MINISTRY IN EDINBURGH
(i) James Cumming
I have read these verses – the whole chapter is very full and very encouraging and very helpful for us. It covers a tremendous range of truth (all chapters do); nevertheless there is something very attractive in it and I have a desire to say a word or two for help and encouragement about some of these parts that we have read. The chapter ends in the Lord Jesus going up from Bethany, “carried up” – a wonderful end result in Luke’s gospel, the Lord carried up into heaven. We have been singing about Jerusalem above. Christ is there, the glory of that Man is in the excellent glory, everything completed for God’s pleasure and how worthy He is of that position in which He has been placed. That is what we would desire to be more marked by. It is a kind of corporate idea, Christ has gone up personally and the saints are going to go up corporately into that position. His position in the centre of everything is unique.
This chapter is about the day that Christ rose from among the dead. Think of what was involved in that and the Lord Jesus no doubt had much to do, but the time is spent in regard to these two persons. Two of them were going off the same day, that is the resurrection day – “two of them were going on the same day to a village distant sixty stadia from Jerusalem, called Emmaüs” and He joined them. I think they may have been a husband and wife, and they were talking about all the things that they had heard of what had happened on the resurrection morning; and here they were walking away from Jerusalem, the centre of God’s activities on this earth. They were disappointed about things, a bit upset over them. The great thing is that Jesus went with them, “Jesus himself drawing nigh, went with them”. There is something very precious about that. I would like to be able to convey some impression of this scripture to all of us; here they were, these two persons, they knew what had happened, the word had gone around and yet they were disappointed and they left and went away to Emmaüs. It says the Lord went with them. It is wonderful when you see that they came near to where they were going and it says, “he made as though he would go farther”. Think of the Lord Jesus in the might and the glory of all that He had established through His rising from among the dead taking this position towards two people because He loved them. Let us all, even to the very youngest among us here, get a sense that we are not just left to ourselves to think of what we should do and do it; we have One who is able to guide us and help us in regard to every feature of our lives. There they were, disappointed, not knowing how it had all happened; they had their own minds about things, but the Lord shows them. There is a shepherd touch in how the Lord comports Himself. He looks after them, He goes after them – I think we would all have a sense that it shows how He values those who love Him. They have a place in His heart that He makes sure that they understand what they are doing and what they should be doing.
They say, “Stay with us”. He took the loaf (it was like a supper, it was not the Lord’s Supper) and it says, “it came to pass as he was at table with them, having taken the bread, he blessed, and having broken it, gave it to them”, and it opened their eyes. What the Lord Jesus did here was recalled into their minds, the glory of the One who had established everything before He went into death. They realised who He was. I wonder at it: there they were, He takes the house-father’s position here. He has been like a shepherd to them and now He is like the house-father. He broke the bread, but it opened their eyes and at that moment the test comes as it comes in to us all, “he disappeared from them”. I think this was the biggest test for them; He disappeared. Think of it happening! There they were in the house, they had walked all that way – I do not know how far it would have been there, but they were seven miles from Jerusalem, and the Lord joined them on the way. What begins to work there is the homing instinct of these two; they knew that they had left what was there and they knew to go back. You say, go back seven miles when it was in the evening now? Yes. Where do they go? They go amongst the brethren. They were all talking about it, speaking about what had happened, and they related what happened on the way and how He was made known to them in the breaking of bread. They contribute to what was confirmatory in regard to the Lord Jesus and at that point, “as they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst, and says to them, Peace be unto you” (v.36). There is a development here that shows us that individual action is not wholly in accord with what the Lord would have. That is what we have to learn, that the truth being worked out amongst us is a corporate matter. He comes in amongst them here at this point and says, “Have ye anything here to eat?”. The simplicity of the language of this chapter is immense. Imagine, there is the Lord Jesus, the glorified One, the One who was out of death that very morning, and He asks, “Have ye anything here to eat?”. What does it mean? It means that He is looking for something in the centre of things where His affection is. He comes into a place where there is affection for Him, and He makes the most of it. “And they gave him a part of a broiled fish”. There is some connection with that with the appreciation of what we have had that Christ has died, but then it goes on to say, “and of a honeycomb”. The honeycomb is made locally and the Lord Jesus wanted to get a taste of that. It says, “he took it and ate before them”, they did not eat. He took these two things and He ate, He was showing His single delight in having a place where coming on the heels of the glory of the risen Christ there was a place where He knew there was affection for Him. I think we want to learn a bit more – at least I feel it for myself – that we have to appreciate what the Lord finds amongst the brethren and to preserve that at all costs. That is not like soldiers, it is like those who can expend themselves in love in relation to what is for His pleasure. May our hearts have a sense of the glorious climax here at the end of the chapter where it speaks about the Lord Jesus being carried up into heaven, taken up there. It has been described as the victorious One, carried up into heaven. The moment is going to be soon when we will go up. Let our hearts be outgoing in affection for one another and in the fact that as we do that we look after the interests of Christ. He is in heaven, and the body is here, and therefore there is a responsibility with all of us that the Lord is looking for something. He would come in amongst us here and ask the same question, are we all mutually held in regard to that? May it be so. For His Name’s sake.
23 July 2002