Through a heartbreaking turn of events, the long-brewing opposition to Jesus had culminated in his arrest and death (22:1 – 23:56). And with his burial, the Jesus story seems to come to an abrupt end – and with it the hopes of a restored Israel. Had the Gospel writer intended his story only as a tragic tale of disappointment and injustice, Luke 23 would have been the perfect place to end.
But as it turns out there is a ‘postscript’. And that postscript begins to unfold in two scenes constituting 24:1–35. In the first scene, a critical mass of Luke’s lead protagonists gathers around an empty tomb as witnesses. Some, like the two angelic figures (24:4), are witnesses to the resurrection; others, namely, the Eleven (24:9) and the women (24:3), are witnesses of the resurrection. The second scene centres around a journey leading up to a meal, the last full-blown repast in a series of Lukan meals (5:27–39; 14:1–24; 22:14–38; 24:13–35) and a point of departure for meals in Acts (Acts 1:4; 10:1 – 11:18; 27:33–38). Revelations of resurrection occur in both scenes – revelations that meet with mixed levels of understanding. Through it all we discover that the Evangelist’s story proves not to be a tragedy but a tale of triumph.
1. The action of this passage flows effortlessly from the previous scene. On Friday evening, the women had returned from the tomb to prepare spices for Jesus’ burial (23:54–56); on Saturday, they rested in accordance with Sabbath regulations. Now on the first day of the week . . . they came to the tomb; eager to attend to Jesus’ corpse, they come at early dawn. The day and time of the women’s arrival invites comparison to the very first dawn of the very first day of the very first week (Gen. 1:3).1 This would not be inconsistent with Luke’s vision of resurrection as a kind of new creation.
2–3. In first-century Jewish burial practices, the deceased were typically buried in two stages.2 For those who could afford it, deceased bodies were first laid out horizontally in a walk-in loculi tomb. Then, after the body had decomposed over the course of a year, the family would gather the remaining bones for a second burial involving a separate vault and an ossuary or bone box. The tomb described here is likely a loculi tomb, the entrance of which would have been sealed with a large rectangular stone. Since considerable effort would have to go into moving such stones, the women are naturally surprised by the sight of the stone rolled away. Even more surprising would have been their failure, on entering the tomb, to ‘find the body of the Lord Jesus’ (NIV).3 Nor is the name used insignificant: ‘In naming it the body of the Lord Jesus Luke is already using the language of Christian faith (cf. I Cor. 11.23, II Cor. 4.14).’ 4 If for Luke the pre-Easter Jesus is simply ‘Jesus’, the post-Easter Jesus is frequently deemed the ‘Lord Jesus’. He is Lord, because he is risen.
4. The unexplained absence of Jesus’ body is not just surprising but also deeply troubling: they were perplexed [aporeisthai] about this.5 As if this discovery were not overwhelming enough, the women must suddenly come to terms with yet another twist: the presence of two men in dazzling clothes standing beside them. Reminiscent of the two patriarchal witnesses at the transfiguration (9:28–36), and anticipating another pair of figures at the ascension (Acts 1:10), the two men are clearly angels; their double verification meets the minimum standard for legally valid testimony (Deut. 19:15).
5. Understandably, the women were terrified (emphobōn de genomenōn) and in their stunned state they fall down and bowed their faces to the ground, intuiting the need to avert their gaze out of respect for these transcendent beings.6 Meanwhile, the two angels put to them a chiding question: Why do you look for the living among the dead? The question is of course rhetorical and so does not require an answer. But to make matters perfectly clear, the angels then go on to affirm Jesus’ absence from the tomb and the fact of his resurrection.
6–8. Next the angels call to mind Jesus’ passion predictions, which included three points: (1) the handing over of the Son of Man, (2) his crucifixion and (3) his resurrection. Even though these predictions were primarily directed to the Twelve, the women were probably also present on at least one of these occasions. If this were not the case, it would be virtually impossible to make sense of verse 8: they remembered his words. This is not necessarily to say that the women had utterly forgotten Jesus’ predictions regarding the Son of Man’s strange fate; more likely, they had some recollection along these lines but, without a context in which one might make sense of all this, such words would have been virtually meaningless.
9. In Jewish antiquity, a woman’s testimony was regarded with deep suspicion.7 For this reason there is no small historical and theological significance in the fact that women (and not men), in alerting the eleven and . . . all the rest, were the first to relay news of the resurrection. If the honoured office occupied by the Eleven fell only to males, the honour of being the first to witness the resurrection goes to females.
10–11. In order to secure the women’s role as witnesses, the Gospel writer identifies the leading figures by name. Mary Magdalene and Joanna have already been mentioned by name as supporters of Jesus (8:2–3); Mary the mother of James has not been previously mentioned.8 There is also an undetermined number of other women in the party. Together, they take it upon themselves to get the word to the apostles. But their efforts are mostly in vain. Ironically, though the apostles had been tasked with co-leading the fledgling movement, and though they had also been the primary recipients of Jesus’ assurances regarding his own resurrection, they did not believe them. From their point of view, such a report was an idle tale (lēros), pure nonsense.9
12. Although the apostles fail to believe, it is a qualified disbelief.10 After all, when Peter ran to the tomb, this is evidence that he himself did not entirely write off the women’s words. On arriving, he finds the strips of linen which had been wound around Jesus’ lifeless body just a few days before. Understandably, he is amazed, and not knowing what to do next simply returns home.
13–14. In this the second of three resurrection scenes, the action breaks down into four parts: (1) the initial meeting (vv. 13–16), (2) the dialogue concerning recent events (vv. 17–27), (3) the meal (vv. 28–32) and (4) the excursion back to Jerusalem (vv. 33–35).11 Given the events of Easter morning, the disciples are astir with agitation and puzzlement. Two of them, an unidentified disciple and another named Cleopas (both of them outside the surviving Eleven; cf. v. 33), depart from Jerusalem the same day – perhaps indicating an already disintegrating community – and spend the afternoon travelling to Emmaus.12 Emmaus has been variously located: candidates include modern-day El-Moza (Colonia, 4 miles [4.5 km] west of Jerusalem), Qubeibeh (7 miles [11 km] north-west) and Emmaus Nicopolis (19 miles [30.5 km] west). Our geographical uncertainty is hardly helped by the divergences in the manuscript tradition, with some witnesses showing 60 stadia (= over 7 miles [11 km]) and others 160 (= 20 miles [32 km]). The latter possibility would admirably fit Emmaus Nicopolis but this presumes a lengthy walking distance for one day. In any case, the focus of the travelling companions is not on where they are going but whence they have come, and the events that had just transpired that morning. Just as Jesus had revealed himself to the Twelve ‘on the way’ to Jerusalem in 9:51 – 19:48, so now once again Jesus is on the road, this time with two disciples heading away from Jerusalem.
15–16. Coming up from behind, the Risen Jesus joins the two men as they walk and talk. There is no sense of either surprise or strangeness at his doing so. Jesus appears as an anonymous ordinary man who happens to be travelling the same road. The travellers’ shared failure to recognize him is a matter not of providential intervention but spiritual blindness; their faith-weak eyes were held back from recognizing him (cf. 9:45; 18:34).13 While the Evangelist has little interest in explaining the precise mechanics of the disciples’ imperception, non-recognition is obviously an important component of the scene, just as it is in several of the fourth Gospel’s resurrection accounts (John 20:14–15; 21:4). In Luke, sight has to do with faith and salvation (2:30; 6:39; 10:23; etc.); failure to see has to do with unbelief and spiritual estrangement.
17–18. Saddened by recent events, the two disciples continue their discussion in the presence of their new-found travelling companion, who asks about their topic. The two men are apparently so surprised by the question – more exactly, by the ignorance which prompted it – that they stop in their tracks (estathēsan). Then, with some incredulity, Cleopas enquires how it is possible even for a stranger to remain oblivious to that which has happened in these days (hēmērais tautais) – the same hēmērais tautais Jesus predicted much earlier in his ministry (cf. 5:35).
19. While Jesus feigns ignorance, the two travellers clarify that they had been talking about Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet. The epithet is fitting. Jesus had already been identified as a prophet (4:24; 7:16; 9:19) and challenged as a prophet (7:39); it had also already been intimated that he would share the same dire fate as the prophets (6:23, 26; 11:47–50; 13:33). Further declaring Jesus to be mighty in deed and word, the two men strengthen the tie-back (already hinted at in Jesus of Nazareth) to the inaugural sermon at Nazareth where he claimed the backing of divine power (4:14–19). The phrase mighty in deed and word also likens Jesus to Moses, whom Stephen elsewhere describes with exactly the same words (Acts 7:22). Luke’s Jesus, again like Moses, is also mighty before God and all the people (cf. Deut. 34:10–12). The point is that Moses’ mantle as prophetic redeemer has now passed a fortiori on to Jesus.
20. Ironically, again in keeping with Jesus’ earlier observations regarding the fate of prophets, it was – according to his two companions – the chief priests and leaders of Israel who had handed him over to be crucified. The travellers’ remark advances Luke’s purposes in two ways. First, it serves an apologetic purpose, explaining how Jesus could simultaneously be the prophetic Messiah and the rejected Messiah.14 Second, it carries a polemic purpose, lumping the temple leadership with the ungodly who had persecuted the prophets in the past. For Luke, Jesus’ status as crucified Messiah was no source of embarrassment but rather a vindication of his prophetic claim and an indictment of those who opposed him.
21. The two travellers now reveal their own once-cherished expectations, no doubt representative of the Jesus movement as a whole: on this Jesus they had pinned their hopes for the redemption of Israel. But now, so far as Cleopas and his friend were concerned, these hopes had been all but dashed. Given Jesus’ predictions about rising on the third day (9:22; 18:33), the fact that Jesus’ execution had taken place three days prior with no further happenings seems to have been the crowning disappointment – besides all this.15 The irony of unwittingly telling this tale of woe to the triumphant Risen Jesus would not have been lost on Luke’s readers. Whereas the discovery of the empty tomb should have provided initial grounds for faith, the disciples’ sadness and disappointment betray their unbelief.
22–24. Wrapping up their strange story, the two travellers recount the women’s remarkable encounter at the tomb, which had been followed by the male disciples’ own investigation (24:1–12).16 On the one hand, the empty tomb afforded evidence that Jesus’ predicted resurrection had in fact come to pass; on the other hand, the absence of a Risen Jesus seemed to have scuttled lingering hopes – despite the vision of the angels announcing Jesus’ resurrection. True, the male disciples were astonished by the women’s report, but it was an astonishment born of unbelief rather than faith (24:11).
25. With his identity still disguised, Jesus then rebukes his conversation partners. They are foolish, more precisely, ‘without understanding’. The charge implicates not so much the pair’s cognitive abilities as their spiritual–moral shortcomings, for they are also slow of heart to believe the Scriptures. According to Luke and just about any Jew, the heart, as the seat of one’s personal attitudes and commitments, was integral to obeying the highest command (10:27); indeed, it was the key to all obedience (6:45; 8:15). The disciples’ failure to correlate recent events with Scripture was at bottom not a hermeneutical failure, but a spiritual failure – a dullness of the heart.
26–27. At the same time, the two travellers also misunderstood the Scriptures: they had failed to appreciate the necessity (dei ) of Christ’s suffering as a precondition of his entering into his glory (cf. 9:26) (perhaps implying pre-existence). Jesus’ rebuke is striking, especially considering that Second Temple Judaism did not as a general rule anticipate a suffering – much less a resurrected – Messiah. Towards remedying their insufficient grasp of the Scriptures, which had led them to misinterpret recent events, Jesus then proceeds to elucidate the biblical text in reference to himself. He does so, as Luke puts it, beginning with Moses and all the prophets. We recall that Jesus had at an earlier point mentioned that unbelief in regard to ‘Moses and the prophets’ would engender unbelief in regard to resurrection (16:31). Now Luke provides an instance of such disbelief. From the phrase Moses and all the prophets, we might gather that Jesus here offers a systematic exposition through the Pentateuch and the Twelve (Minor Prophets), as representative of all the scriptures. But it is more likely that Jesus is not focusing on isolated texts within Torah and the prophetical books, but on persons, patterns and sweeping storylines within the texts.17 If the pre-Easter community, together with first-century Judaism, had imagined that suffering was an incidental element in the prophetic profile, Jesus now sets the record straight by revealing a theologia crucis in the Hebrew Scriptures, written long before the cross.
28–29. Jesus’ exposition is presumably still incomplete by the time the travelling party reaches Emmaus. While Cleopas and his friend have arrived at their intended destination, Jesus pretends to have an interest in continuing his journey. In his risen state, no less than in his earthly existence, Jesus does not force himself on his hearers, but instead waits to be invited in for the evening – all in keeping with ideal practices of hospitality.18 The two men oblige, pointing out that it was already the cusp of evening and that the day had been spent.
30. Not much time would have passed between the men’s invitation and their meal together with Jesus, since first-century Jews typically ate dinner before sundown. Here Jesus is found reclining with his hosts, a familiar posture from earlier meal scenes (7:36; 9:14–15). Then, in what would have been an unusual move for any guest, Jesus usurps the role of the host by blessing the evening bread. The series of verbs (blessed . . . broke . . . gave) invokes the earlier feeding miracle (9:16), and to a lesser extent the Last Supper (22:19). Just as the feeding of the five thousand signalled the revelatory in-breaking of the kingdom through the ministry of Jesus, and the Last Supper anticipated the final arrival of the kingdom (cf. 22:18), the Emmaus meal reveals Jesus’ Messiahship. It also marks one step closer to the eschatological state that Jesus longed for at 22:18.
31. At the very moment of the blessing, the men (as well as any others in the household) instantly recognize Jesus for who he is. Again the Evangelist is reluctant to go into much detail on this point, except to say that their eyes are opened, much as the healed blind had their eyes opened (7:21; 18:35–43), and much as, too, Saul would later have his eyes opened (Acts 9:8–18). But in this case the opening of the eyes involves not a restoration of physical sight but an enlivening of the spiritual and mental apparatus. Here recognition comes not by human effort but through the words of blessing over the meal. Luke leaves no doubt about the sacramental implications of the moment: in the corporate sharing of this quasi-Lord’s Supper, Christians have the opportunity to recognize the person of Jesus in fresh, powerful ways.19 No sooner does such recognition occur, however, than Jesus vanishes. His sudden appearance at the beginning of the passage is matched by his equally sudden disappearance: in between this entrance and exit, we now find two transformed lives.
32. Even as the climactic resolution of a clever mystery novel drives the reader back to consider various clues scattered throughout the narrative, the revelatory experience of the Risen Lord forces the disciples to reflect on their experience of Jesus on the road to Emmaus – in particular his scriptural exposition. Apparently, it was not just the persuasiveness of Jesus’ explanation en route to Emmaus that clarified matters but our hearts burning within us. Theirs was a spiritual experience wrought, simply enough, through the exposition of Scripture. He had ‘opened’ their eyes through the supper (v. 31), even as he had ‘opened’ the Scriptures through his exposition (v. 32) – the same Greek verb dianoigō governs both actions. On Luke’s theology, so it seems, even though human dullness and unbelief may obscure a proper vision of Christ, God is able to penetrate our incomprehension through the Word and the sacrament. In this respect, the Emmaus incident prepares for the central role of preaching and the breaking of bread in Acts.
33. With barely a moment to spare, the two men then rise from the table to make another long journey, this time back to Jerusalem, and by this time too in the darkness of night. While the ancients tended to avoid night-time travel, the travellers are willing to bear the risk for theirs is now the urgent goal of informing the community of their experience. At last, they arrive at the house at which the Eleven and the rest have gathered (ēthroismenous).20
34–35. The Jesus community at Jerusalem has convened itself, even at this late hour, because its members too have seen the Risen Lord. While earlier in Luke’s narrative Peter had found only isolated linen burial strips and had puzzled over their meaning (v. 12), now Jesus’ followers are celebrating the fact that Peter and others had also – at some point during that day after his initial visit to the tomb – witnessed the Risen Lord. (While we have no note of this event in Luke or even in the broader Gospel tradition, evidence of this sighting does come by way of 1 Cor. 15:5.) On hearing this news, the two travellers in turn report in detail their own experience with the resurrected Jesus, both on the road and at the dinner table. As the Lord in this capacity, Jesus reveals himself to the disciples not simply as their messianic master but as their God.
Jesus’ rising from the dead in Luke 24:1–35 has manifold implications. We might highlight three. First, whereas Jesus had been mockingly crucified as the ‘King of the Jews’ (23:38), his rising from the dead now vindicates his messianic claim. He is in fact, as so many had hoped, ‘the one to redeem Israel’ (24:21) from exile. Through his resurrection, therefore, Jesus is now the climax and the fulfilment of the Hebrew Scriptures. All prior history has been leading up to this moment of resurrection; all subsequent history has been unfolding in the light of it.
Second, through his resurrection Jesus is marked out as God – a point confirmed by his being twice named ‘Lord’ in this passage. As God, Jesus transcends the natural laws of time, space and human perception. As God, too, he has the power to illuminate dull eyes and open up hardened hearts, granting salvation to whom he will. Since in Judaism the granting of election to salvation was considered a strictly divine prerogative, Jesus’ actions at Emmaus reinforce that which can be gathered elsewhere: he is Lord of the universe.
Third and finally, Jesus’ resurrection serves as a model and guarantee of the eschatological resurrection for all of God’s people. In re-enacting the meal scenes that his disciples remembered so well, the Risen Jesus signals that they too will join him in the celebratory resurrection meal not entirely unlike their earthly meals together. Thus at the resurrection the blessed will enjoy certain continuities with their earthly existence. At the same time, because Jesus’ resurrected physical body moves beyond the typical limits of human bodiliness, believers can also expect to inherit a kind of ‘physical body plus’. The Emmaus meal brings home the certainty of this hope.
As the Gospel draws to a close, it may be asked how the final two scenes provide closure to Luke’s ‘orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us’ (1:1) and what they have to do with the sequel of Acts. On the one hand, the final two scenes may be compared to a flame applied to the frayed end of a nylon rope, cauterizing loose ends into a crisply sealed unity; on the other hand, Luke 24:36–53 also functions like a fine-tooth comb drawn firmly against the same narrative cord, teasing out important threads that will be finally tied together only in the next book.
Looking back, the reader discerns that the promise of peace (2:14) has finally been cashed out (24:36); the promise of joy and laughter (6:21) has come to fruition (24:41). What is more, the Law and the Prophets have come full circle and the Eleven are witnesses to that fact (24:44–48). Yet looking forward, we see that the same Eleven must await the power of the Spirit (24:49) as they prepare to take up their mantle as priests of the new temple order (24:50–53).
36–37. Even as Jesus’ closest followers discuss his alleged appearance among themselves, the Risen Lord himself now appears among them (en mesō autōn), speaking no more than a mere two words in the Greek: eirēnē hymin (Peace be with you). Far more than an expression of greeting or comfort, Jesus’ conveyance of peace carries overtones of salvation. This much follows from Luke’s previous usage of eirēnē, where divinely imparted peace is the promised lot of the elect (2:14) as well as – like the Hebrew equivalent šālôm – the bundle of blessings associated with salvation (7:50; 8:48; 10:5). Notwithstanding the objective reality of this conferred peace, Luke’s readers might also expect Jesus’ words to have an impact on the disciples’ emotional state. If so, then such expectations are rudely disappointed. The glaring contrast between Jesus’ declaration of peace and the agitation of the startled and terrified disciples may in part, I think, be explained with reference to the parable of the sower (8:1–15).21 In this programmatic parable, we recall, the word/seed of God fell ‘among [en mesō] thorns’ (8:7) only to be choked out by thorn-like cares growing up with the word (8:14). In this scene, Jesus ‘stood among [en mesō] them’ (24:36) and is unable to communicate due to the doubts that arise in their hearts (24:38). If this is the case, then the Eleven’s difficulty in recognizing the Risen Lord is finally a function of a distracted worldliness. It at least seems partially on account of the disciples’ spiritual resistance that they come to believe that they were seeing a spirit or a ghost (pneuma).22 There is a certain irony here, since from Luke’s vantage point the disciples are in a sense seeing a spirit – more exactly, the first intimations of the Holy Spirit who would soon overshadow the believing community in Acts 2.
38. At the empty tomb, the women had been asked a rhetorical ‘Why?’ question (24:5); now the disciples are being asked a similarly probing ‘Why?’ question. In the opening action of Luke’s story, the priest Zechariah is said to be ‘terrified’ (etarachthē ) and overwhelmed by fear (phobos epepesen ep’auton) on meeting Gabriel (1:12). Now the disciples are being described with similarly unusual language as ‘terrified’ (tetaragmenoi ) and gripped by fear (emphoboi ) (v. 37). For both Zechariah and the apostles, perched on the threshold of a redemptive-historical turning point, such fears are not unrelated to their respective struggles to believe (1:20; 24:41).23 Once again, in Luke’s theology, fear is the unholy manifestation of unbelief.
39–40. Accommodating himself to the state of the disciples, Jesus invites them to examine his hands and feet, pierced as they must have been by the nails of cross (cf. John 20:27). In doing so, he wants to make clear to his bewildered followers that the figure standing before them is not a ghost but a physical body of flesh and bones existing in substantial continuity with the crucified Jesus.24 That is, he wants them to see that it is I myself (hoti egō eimi autos). Yet in applying the phrase egō eimi to himself, Luke’s Jesus also means to identify himself with the divine epithet: the ‘I am’, first mentioned in Exodus 3:14 and spoken of repeatedly in Isaiah 40 – 66 (e.g. Isa. 42:6, 8; 43:3, 5, 25; 44:6, 24; 45:5; 46:4, 9; 48:12, 17; 49:23, 26; 51:15; 60:22). This self-identification in turn possibly attaches a second layer of signification to Jesus’ display of his hands and feet. The astute reader of Luke’s Gospel will have noticed that Jesus’ feet (pous) (7:38, 44, 45, 46; 8:35, 41; 10:39; 17:16) and arms/hands (cheir) (3:17; 4:40; 5:13; 13:13) are motifs of especial interest. Now at last, with Jesus’ announcement of peace and his self-disclosure as the ‘I am’, these seemingly stray pieces come together within the framework of Isaiah 52:6–7, 10 (emphasis added):
Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore on that day they shall know that it is I [LXX: hoti egō eimi autos] who speak; here am I.
How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet [LXX: podes] of the messenger who announces peace [eirēnēs],
who brings good news,
who announces salvation,
who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’ . . .
The Lord has bared his holy arm [brachiona]
before the eyes of all the nations;
and all the ends of the earth shall see
the salvation of our God.
As the third Gospel draws to an end, the beauty of Jesus’ feet and the strength of his hands take their proper place. Both of these elements are related to Jesus’ saving declaration of peace which seals Jesus as the fulfilment of the Isaianic Servant and his agenda as Israel’s regathering from among the nations.
41. The phrase in their joy they were disbelieving may strike the reader as an oxymoron (a term or phrase with mutually contradictory terms), but we have already sighted the curious convergence of joy and disbelief, again in the parable of the sower, specifically in relation to the shallow soil (8:13). Similarly, the post-Easter disciples are joyful, to be sure, but they still lack the necessary foundation for their faith. Not much better off than the unbelieving but wondering crowds (4:22; 9:43; 11:14; 20:26), they are left wondering (thaumazontōn). Nor, in their stupor, are they much further along than the wondering (thaumazōn) Peter as he surveyed the empty tomb on Easter morning (24:12). Whereas, in Luke’s account, the only lasting remedy for such a spiritual condition would be nothing less than the impartation of the Spirit (Acts 2), for now Jesus merely wants to drive home a point as he requests something to eat.
42–43. Obliging Jesus’ request, the disciples give him a piece of broiled fish, and then watch him take it and eat it. This brief and slightly odd interaction involving some leftover grilled fish seems to carry out several functions. In the first place, Jesus’ ingestion of food proves beyond all doubt that he is not a disembodied spirit, for if anything was obvious about spirits, it was that they were unable to eat. Within the story, Jesus’ taking of the fish partially mimics the moment in the feeding of the five thousand when Jesus took fish (along with bread) before distributing it (9:16). Only this time the fish has been cooked over a charcoal fire (be it ‘broiled’ or ‘grilled’), perhaps as if to suggest that Jesus’ miraculous provisions of fish (5:1–11; 9:12–17) and indeed all his subsequent miraculous provisions would be tinged with the same forgiveness that followed Peter’s charcoal-fire denial (22:54–57). Along these lines, it is interesting that whereas Jesus ‘gave’ (edidou) the fish to the disciples at the feeding miracle, it is now the disciples who ‘give’ (epedōkan) the fish to Jesus, shifting the role of host from Jesus to the disciples. Whereas the earthly Jesus had a track record of providing fish ex nihilo, it now falls to the disciples to share their store of fish with the same Jesus, whenever that ‘Jesus’ should suddenly present himself in the guise of human need.
44. The referent of these in the clause these are my words that I spoke is not Jesus’ wording in verses 36–41 but the substance of his passion predictions (9:18–22, 44; 18:31–33). In these passages, as well as at other times in the course of his ministry, Jesus had promised his own resurrection. And now before the disciples’ very eyes that promise has been tangibly realized. Jesus’ resurrection was not a random trick or an attention-grabbing stunt but the fulfilment of everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms, that is, the climax of human history.25 According to Luke, the scriptural canon finds its fulfilment not simply in Jesus but, more exactly, in the resurrected Jesus.
45. Yet prior to the disciples’ attempt to understand the scriptures, it was necessary for Jesus to open their minds. Apparently, apart from such illumination, proper understanding would be impossible. This mirrors another post-Easter event, for just as divine insight into Jesus’ person came only through the breaking of the bread (24:31), a similar divine intervention proves crucial for illuminating Scripture’s meaning. For Luke, then, neither Scripture nor the one to whom Scripture points can be fully grasped apart from the special illuminating work of God.
46–47. Exactly which Scriptures speak of the Messiah’s suffering and rising (on the third day) is not entirely clear. Equally uncertain is what texts Jesus has in mind when he talks of the scriptural promise that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations. This is not to say that Jesus’ scriptural reasoning is obscure, only that such scriptural points are lucid in varying degrees: the resurrection of the Messiah on the third day is perhaps the least clearly expressed; the repentance of the nations is more transparent.26 In any event, Jesus identifies his own resurrection, precisely as the Messiah, not only as the climax of Scripture but also as the necessary and sufficient condition for the preaching of repentance to the nations beginning from Jerusalem. The Holy City’s status as the hub of the Christian mission is consistent with its exalted role in the prophetic literature; it is also consistent with the structure of Acts, alluded to in Acts 1:8, moving centrifugally from Jerusalem (Acts 1:1 – 8:4) to Judea and Samaria (8:5 – 9:31), and then on to the ends of the earth (9:32 – 28:31).
48. No sooner does Jesus declare the gist of the gospel message than he also emphasizes the disciples’ role as witnesses.27 The word ‘witness’ (martys) is a legal term, likely reflecting the disciples’ vocation of testifying to God and his elect Servant – all within the context of the covenantal lawsuit envisioned by Isaiah (Isa. 43:10). As witnesses in this ‘Isaianic sense’, the disciples are being charged not only with attesting to the sheer fact of Jesus’ bodily resurrection but also with publicly interpreting it as the means and the manner by which return from exile would take effect. In this redemptive-historical framework, the resurrection becomes the decisive demonstration of Yahweh’s superiority over the gods as well as the grounds on which the nations’ idolatry stands condemned. Witness in the New Testament sense ineluctably leads to either redemption or judgment on the part of the hearers.
49. In order to discharge their calling, Jesus knew, the disciples would require sufficient empowerment. For this reason, he declares, I am sending upon you what my Father promised, or more literally, ‘the promise of my Father’ (epangelian tou patros mou), the Holy Spirit. With this promise, realized soon enough in Acts 1 – 2, comes a set of instructions: stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.
50. In anticipation of that moment of empowerment, where a missionary charge also precedes ascension (Acts 1:7–9), Jesus leads his followers out as far as Bethany, the spot from which he only days before made his final entrance into Jerusalem.28 It is there that Jesus – now lifting up his hands – blesses them. In part, Jesus’ blessing is designed to be a departure blessing, not unlike those bestowed by the patriarchs (e.g. Gen. 27:27–29; 48 – 49; Deut. 33 – 34) on their heirs as means of conferring personal presence and even power from beyond the grave (but in Jesus’ case, beyond ‘beyond the grave’!).29 More than this, it is also a priestly blessing.30 As priest representing both God and human beings, Jesus blesses as both God and a human being – at least the inclusio with earlier blessing scenes seems to suggest as much. For just as Elizabeth (1:42) and then Simeon had blessed Mary and Joseph (2:34) at the front end of the Gospel, now at its back end the human son of Mary and Joseph returns the horizontal blessing. And whereas in Luke’s opening chapters the likes of Zechariah and Simeon had blessed God from below (1:68; 2:28), now God in Christ is returning the blessing from above. Through the resurrection God, human and divine blessing comes full circle.
51. Even as Jesus blesses his disciples, he physically distances himself from them right before being carried up into heaven. The seamless transition between Jesus’ blessing and heavenward movement points to his continuing intercessory role in the ascension. The theological point is obvious enough: though the resurrected Jesus may be physically withdrawn from his people, symbolized by his withdrawal from his disciples before the ascension, Luke promises that Jesus’ presence and power are bound up in his high priestly blessing which he will continue to impart to the faithful.
52–53. The spectacle of an ascending Jesus makes no small impression on the astonished disciples. In response, unlike the different characters kneeling before Jesus in honorific homage (e.g. 5:12), the disciples kneel (proskynēsantes) in worship. More than a messiah (vv. 45–47), and more than a priest (v. 50), Luke also wants us to know, Jesus is also very God of very God and worthy of worship – a fitting and climactic point with which to close the Gospel. At the same time, the disciples’ worship is but a segue to their return to Jerusalem (hypestrespan eis Ierousalēm). This contrasts with a much earlier ‘return to Jerusalem’, when Jesus’ parents returned to the Holy City in search of their son, only finally to find him at the temple (2:43–46). Whereas Mary and Joseph had frantically combed the streets of Jerusalem in search of Jesus, the disciples return to Jerusalem with great joy, for – unlike Mary and Joseph – they are not ignorant of Jesus’ whereabouts and are confident that he is once again about the Father’s business, this time in the heavenly temple. So, too, the same great joy that the angels had promised at Jesus’ birth (2:10) is now at last bursting forth through the resurrection and ascension. Finally, like the prophetess Anna who worshipped God continually at the temple (2:36–37), the disciples remain continually in the temple blessing God: unlike Anna they have received the consolation of Israel (2:38) on the far side of resurrection.
And so the Gospel comes full circle. The Son of the Most High, the Lord God, the Son of David (to name a handful of Jesus’ titles), have converged in the person of the risen and ascended Jesus. That which had been glimpsed only dimly in the opening pages of Luke’s Gospel has now come into the full light of day – all culminating in a scene of continuing worship centred on Jesus. Meanwhile, Jesus’ act of blessing outside Jerusalem hints that the gravitational centre for God’s activity is poised to move well beyond the confines of Zion, anticipating the expanding mission in Luke’s second volume, the book of Acts.
In some sense, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the final word, the end of the story. In another sense, it is only the beginning – the beginning of a new story, the story of the church. That second story awaits to be told in the pages of Acts. Not content to write ‘about all that Jesus began to do and to teach’ in the Gospel (Acts 1:1, NIV), Luke will go on to tell of the Risen Jesus’ deeds as revealed through the Spirit and the church.
Towards setting the stage for the sequel, Jesus in this final pair of episodes confers two roles on the disciples: they are to be both witnesses and priests. As witnesses, their task is to attest to the Risen Christ, preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins by the power of the Spirit. As priests, duly ordained by the chief high priest Jesus himself, their primary vocation is one of worship. The focal space of this worship is the new holy place occupied by the Risen Lord in his ascended state; the focal object of that worship: Jesus himself. Though there might arguably be some overlap between the responsibilities of witness and priest, together the two roles summarize well all that the apostles will set out to do in Acts.
By implication, what is true of the Eleven is also to be true of the church. Built on the foundation of the apostolate, the church is called to witness and called to serve as a royal priesthood. Individually and corporately, Christians are called to mission and to worship. Though both are exceedingly important, between these two priorities the final emphasis falls on worship. Just as the Gospel of Luke began with worship, so too there it ends. It is as if the very Gospel text is saying that the story of Jesus must be wrapped in worship. For, as intimated elsewhere, it is above all those who sit at the Lord’s feet who will receive the inheritance – and it will not be taken away from them.
1. See commentary on Luke 8:22; 20:1.
2. On these details, see Hachlili, ‘Burials’, ABD 1, pp. 789–791. See also Chapman, DJG, pp. 97–100 (97–98).
3. The NRSV omits the phrase ‘of the Lord Jesus’ for text-critical reasons. In my judgment, the full expression is original.
4. Lieu, p. 201.
5. Whereas ‘perplexity’ typically refers to the inability to understand, the verb aporeō more narrowly denotes the sense of being at a loss to know what to do next (BDAG, p. 119).
6. Interestingly, Daniel must also bow his face to the ground before the interpreting angel of Daniel 10 (vv. 9, 15), right before the angel’s announcement of wars (Dan. 10) leading up to the resurrection of the righteous (Dan. 12).
7. In this vein, Josephus (Ant. 4.219) declares: ‘Let no evidence be accepted from women’ (my translation). Yet as Ilan (Jewish Women, pp. 163–166) shows, this does not mean that women were altogether barred from bearing witness; merely that their witness was regarded as inferior to that of men.
8. The Greek construction Maria hē Iakōbou (literally: Mary of James) may mean ‘Mary the wife of James’ or ‘Mary the daughter of James’. However, in the light of Mark 16:1, it is likely that Mary is James’s mother.
9. As the term (used only here in the NT) is sometimes associated with philosophical sophistry, one wonders whether Luke means to compare the Eleven’s dismissal of the women’s report to the Athenian philosophers’ scoffing at Paul’s announcement of resurrection (Acts 17:16–34).
10. Whereas there is an outside possibility that the present verse is not original to Luke’s Gospel (the RSV relegates it to a footnote), text critics and commentators broadly concur that the notice of Peter’s trip to the tomb is authentically Lukan.
11. So Fitzmyer, p. 1559.
12. That the community was already beginning to erode is suggested by Smith, Easter Gospels, p. 113. That there are two travellers is significant, given the necessity of multiple witnesses in vouching for this resurrection event (Deut. 19:15).
13. Contra, e.g., Fitzmyer, p. 1563.
14. See Strauss, Davidic Messiah, pp. 255–256.
15. Marshall (p. 893) thinks the besides all this refers to the Jewish notion that the soul would depart the body only on the third day, but this is doubtful.
16. Interestingly, 24:12 records that only Peter followed up on the women’s report, but the gist of 24:24 implies that the apostle was not alone – all consistent with the account in John 20:3–9.
17. See Bock, p. 918.
18. See Koenig, Hospitality, p. 116.
19. Just (Ongoing Feast, p. 239) asks, ‘Though most commentaries classify the Emmaus meal either as the Eucharist or as an ordinary meal, could it not be a unique meal within the table fellowship matrix that is Eucharistic even if it is not the first Christian Eucharist?’
20. The verb athroizō is rare in Scripture but may allude to the prophetic vision of a restored Israel in Ezek. 36:24 (‘I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you [athroisō] into your own land’; emphasis added). If so, the Ezekialian subtext hints that the post-Easter community is already experiencing the long-awaited return from exile.
21. Within Luke’s storied world, we should not excuse the disciples’ terrified reaction (ptoēthentes) as merely human or natural, since Jesus has earlier instructed them not to be terrified (mē ptoēthēte) (21:9).
22. The KJV and RSV prefer to translate pneuma as ‘spirit’.
23. See above commentary on Luke 1:12 for possible intertextual connections between Gabriel and Daniel. Such connections, together with the similar descriptions of Zechariah’s and the disciples’ experience of fear, render it likely that the women’s bowing their faces before the angels at the tomb (24:5) is connected with a similar response in Dan 10:9, 15, even as Jesus’ words ‘Peace be with you’ (24:36) are informed by Dan. 10:19 where the angel declares ‘peace be with you’ (ESV; shālōm lāk).
24. On this point, see Talbert, ‘Resurrection’.
25. The phrase refers to the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures; as Anderson (God Raised Him, p. 183) notes, the ‘Scriptures are unambiguously designated as the threefold Hebrew canon: Law of Moses, Prophets, and Psalms (24:44)’.
26. With regard to the nations, texts such as Pss 2; 16; 22; 110; Isa. 53; Hos. 6; Zech. 12 – 13 may have emerged at the forefront. For a fuller investigation, see Gronigen, Messianic Revelation.
27. The leading position of the personal pronoun hymeis (‘you’) reinforces the emphasis: ‘You are witnesses of these things!’
28. Atkins (‘Ascension’, p. 205) appropriately remarks: ‘By showing that the departure and blessing of the disciples was at the same place as the entry into Jerusalem, Luke crowns the triumphal entry with the triumphal exit of Christ.’
29. On this aspect, see discussion in Mekkattukunnel, Priestly Blessing, pp. 161–170.
30. As persuasively argued by Mekkattukunnel, Priestly Blessing, pp. 171–219. Contra, e.g., Marshall, p. 909; Nolland, pp. 1227–1228. For the priestly Christological theme in the Gospels overall, see Perrin, ‘Jesus as Priest’.