#DailyDevotion Do Your Eyes See Jesus In His Word & Sacrament?

Luke 24³⁰While He was at the table with them, He took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. ³¹Then their eyes were opened, and they knew Who He was. But He vanished from them. ³²“Didn’t our hearts glow,” they said to each other, “as He was talking to us on the way and explaining the Bible to us?” ³³That same hour they started out, went back to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them all together. 34These said, “The Lord really did rise, and Simon saw Him.” ³⁵Then the two men told what had happened on the way and how they had recognized Him while He was breaking the bread.

When looking at this part of the text we probably need to keep in mind, ¹⁶“They saw Him but were kept from knowing Who He was.” Many people speculate that Jesus must have looked completely different raised from the dead than he did when he was living as a mere mortal among us. There is some evidence to that in John’s account of Jesus when they didn’t recognize Jesus while they were fishing and John notes no one asked who he was, they all knew him. There is probably some validity to the thinking Jesus may have looked different in his glorified body as opposed to his mortal body. After all, he had the sin of the world placed on him and it took its toll on his body just as our sin takes its toll on our bodies. Freed from the sin that was laid on him he probably looked different. I’m fairly certain at the resurrection when we receive glorified bodies like Jesus did we will look different also. On the other hand, when Jesus presented himself in the locked room they recognized who he was. In this instance, according to verse 16 Jesus had kept them from recognizing him. I believe it was to test their faith. Did they believe what he had taught them the three years of ministry while he was with them? The just will live by faith. Well we can see from the account seeing is not believing. All we ever have is his word.

Now it was in the breaking of the bread Jesus revealed himself to the disciples from Emmaus. Now Jesus was not celebrating the Lord’s Supper here in the Emmaus account. Jesus most likely blessed and broke the bread the same way every Jesus man of the house did when they broke bread (yes every Jewish household did this and did it in the same way.) There eyes were simply opened by Jesus during this action to allow them to recognize him.  But then he immediately vanishes from their sight leaving behind the broken bread.

What are they left with? The broken break and renewal of their hearts when Jesus was teaching them the word was it. I do believe Jesus, the Holy Spirit and Luke do want us thinking about the Lord’s Supper when he mentions recognizing Jesus when he broke the bread. We too are left with two things as we cannot see our risen Lord until he returns in the flesh, his word and his Supper. We are called to live by faith, faith in his word. When it is taught us by his under-shepherds i.e. pastors, our hearts are called to believe it. When his pastors bless the bread and the wine we are called to see Jesus, giving us his body and blood, calling us to remember his great sacrifice to us. In the Word and in the Supper the eyes of our hearts are called to recognize Jesus is our Savior and not only our Savior but the Savior of the world. So we must continue to gather around his Word and Sacrament so we don’t forget and always recognize Jesus now and when he returns for us bodily.

Heavenly Father, grant that we may have the eyes of our hearts opened when we hear the good news of Jesus and receive his supper that we may always recognize Jesus as our Savior and believe in him by faith since we will not believe in him by our sight so we too may be raised to eternal life at his revelation. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.