Mark 16:12 / Luke 24:13-24…
Two of Jesus’ followers were on their way to Emmaus, discussing the things they had been hearing about. But the reports meant little to them, because they didn’t hear about anyone actually seeing Jesus yet. These men obviously didn’t believe Jesus had risen from the dead, because they were not on the way to Galilee to meet Him (Matthew 28:7 / Mark 16:7).
So Jesus came to them instead. He approached them along the way, but they didn’t yet know it was Him. When Jesus asks them about their discussion, they seem amazed that He had not heard about the news yet. Even in the days before electronic and digital media, even many centuries before the printing press, news like a resurrection was sure to spread fast. Of course, how people processed this news made a lot of difference as to how they responded.
As for these men, they were unbelieving, utterly defeated, giving up and going home. They had been disappointed, but it was because their hope was misguided. They expected a temporal triumph (he was the one to redeem Israel), in other words, freedom from Roman bondage. Yet their true hope was fulfilled in a greater way than they could have ever dreamed of, in other words, from the bondage of sin, death, and hell. They had wanted a political and social revolution. He was providing a spiritual revolution.
People often have a sad and hopeless reaction to the good news even today. That’s because they want a Jesus that isn’t really there. Jesus comes to us, but we don’t recognize Him because we are looking for someone else. It isn’t that Jesus lets people down. But our hope must be in who He is, not in our ideas about what we think He is supposed to do.
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