Imagine you were in a coma and awoke after many years. What’s the first thing you would do? Whatever that thing is, it would reveal your passions, your pleasures, and your priorities.
If you picked up the phone and called a pizza company, that would tell us something about you. If you ran home and hugged your mom, that would tell us something about you. If you went back to work, that would tell us something tragic about you. You, in that moment, would reveal your highest priority.
Jesus showed us his highest priority in his actions after rising from death three days after his bloody death on the cross.
Spiritually Blind
In Luke 24:13–35, we read that the very day Jesus rose from the dead two of his disciples were going to a village named Emmaus, and per the text, were, “talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”
Jesus is right there, and these disciples don’t see him. Jesus has a little fun with this situation, asking, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?”
Luke records, “And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas answered him, ‘Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?’”
“What things?” Jesus asks.
The two men respond, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him.”
There is a great lesson to be learned here: you can be physically alive and yet spiritually blind.
The sad truth is that this is the state of all people who are apart from Christ and those of us who are in Christ that choose to close our eyes to the truth of Christ. God has to open our hearts, our minds, and our eyes to know and understand him.
And that is exactly what Jesus does for these disciples, and consequently for us.
The Bible Is All about Jesus
In that moment, Jesus revealed himself to these disciples, saying, “‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that te Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
He then proceeds to teach about himself and the Scriptures, As Luke records, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
Talk about the most epic Bible study ever.
Importantly, we learn from this story how Jesus taught the Bible. There’s morality in the Bible, but it’s not primarily about morality. There’s religion, tradition, history, and miracles in the Bible, but it’s not primarily about those things. What Jesus teaches us is that the Bible is primarily about him.
Jesus’ Priority
Jesus loved his mom, but the first thing he did wasn’t to hug his mom. Jesus had brothers, but the first thing he did wasn’t to go to his brothers and say, “I’m back!” (That would all be later.)
No, the first thing Jesus does after he rises from death is go to his disciples, open the Old Testament, and methodically teach through it, connecting it all to him.
And Luke records “And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.”
The first thing Jesus did after the first Easter was to teach his disciples what the Scriptures said about him. I can think of no better example to follow. Who has God put in your life to sit down and explain the Bible to?