Easter MattersSample

Written by Jimmy Shepherd - Planting Pastor of City on a Hill Tweed

You might have heard the saying, “if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” We’re weary of marketing and advertising that promise us a 6-pack in 30 days, or drop 10kg in a week. Experience has taught us to be slow to believe.

In our passage we meet two of Jesus’ disciples who are devastated by what happened to Jesus in Jerusalem, and despite reports of an empty tomb, and that Jesus was alive, it just seemed too good to be true. Experience had taught them that dead people don’t come back to life.

As they discuss these things, they’re all of a sudden greeted by a stranger on the road who doesn’t seem to know what has taken place. “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”(Luke 24:18, ESV)... Who is this clueless stranger?

They don’t know, as we do, that this is no stranger at all, but Jesus alive.

It turns out this stranger is not as clueless as he appears. He explains from the Scriptures that the Messiah had to suffer and die before entering his glory. What should have been obvious was hidden from them because their experience made them slow to believe all that God had promised.

Sometimes things are too good to be true, and sometimes we are too slow to believe all the good things that God has promised. In a fallen world, it feels safer to trust what we’ve seen than what God has said.

The good news is that despite the slowness of our hearts, Jesus patiently walks with us, opening the Scriptures to help us see that what seems too good to be true is actually better than we ever imagined.

Today ponder this:

Why do you think Jesus kept his glorious resurrected self veiled? How might this encourage you?