Risen Christ
24:13 Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem.
24:15 So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them.
24:26 "Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?"
24:30 Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.
24:31 Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight.
Religions are based on beliefs of (a) great God(s).
No one would worship and bow down to a god who is not great or mighty.
And people try to express the greatness of God by making great things on earth.
In Christianity, we have great chapels, refined celemonies, highly developped theologies, master works of art and music, etc.
Of course, God deserves all of these and much more for He is truly great and infinite in everything.
But that is only part of the story.
It is mere a beautiful story for those who are established and content with the past religious achivements.
They feel safe in a religion surounded and guarded by the religion.
And now comes Jesus, who is the friend of sinners, looking for the lost and eventually himself was “lost”.
He did not bring forth the “greatness”. He was counted as a sinner, bearing all the reproach and shame.
And yet, he is the exact image of God. If you see Jesus, you will see the Father. Why?
The scripture is clear that Christ crucified is the victor.
He himself said,"Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?"
He died on the cross AND enterd into glory. The point is how you understand this “AND”.
Many people interpret it as “but”. He died but rose.
But the writers of NT think differently. They claim that Jesus died THEREFORE he rose from the dead.
As is written in Phillipians;
2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
2:9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name,
To meet Jesus is to meet the risen one. And to meet the risen one is to meet the crucified one.
Some protestants criticize catholics for displaying crosses with Jesus crucified. The reasoning is that protestants worship the risen Lord therefore their crosses have no Jesus on them.
But the fact is that the risen one and the crucified one are the same. The risen Christ still have wounds on his body.
We can come to the Father, not God in general, through the crucified-risen one.
And he will meet you in a very different way from other religeos experiences, that is to meet a “great god”.
You can meet a great god on uphill roads, experiencing wonders and feeling great and secure.
On the other hand, meeting the Father of Jesus happens on downhill roads just like the two on the way to Emmaus.
They were sad, tired, disappointed, confusued.
They knew no goals, had no purposes, no security.
They were cast out into the world of uncertainty and on the way to the realm of unknown.
And that was and is exactly the place where the risen Christ meets people.
The greatest mystery of the history is that the chosen nation had to be scattered into all the world for so many years. But the ironically it was the diaspora that caused them to make so many achievements.
Because they are insecure, having nothing to protect them, no system, no tradition, nothing.
They are aliens and travellers in this world with no solid directions.
Therefore they have to trust only God and his leading on each one of them.
They cannot be in one place forever but always have to move on.
In another word, “leaving your comfortable home” just as the father Abraham is their only identity.
And this leaving is not leaving the inferior for the superior but leaving the known for the unknown.
When nothing in the world can sustain you, remember the risen one is walking with you.