Lessons from a Walk with the Lord

According to Siri, about three-fourths of the technical terms in the field of medicine are derived from Greek. I don’t know if that percentage is accurate. I’m interested in only one of those diagnostic expressions. Bradycardia is a medical term used to describe an abnormally slow heart rate (anything below 60 beats per minute). Its etymology traces back to a Greek phrase (bradeis tē kardia) that Jesus happens to have used to describe two of his disciples.

What’s the Situation?

The historical circumstances are astonishing when you take the time to weave together the details from the Gospel accounts.

The disciples have huddled together in fear and confusion. They had just witnessed the vicious execution of their Master and Messiah a couple of days earlier. It’s early morning. Some of them are probably still asleep.

Suddenly a breathless Mary Magdalene bursts in. “The tomb where they laid Jesus . . . it’s open! And it’s empty!”

Amid the ensuing hubbub, several other women (Joanna, Salome, Mary the mother of James, and perhaps others) tumble in. They corroborate Mary Magdalene’s story. On top of that, they report that they also saw angels who told them Jesus had risen and is alive.

Peter and John exchange glances, simultaneously rise, and race to the tomb. What are these hysterical women babbling about? Returning shortly, they confirm that, yes, the tomb is empty . . . except for the graveclothes.

Though no one at this point has seen him yet, the disciples have heard multiple reports that Jesus is, indeed, alive.

Now comes the most bewildering and overlooked incident of the morning. Apparently at this moment—in the midst of  all this incredible news—two of the disciples decide to . . . take a road trip? From all reports, their crucified Master just miraculously rose from the grave, and they suddenly have the urge to go to Emmaus! What’s in Emmaus?

We have no idea of all the mitigating circumstances. Were they afraid for their safety? Maybe. Having successfully executed the Ringleader, the next move of the Jewish authorities would surely be to round up his followers. And now with the empty tomb, suspicions of body-snatching would obviously center on the disciples.

Whatever the reason, the timing is remarkable. Apparently Jesus thinks so, too, because he meets up with them on the road incognito and begins asking them questions. This is a “What doest thou here, Elijah?” moment if there ever was one. Recounting recent events as to a stranger, the two disciples explain (Luke 24:21–27):

But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us.  When they did not find his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said he was alive.  And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see.

Based on their own details, we can pretty much pinpoint exactly when they left that morning. It was after the report of Mary, the other women, and the confirmation of Peter and John. But it was before Mary saw him on her return to the tomb, and before the Lord appeared to Peter–which the disciples excitedly report to the two on their return to Jerusalem that evening (Lk 24:34).

But this was before all that. On the one hand, they were disappointed and confused by Jesus’ suffering and death. On the other hand, they could not quite bring themselves to believe the reports of his resurrection; otherwise, why are they sad and deserting Jerusalem? Jesus addresses both of these points of confusion.

Then he said to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!  Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

So What’s Their Problem?

Jesus almost sounds harsh. “Foolish” is not a swipe at their IQ, but it does reflect on their lack of thoughtful observation. These are disciples, not unbelievers; but Jesus is clearly disappointed with them. He rebukes them for their slowness of heart to believe. Believe what?

Jesus does not rebuke them for disbelieving the prophets; of course they believed the prophets. Nor does Jesus scold them for not understanding all that the prophets said. (Good thing, or most of us would be in trouble.) He rebukes their unreadiness to believe in everything that the prophets said (Lk 24:25). Those three words are crucial for understanding and applying Jesus’ rebuke. He then puts his finger on the two points they were obviously stumbling over (24:26) and proceeds to lay out before them a biblical theology of Messianic prophecy from the OT (Lk 23:27).

“Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things? The prophets said so!” The prophets were full of the sufferings of Messiah, and Jesus echoed their refrain all the way to the cross.[1]

“Ought not the Christ to enter into his glory? The prophets said so!” Likewise, “acceptance of what the prophets said should have led the disciples to believe the reports of the women at the tomb” (Marshall, Gospel of Luke [1978], 896). Jesus had been echoing that theme from the prophets all the way to the cross as well.[2]

In this interchange, “events and Scripture together raise the issue of faith in God’s promises” (Bock, Luke [1994], 384). At the heart of this confrontation between Jesus’ and some of his own disciples is the trustworthiness of all God’s prophetic words.

The bottom line is, “if the disciples [had] believed the Scriptures, they would not have been sad or confused” (Stein, The Gospel of Luke [1992], 612). Nor would they have been hoofing it out of Jerusalem on the most miraculous morning in world history. Those are pretty practical applications.

I don’t think the spiritual bradycardia Jesus diagnoses in Luke 24 was a unique condition limited to just these two disciples in all of Christian history. We can be “slow of heart to believe” the Scriptures for all kinds of reasons. For instance, that language describes a kind of pistic torpor in those of us whose interpretive assumptions and hermeneutical presuppositions prevent us from seeing certain events as consistent with what the prophets—if believingly embraced in their entirety—lead us to expect.

The following statement, for example, comes from an evangelical expressly rejecting the plain implications of Revelation 20. His first three words are intriguing:

We cannot believe that at the end God as the sovereign Ruler of the world . . . will suddenly and purposefully throw away that victory and permit the Devil a worldwide triumph even for the briefest time (Boettner, The Millennium [1979], 74-75; emphasis added).

Part of the problem, of course, is the misconception that the language of Rev 20:7-9 (if literally interpreted) involves either a “throwing away” of God’s victory or a “worldwide triumph” of the Devil. But the larger issue is the unwillingness to believe what the text says in pretty straightforward language because it simply doesn’t compute with one’s conception of the future. This ‘inability to believe’ the straightforward meaning of the prophet’s words sounds a lot like the Emmaus disciples’ “slow[ness] of heart to believe all that the prophets have said.”

Will That Be Me?

It’s speculation, of course, but I can imagine Christ having a Luke 24 moment with some of us in glory. Maybe with me. That’s a conversation I’d rather not have and a rebuke I’d rather not have to hear. I think I’d rather be scolded for being a bit too ready to believe that God would find a way to do exactly what he seems to have said. Walter Kaiser is on to something when he remarks that “prophecy is not about our being right or wrong, but about Jesus [and the prophets] being correct in what [they] declared the future to be like” (The Promise-Plan of God [2008], 387).

This is not about gullibility, believing every popular prophetic preacher in a pulpit or a podcast. It’s about simplicity when it comes to God’s words, and a readiness to believe (1) that he means what he says, (2) that he knows how to say exactly what he means, (3) that he has said exactly what he intends to do, and (4) that he can and will do whatever he says. Because all his words are totally trustworthy.

[1] John 3:14; Matt 16:21; 17:22-23; John 8:28; Mark 9:12; Luke 18:31-33; John 12:32; Matt 26:24, 54, 56; John 18:31-32. These passages are listed in chronological order, and none are parallels.

[2] John 2:19-22; Matt 12:39-40; 16:21; 17:9; 17:23; 20:19; 26:32. These passages are listed in chronological order, and none are parallels.