Today is the day you can get clarity on the story of the Bible, a unified story that includes you. It’s the story of God, the world, and God’s answer to the human predicament. If you understand this story, you will understand who you are and how to live. It will give your life hope and meaning. We truly need this more than ever. 

Big Idea: Move beyond not understanding to understanding the storyline of Scripture, to gaining spiritual eyesight so you can see.

It’s not hard to understand events, even important events. What’s really hard is understanding what they mean.

For instance: We all understand that a virus broke out in Wuhan sometime late last year. A lot of us knew that event back at the beginning of this year, but few of us understood its meaning. But some people were wise enough that they were able to not only understand the event but the meaning of that event and were sounding the alarm about its consequences very early. Some understood the event only; others understood what it meant and were much better prepared to respond.

It’s the same with what we’re celebrating today. It’s not hard to understand the event. The passage that was just read for us does a good job of describing the actual events in verses 19 to 25:

• Jesus of Nazareth was known as a prophet for what he did and said.
• The chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned, and they crucified him.
• This disappointed a lot of people, who were hoping that Jesus would save Israel.
• On the Sunday after Jesus was killed, women found an empty tomb and saw angels who told them that Jesus was alive.
• Others verified the women’s story and confirmed that the tomb was empty.

Those are the bare facts. No matter who you are — believer or skeptic — those are the facts that you need to wrestle with. The historic evidence is there. There’s very little doubt that these facts are true whether you’re a believer or not.

The trick is what to make of them. And this story leads us through three possible reactions to these bare facts and the conclusions we can make.

Option One: Don’t Understand

The first option is confusion. It’s where things start out in this passage as we meet two men walking to Emmaus, a village seven miles from Jerusalem. As they walked they were discussing what to make of the facts I just mentioned above, because it seemed to make no sense to them at all.

There are a couple of kinds of confusion. One may be that you doubt that these events even happened. That’s not what the two people in the story experienced, but it may be what some of you face. If that’s you, then I encourage you to take a closer look. Look at the historic evidence. The vacant tomb of Jesus is a historic reality, and it’s pretty hard to discount. So take an honest look. I think you’ll discover that there’s no need to be confused about the actual facts. I encourage you to investigate them for your self.

Okay, there’s another kind of confusion, and it’s the kind that the two men in this story faced. They were devastated because they didn’t understand how Jesus’ death fit with who they expected him to be. They were so disappointed. They had expected Jesus to save Israel, and instead, he was killed. They were shattered.

Even though they had heard about the empty tomb, they couldn’t explain it.

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