Luke 24:36-53 - Who We Proclaim

Have you ever been to one of those escape rooms where solving one puzzle unlocks the next? Have you ever become so convinced that you knew how to solve it that you spent twenty minutes pursuing a line of reasoning that led absolutely nowhere? I remember that happening to a group of us once. We were completely stuck. Then a voice came over the speaker and simply asked, "Have you thought about...?" Suddenly, we looked at the exact same clues we'd been staring at the whole time, but saw them differently because someone redirected our thinking. Nothing in the room changed. The clues were identical. But the voice changed us. That is precisely what Jesus does in today’s passage. He doesn't rewrite Genesis, Isaiah, or the Psalms. He transforms the reader to see them properly.

Today we find ourselves finishing the book of Luke.

Before I begin, I want to make a brief note: if you are new to the faith or don’t know much about the Bible, since this passage is about how the Scriptures reveal Jesus, try not to be overwhelmed by the names and stories that are mention. Instead, I hope this encourages you to pick up a Bible (if you don’t have one I would be happy to get one for you) to see for yourself all that God has done.

It is likely the day of Jesus' resurrection, three days after dying upon a cross and being placed in a tomb. Jesus has appeared to several disciples, including two who had been travelling to Emmaus as well as Peter. Luke has been developing a theme that the disciples can’t recognize Jesus even when He is standing right in front of them. They can’t see Him until He opens their eyes. But today, Luke shows us that it isn’t just their sight. Jesus must also open their minds to understand the Scriptures.

Like the disciples—and like people trapped in the wrong line of reasoning in an escape room—we often become convinced that our understanding of the Scriptures is correct. We keep looking at the same passages through the same assumptions, unable to see what has been there all along. Unless Jesus graciously opens our minds, we cannot truly understand that the Scriptures reveal Him.

Instead of remaining trapped in our own understanding, Jesus graciously opens our minds to see that all the Scriptures are fulfilled in Him. As He does this, we trust in him, receive and delight in the forgiveness He accomplished for us, and become joyful, worshipful, and praising witnesses to that forgiveness among the nations.

So let's listen hear the word of the Lord from Luke 24:36–53.

Luke 24:36–53 ESV

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw 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.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.

When we examine Scripture and our passage today, we see that...

God's people are commissioned to bear witness to the Scriptures' revelation of Jesus

In anything, once someone has helped us see how all the clues fit together, we can't help but point it out to everyone else. How much more when God has revealed the greatest mystery in history and commissioned us to tell others? That mystery is that all the Scriptures reveal Christ, who suffered, rose again, and now offers forgiveness of sins in His name, in union with Him.

When we look at passages like Genesis 12:1-3 and Isaiah 43:10-13, we see that God has always revealed Himself through His Word and called His covenant people to bear witness to His saving work.

From Abel to Zechariah (the beginning to the end of the OT), Abraham to Israel in Egypt (God promising and rescuing his people), to the Babylonia captivity and the prophets (dark times in history), God has continually revealed and brought about His redemption and also called or commissioned His people to testify or witness to His mighty works of salvation. And all of these mighty works of salvation reveal Jesus Christ as their ultimate fulfillment.

But, this witness doesn't just end in the Old Testament.

We see this commissioning not only in famous passages like Matthew 28:18-20, but also in verses 45-49 of this last chapter of Luke when Jesus commissioned his disciples as witnesses of the Scriptures' revelation of Himself.

In verses 45-46, Jesus opens the disciples' minds so they are enabled to understand that the Scriptures reveal His person and work as the fulfillment of the Scriptures, that is to say, His suffering, resurrection, and God uniting all things in him.

If we look a little deeper at verse 45, we will notice that the Scriptures didn't change. Jesus didn't give some secret prophecy that no one had ever seen before. As the Son of God and Son of Man, he simply opened their minds to understand what had been there all along.

And then in verses 47-49, Jesus commissions them to proclaim to the nations, in his name, the forgiveness of sins they themselves have received.

Jesus tells His disciples that the proclamation of His suffering and resurrection in His name is God's appointed means of bringing repentance for the forgiveness of sins to the nations. Repentance is literally a change of mind, and because Christ opens our minds through His Spirit, we now see God's holiness, our sin, and Christ's sufficiency in a way we never could before.

But this commissioning is not simply something they must do in their own power, in verses 50-52, Jesus blesses his disciples for their work as witnesses.

What is most incredible is that before Jesus returns to heaven in his glorified and very real body that he has demonstrated to them that he has by showing them his hands and feet, and eating fish, he gives a blessing to the disciples. He likely blesses them by raising his hands. As He ascends they see His marked hands. These are the same hands that bore the large nails of Golgotha. The last thing they see is the unshaking proof that their guilt is paid for and their shame is covered. The disciples now have Jesus’ blessing as they are commissioned to be witnesses of what the Scriptures reveal about Jesus.

If only being a witness of what the Scriptures reveal about Jesus were as easy as telling someone how to look at a particular clue properly, but it isn't that easy. Why? Because...

We cannot understand the Scriptures' witness to Jesus on our own

Just as we could not solve the escape room until someone redirected our thinking, so we cannot understand what the Scriptures reveal about Christ until Jesus graciously opens our minds. The problem is not that God's Word lacks clarity, but that our hearts and minds are naturally blind to what it reveals.

Verses 36-38 show us the problem of how we can often become troubled and doubting when reality does not align with what we believe we know the Scriptures teach.

After a bunch of the disciples have made their way back together to Jerusalem, they began discussing things like Jesus' empty tomb, the women's testimony of the angels, his appearing to some of them. And then, as they were speaking about these things, Jesus is just said to be standing in the midst of them. Now, as you know, it is not a normal occurence in our world for someone to just show up in the middle of a group without anyone noticing them.

Thus, it is not surprising that they are terrified and think he is a spirit or ghost. Why? Because the two disciples had likely told them that Jesus had just vanished in front of then a few hours earlier in Emmaus. But there is something deeper going on here because we are told that they doubt that Jesus could be alive. Why? The disciples didn't think the Scriptures taught that the Christ must suffer and rise again. We know this because Jesus immediately explains that the Scriptures did teach that the Christ must suffer and rise again. Their expectations had overridden what God had already revealed.

And so, they doubt what they actually see because their understanding of the Scriptures has been shaped by their own expectations rather than by God's revelation. We really aren't that different. We can have a tendency to reject things in the Scripture or interpret it in ways that make sense to us when what we read doesn't align with our current understanding.

But we also see another problem in verses 40-43 that we can think the Scriptures are too good to be true and so disbelieve them.

If we look carefully at the scene, even after Jesus shows them the scars in his hands and feet, proving he was on the cross, they were still overwhelmed with joyful disbelief because they had not yet understood that the Scriptures clearly prophesied of what they were seeing. In fact, because of this "too good to be true" attitude, Jesus lovingly proves that he is not a spirit. How? He simply asks for something to eat. Why? Because spirits don't eat broiled fish, but the risen Christ does to give His disciples physical proof that he had defeated death.

And yet, with all this evidence, they still needed their minds opened by Jesus. We aren't any different. As people, we reject things that don't align with our desired reality.

Finally, in verse 44-45, we see the problem of how we cannot understand the Scriptures without Jesus opening our minds.

Even after Jesus explained how all the Scriptures were fulfilled in him, the disciples could not understand them until Jesus opened their minds and enabled them to. As I said previously, the problem is not that the Scriptures are unclear but that our minds remain closed until Christ graciously opens them.

Blinded by the world, the flesh, and the devil, we cannot perceive the things of God apart from His gracious illumination. This is the condition of every sinner until the risen Christ opens our minds to understand the Scriptures.

Because in our natural condition we are enemies of God, rejecting his authority and rule, we don't deserve to understand the Scriptures. And yet, this is the marvelous reality that feels too good to be true...

Jesus fulfills the Scriptures through His suffering and resurrection, opens our minds to understand them, and reveals the forgiveness of sins found in Him

It's one thing to be helped by someone to move on to the next part of an escape room, but Jesus did much more than this. We don't merely need someone to point us to the next clue. We are trapped in the room itself—spiritually dead, blind, and unable to free ourselves.

Jesus, the One to whom all the Scriptures point, enters the prison of our sin and death, dies in our place, rises in victory, gives us His Spirit, and graciously opens our minds to understand the Scriptures that reveal Him.

When we look at verses 38-39, along with Psalm 22:16-18, 27-28, we see that Jesus' hands and feet were pierced in fulfillment of the Scriptures to bring the nations to repentance.

Jesus shows His disciples His pierced hands and feet to demonstrate both the reality of His bodily resurrection and that that His suffering fulfilled the Scriptures (Ps. 22:16-18). By His pierced hands and feet on the cross, we see how Christ bore the wrath of God that our sins deserved, so that all who trust in Him might receive forgiveness and peace with God.

Christ's suffering and resurrection resulted in the just drawing of the nations into repentance and worship. Jesus' hands and feet are forever scarred with the nails of the cross so that we, and any person of any nation who trusts in him, can forever be held in his hands as children of God.

Verse 44 shows us that this happened as Jesus fulfilled everything that all the Scriptures revealed of the Christ: Moses, Prophets, Psalms.

Beginning with Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms (technical terms for all parts of the OT), and confirmed throughout the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles, we see that Christ is both the fulfillment of the Scriptures and the purpose toward which all of redemptive history moves. Why?

Jesus is the second Adam, the better blood of Abel that cries out not for justice but for forgiveness, the better ark who saves not just one family, but all the families of the earth who trust in him. Abraham's offspring who receives and gives all God's promises. The better Moses who not only pleads for our forgiveness but dies for it. David's greater Son who reigns forever at God's right hand. The angel of the Lord who person after person obeys and worships. And the list goes on and on. Jesus is the fulfillment of all the Scriptures.

And then we see verses 45-47 how Jesus opens our minds to understand the Scriptures and brings us into the forgiveness of our sins.

Jesus, the perfectly obedient Son of God, fulfilled everything the Scriptures required concerning the Christ by suffering, dying, being buried, and rising again on the third day.

Notice the order. Jesus accomplishes redemption and then opens their minds to understand it, not the other way around. He enables them and us to understand that the Scriptures reveal Him as God's promised Redeemer first. As we behold Him by faith in the Scriptures, He grants repentance, forgives our sins, and draws us into the security of being united with Him.

What is marvelous here is that Jesus doesn't simply forgive us, open our minds, and leave us to enjoy His salvation all by ourselves. More than that...

Jesus commissions and enables us by His Spirit to become joyful, worshipful, and praising witnesses who proclaim among the nations the forgiveness of sins revealed in Scripture

The most comforting reality is that Jesus doesn't merely forgive us and leave us to figure out the Christian life on our own. The same Savior who opens our minds also sends His Spirit to dwell within us, empowering us to become the very witnesses He has commissioned us to be.

As I reflected on this entire series through Luke, I realized something. I unintentionally skipped Luke 4:42–44. In God's providence, as I read it this week, something struck me. In Luke 4, after preaching in Capernaum, Jesus goes away to the wilderness, and when the people find them, he says to them, 'I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.' It then says he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. Here in Luke 24, He is handing that very torch to the disciples and to us. His mission didn't end at the Ascension—it expanded through His Spirit-indwelt body, the Church, going form Jerusalem, where they were, to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth!

And so, notice how verses 46-48 show how Jesus commissions his disciples to be his witnesses.

Just like he did with his disciples, Jesus commissions us, his church, to proclaim  in his name to all the nations that Christ has fulfilled the Scriptures by suffering and rising from the dead to provide forgiveness for sins. We are commissioned to bear witness to the reality of what the Scriptures reveal concerning Christ.

And also see how verse 49 shows that Jesus enables the disciples by His Spirit to be witnesses.

Just like he did with his disciples, Jesus enables us to be his witnesses as he sends the Holy Spirit upon us as the Father promised him. Jesus clothes us with the promised Holy Spirit, who empowers us to be His faithful witnesses in the world. God Himself, living in us, enables and witnesses through us.

And finally, verses 50-53 show how Jesus blesses the disciples which leads to their witnessing in joy, worship, and praise.

Just as He did with His disciples, Jesus blesses us, lifting those same, nail-pierced hands that were once pinned to the cross so that He might now raise them in blessing over us, His people.

Therefore, resting in His blessing, knowing that He is with us always and possesses all authority in heaven and on earth, we worship Him, bear joyful witness to Him wherever He has placed us, and continually praise God—not only when we gather for worship, but throughout our daily lives as temples of the living God.

So, what does this look like in our day-to-day lives?

When we sit down with our Bibles and assume our understanding is enough, the Holy Spirit reminds us that Jesus alone can open our mind to understand how all the Scriptures reveal Him. He enables us to remember that Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures through His suffering, death, and resurrection to accomplish our forgiveness, and so we stop, confess our self-reliance, and ask the Father, through Christ, to forgive us for this, and, by the Holy Spirit, open our minds to understand His Word. This allows us to read with humble dependence, looking not merely for information or commands, but for the glory of Christ revealed in every passage and trusting that He will graciously lead us into a deeper knowledge of Himself.

Another way this might look is as we prepare to go to work, school, or in our neighborhood, or even to meet with an unbelieving friend and we begin to fear that we are not capable of being a faithful witness to Jesus, the Holy Spirit reminds us that the same risen Christ who commissioned His disciples has also commissioned His Church. This enables us to see that Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures through His suffering and resurrection, ascended while blessing His people, and sent the promised Holy Spirit to dwell within us. Because the Triune God is with us, we do not have to rely upon our own wisdom, courage, or ability. Instead, we pause, thank God for the immeasurable cost by which we have received His Spirit, and prayerfully entrust ourselves to Him, confident that He will give us the wisdom, love, courage, and words we need to bear joyful, worshipful, and faithful witness to Christ at the right time and in the right way.

And so, as I wind down this sermon, the one thing I would like you to remember is this: Jesus isn't merely the One who explains the Scriptures to His disciples, He is the One to whom all the Scriptures point, the One who opens our minds to understand them, and the risen Lord who leads His people by His Spirit.

If you find yourself trapped in the room of your sin—not merely confused, but guilty, ashamed, knowing you can’t free yourself from this judgment—don't try to solve the room yourself. The risen Christ has already entered it. He bore the judgment your sin deserved, rose again in victory, and now invites you to come out from under judgment and come to Christ and be made His child. To do this, cry out to God to open your understanding to the Scripture so that you see your sin and repent, change your mind from loving things that go against God to loving God, and to embrace Christ as the one who forgave your sins through his suffering on the cross and resurrection. And in so doing you will live forever in the salvation He has accomplished.

Brothers and sisters, those who have been Christians for a long time, we don't need Jesus only once to open our understanding to the Scripture, we need him every day. Let's continually cry out to God as dependent children, asking him to reveal to us what his Scriptures teach us about Jesus as the fulfillment of all the Scriptures so that we can live as those commissioned to proclaim repentance for the forgiveness of sins to all nations in joy, worship, and praise of our God in the power of the Spirit to the glory of the Father.