And Now I See: Reading the Old Testament with Jesus (sermon series)

¹³ Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁴and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. ¹⁵While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, ¹⁶but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. ¹⁷And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. ¹⁸Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ ¹⁹He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. ²¹But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. ²²Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, ²³and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. ²⁴Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’ ²⁵Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! ²⁶Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ ²⁷Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. ²⁸ As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. ²⁹But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. ³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. ³¹Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. ³²They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’~ Luke 24:13-32 

My kids are retro t.v. watchers, they get it from there mother. The more vintage, black and white, over-the-top acted the better. We own, for example, the entire series of the original Twilight Zone. In one of those episodes, which I was forced against my will to watch, aliens come to earth seeking to be our friends and to end the great woes that have plagued us: war, famine, disease, poverty, etc. While many world leaders remain skeptical they are put at ease when cryptographers initially break through the alien’s language, noting that there premier book is titled, To Serve Man. Soon, humans are volunteering for trips to the aliens' home planet, which is portrayed as a paradise.  With the Cold War ended the code-breaking staff has no real work to do, so American cryptographers continue  to work out the language of the text in order to read To Serve Man. At the end of the episode, the main character is boarding the aliens’ spaceship. As he mounts the stairs one of the cryptographers runs into the scene in great agitation and cries: “Mr. Chambers, don't get on that ship! The rest of the book To Serve Man, it's... it's a cookbook!” 

Today we begin a series of sermons about Jesus’ relationship to the OT. For many of us, the OT is all-together strange – written in a strange language from a place and time that for all practical purposes can feel very alien. But – we have been told that these books are for us and for our salvation – used by Jesus to talk about himself, his mission, God’s grace for our lives. And yet many of us feel a bit nervous – How is the OT “to serve man?” so to speak. Is it a book truly “to assist us” or is it there “to make of us a meal”? And I want to help you understand that it’s the former and not the latter. 

So today I have a one point sermon.

           1.     The Old Testament is Jesus’ book. (the “is” is important)

What do I mean by stating that the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures is Jesus’ book?: a quick survey

• He read and often quoted it (Luke 4:4-12 / Deut. 6:13, 16; 8:3),
• acknowledged its authority and importance for his disciples (Matt.  5:17-19)
• prayed it (Matt. 27:46 / Psalm 22),
• raised questions from it (Matt. 22:43-44 / Psalm 110:1) ,
• argued with others about it (Luke 20:17 / Psalm 118:22-23),
• chastised others with it (Matt 15:7-9 / Isaiah 29:13),
• taught about God from it (Matt 22:37-39),
• claimed authority over it (Matt 5:21-48 / Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy),
• enacted it (Mark 11:1-11 / Zech. 9:9),
• interpreted it (Matt. 26:31 / Zech 13:7),
• refused to do critical parts of it (John 8:1-11 / Deut. 22:22),
• referenced himself by it (Mark 14:62 / Daniel 7),
• gained his mission from it (luke 4:17-19 / Isaiah 61:1-2),
• from a Trinitarian perspective even wrote it.

In his preface to the Old Testament, Martin Luther said, “Here you find the swaddling clothes and the manger in which Christ lies, and to which the angel points the shepherds (Luke 2:12). Simply and lowly are these swaddling clothes, but dear is the treasure, Christ, who lies in them.”

Now, Martin Luther is surely saying something true but I don’t think given our list it’s radical enough. If the OT is to be the clothes that Jesus’ wears then you must know that they come from the cotton seeds he plowed and planted into the soil, cultivated with loving care, harvested, processed and then spun into cloth. Afterwards, he designed the clothes, sewed them carefully, and only then did he wear them. That’s what I mean by stating that the OT Scriptures are his.

So - to not read it, to refuse to study it, to speak ill of it, to fail to find him in it, will leave you having to answer to no one less than Jesus himself. Friends, to refuse to welcome and reverence the OT in your life, I’m arguing, is simply and categorically unChristian. “Okay pastor” – some of you are thinking – “thanks for the bombastic guilt trip. But what does this mean practically? I mean there’s a lot in the OT and some of it’s strange, some of it’s kind-of boring, some vicious, some beautiful, some X-Rated, and some even Jesus and the Apostles didn’t don’t do anymore. So help me out with that!”

How does this story of Jesus’ bible study with the two on the road to Emmaus help us read the Old Testament?  So here is where I’ve pulled a Twilight Zone trick – It’s true I only have one point but there are four sub-points. The point is not to belabor them – this is not one sermon on the topic but the first of many. I simply want to use this text to begin to point us in the right direction.

          1.     First, the Bible should be read as a whole. The Bible seeks to tell a story – the particular story of God’s gracious covenant act of creating and saving the world.  The gospel is that part of the story of Jesus which brings the story of the OT – the story of Israel – to its completion. So you need to know that beginning part of the story – you can’t watch the climax of a movie as a YouTube clip and think you understand what’s happened, you can’t only hear Darth Vader say, “Luke, I am your Father,” and understand truly what is going on without knowing what came before.  And Jesus doesn’t offer new visions from heaven or mysteries from beyond the grave but instead focuses on patient exposition of Israel’s Scripture.  Moreover, the testimony to Jesus is to be found “in all the scriptures,” not just in a few isolated proof texts. The whole story of Israel’s narrative finds it completion in this suffering messiah. So yeah, to be a faithful Christian who follows Jesus you will have to read Leviticus and Deuteronomy as well as the Psalms and Isaiah.

          2.     Second, the Old Testament should be read with Jesus in mind. Now that we know the surprising climax, we aren’t being asked to forget it as we read the earlier part of the story. In fact, we now can pick up on clues that otherwise we hadn’t seen, couldn’t know, because the main reveal hadn’t happened – I’m of course talking about Jesus’ death and resurrection. So the most important Bible study question when reading the OT is not “what does this mean (to its original audience)?” or “What does this mean to me?” But, what does this mean in light of Jesus? Jesus’ explains that the issue is about what relates to Him – “he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” It means that Jesus’ story is the interpretive lens by which we read. So we need to read both forwards and backwards from the vantage point of the resurrection. On the one hand, the Old Testament then is understood rightly as a messy journey of God with God’s people. It’s a text that is going somewhere, that in its very pages points to a hopeful future and that future culminates in Jesus and a new community which is us. But we also need to read it backwards from that event, which will allow us to recognize Jesus’ in other places. Isaiah 53 wasn’t read this way, as relating to the messiah, until Christians did so. The most important point is that we must abandon control over the text because Jesus is its fundamental interpreter, which probably means that prayer is far more important than that Bible dictionary or commentary on your shelf. This is why the resurrection is so important. Jesus is alive and anxious to reveal himself. It’s what should drive us to the text – for it helps us see Him even as He helps us read it.

          3.     Third, we need to read with a warning in mind.

I’d like to think that Jesus’ twin judgments against Cleopas and his anonymous partner are instructive – “Foolish” and “Slow of Heart.” First, there’s “foolish” – I understand that to mean that they have not brought to bear there critical thinking to the text. They’ve not read it as carefully as they should. They’ve not listened to it well enough. And Jesus references the whole of the OT so we can’t simply pick and choose ahead of time where we might find him. But the second judgment is also instructive – “Slow of heart.” “Slow of heart” is not so much an intellectual issue but a moral one and that moral has everything to do with suffering and the human condition. We will see that Jesus always read the OT with an eye to suffering, particularly the suffering of others (John 8, for example). And that his closest doctrinal companions, the Pharisees, are often accused of missing point because they refuse to see the suffering of others or even worse heap up burdens on people that they cannot bear. Think about Jesus’ debates with them over Sabbath. Both used the OT but Jesus put the OT in discussion with the actual suffering of real flesh and blood people. The Pharisees had an abstract hermeneutic of glory – which failed to incorporate suffering. It could only read texts in the abstract.  Jesus warns the disciples – God is found in suffering – so suffering must be a way that you read!

    

          4.     Fourth, we need to read sacrificially. I’m struck by the fact that Jesus’ impromptu Bible study did not produce seeing in the two disciples. That despite his great discussion or sermon they still failed to see who it was that was walking along with them. So Jesus does a bit of a ruse – “pretending” to go farther. What do they do? They practice the Old Testament on him as the stranger. Prior to his death, Jesus had taught them that the Old Testament could be summed up in the greatest commandment using two verses from the OT, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  

    

     So basically, I’d like to think of this as sort of a gracious test – do you get it? Can they hear the word of God and do it? Will they read the Bible carefully – hear what it says about the stranger, a neighbor, God’s saving love – and act on it? Will you follow my teaching?, Jesus asks. Will you remember my words, “Blessed are those who listen to the Word of God and do it.” And when they do act on it, what does Jesus do? He offers them an Old Testament meal and it’s there that the scripture comes alive, that they see Him, that they are nourished by them.