says that He will bring justice to the nations. “I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.” But how do you bring justice to all the nations? Not with a rod of iron here, but quietly:
“He will not cry out nor raise His voice,
Nor make His voice heard in the street.
A bruised reed He will not break,
And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish.”
What kind of justice will He bring forth?
Then Isaiah 52 and 53:
Many were appalled at Him. His appearance was so disfigured. His form was marred beyond that of any man, beyond human likeness. We ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him.
All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned each one to his own way. And the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon Him. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth.
The appalling sufferings He was going to go through were all predicted. It was all planned. The Lord had anticipated it all and had written about it in Moses and the prophets. This was all written long before it happened.
And so when it happened, their hearts burned within them. When the Lord Jesus explained step by step through the Old Testament what would happen, they marveled. Their hearts burned within them.
The Living Lord Is Still With His People
So you have many parts of the Old Testament written to tell us of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ and how He would be raised again on the third day. But the disciples did not understand or believe. They were disappointed—except perhaps for John. Not even the evidence of an empty, open tomb was enough.
And the Lord Jesus appeared in a different form.
There are different worlds. There is a world we cannot see with our eyes. And the Lord Jesus is among us, as He was with the seven churches. The Lord Jesus is with us in our daily life as we walk along and as we talk about Him. The Lord Jesus is with us in our hearts, as well as above.
He is everywhere, and in the body He can, in a different form, make hearts burn with the Scriptures. He broke bread with them. The different body can appear here and there. And Luke tells us that He then appeared to all of them.
They returned to Jerusalem and found gathered together the eleven, saying, “The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.” And they began to relate their experiences on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.
And while they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be to you.”
I do not know what He looked like, but this time He would have had the appearance of the risen Lord. And they were startled and frightened and thought they were seeing a spirit. And He said to them:
“Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. And while they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” And they gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and He took it and ate it before them.
Then He said:
“These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
And He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And He said to them:
“Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
Our Living Hope
Luke himself had no vision of the risen Lord in His recognized form. I do not know what the recognized form of the Lord Jesus is, but I will know Him when I see Him. Luke was unlike Paul, who had a special vision, unlike Thomas, who had a special sight of the Lord. But Luke was convinced of the reality of the risen Lord Jesus. He was convinced that the Lord Jesus is risen indeed.
Good times, bad times—following the Lord Jesus—the Scriptures in the Old Testament speak of all this long before the Lord Jesus came.
The Lord comes. Does He come in a different form? Does He come in an unrecognizable form? Revelation tells us about the Lord Jesus knocking at the door of our hearts.
Knock, knock. Are you there?
We do not know it is Him, do we? Do we believe in the risen Lord? Do our hearts burn with the Scriptures? Do we feed on the bread broken by the Lord Jesus?
We need to do that.
We have a living hope based on evidence, based on real reality. This is reality: that the Lord Jesus appears, and appears in an unrecognizable form with us, and He will let us know. Our hearts will burn when He expounds the Scriptures to us. We will know it is Him. We will know that it is the Lord Jesus.
Prayer
Our Father, we thank You for the risen Lord Jesus. We thank You that this Resurrection Sunday we can come and praise You, and thank You that the Lord Jesus appears in an unrecognizable form, perhaps.
And Lord, we have not seen Him sometimes. And Lord, we thank You that, like Luke, we can trust in Him despite not seeing Him. Whom, as Peter wrote, having not seen, we love.
And so, Lord, we thank You for Yourself, for Your risen Self. We ask that You will be with us in all that we do and in all that we say, as we seek to witness for You.
We ask all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.