From Blindness to Sight
Updated: 3 days ago
Seeing Jesus on the Road of Disappointment
A written sermon on Luke 24
After an online spiritual formation retreat, having heard God speak to me and my situation, I made a short list of things I would do differently. I set aside times for retreats and listening, and I would memorize Scripture. The first days started well. But I soon hit the reality of ordinary life. I forgot my commitments, reordered my time and went back to the way things were before. Looking back, I felt hopeless again that I would ever see real change in my life or become the person I wanted to be. I am not happy to say how often this happens, and how often I find myself back on the road of sorrow and failure.
Luke 24 tells the story of two people walking home after a high point of their own. They had been in Jerusalem for the greatest Passover of all, the one that was supposed to be the moment of victory. Their loss was far deeper than mine. The one they had hoped in was dead. But the road home feels the same. The feast is over, ordinary life is waiting, and their hopes are in pieces.
This passage is for you if you have ever felt disappointed, as if your hopes and dreams are over; confused about what God is doing and why; alone, wondering where Christ is in your everyday life; or anxious, because you have made a commitment to God and aren’t sure how to keep going.
The chapter has three scenes: the women at the tomb, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and the disciples gathered in Jerusalem. All three follow the same movement, from confusion and hopelessness, to sight, to joining God’s mission. We will zoom in on the road to Emmaus, where the movement is clearest, and zoom out from time to time to see how the other two connect. The message is simple and clear: Jesus comes to us so that we might see.
No One Sees
As the two disciples walk, they try to make sense of what has happened, and they speak words that capture everything they feel:
“But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” (Luke 24:21)
They had seen Jesus do great works and speak words of life with authority. They had believed he was the redeemer, the one who would bring freedom and new life. Yet he had been crucified as a criminal and laid in a tomb. They never saw it coming, and with him all their hopes had died. Now it is time to go back to life and home, but life is not the same. Everything reminds them of what they have lost.
Loss is part of all our stories. Many of us have lost people we love, and all of us have lost hope at times, for the world and for ourselves. On this road we often wonder where God is. We are ashamed to say it aloud, but there are times when we doubt and wonder where our faith went. What once comforted us seems empty, and we feel abandoned by God, not sure where he is or whether he hears our prayers.
You are not alone in this, and Scripture is honest about it. It was the cry of Job and of the psalmists: “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1; see also Psalms 22, 42 and 88). It was the cry of Jesus himself on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). These are real experiences of people of faith, and we are invited to bring them into the light. We can come to God with our fears, our crushed hopes and our brokenness. He can handle them.
The two disciples are clear about their pain, and yet there is something they don’t see:
“While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” (Luke 24:15–16)
Jesus takes the initiative. They aren’t searching for him, and they aren’t strong in faith. In their hopelessness and doubts, he comes quietly and walks beside them, with no announcement and no grand entrance. He is risen and he is with them. Though they don’t know it yet, their story has already changed. God is at work and has answered their prayers. They simply can’t see it, and the truth was never defined by what they could see.
Why don’t they recognize him? Is God keeping them from seeing, or is there another reason? Luke seems to leave this deliberately vague. In doing so he draws us into the story, so that we want to shout, “Can’t you see who is standing in front of you? Open your eyes!” And he validates our own experience. Perhaps the reason I can’t see is something similar.
The passage also gives us clues. Jesus had told them what would happen: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Luke 9:22). He repeated it, and Luke tells us, “But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it” (9:45). Luke holds both together: the meaning was hidden from them, and they didn’t take it in. Now they have heard the women’s report of the empty tomb, and the apostles have dismissed it as “an idle tale” (24:11). They knew what they had hoped for, and when events unfolded differently, they could no longer see what God was doing. Their expectations and disappointment had left them “slow of heart to believe” (24:25).
All this tells me that we humans are terrible at interpreting our situations and seeing God among us. We trust our expectations, emotions, experiences and reasoning. None of these is bad in itself, but none of them is the measure of truth. Like the disciples with the cross, we see pain and loss as only bad and can’t understand what God is doing. Even when the plain truth walks beside us, we often can’t see it, because our expectations and emotions blind us, or because we forget what God has said and let our hearts grow hard.
So two things are true. First, no one sees well. We need help. We are all blind. Second, and more importantly, we are not alone. Jesus walks with us, often quietly, even when we are sure he isn’t there. If you are filled with hopelessness about the world today, Jesus walks with you. If you are filled with doubts about him, Jesus walks with you. If you have lost hope that you will ever be free of your sin, Jesus walks with you. He walks with us because he loves us. To the psalmists’ question of where God is, Jesus is the answer. In him, God is with us, and in the cross we know he comes near especially in our suffering and sin.
Since studying this passage, I have tried to remember this, to see with eyes of faith formed by Scripture. In this story Jesus is doing three ordinary things: walking, eating and talking. So in ordinary moments, I try to stop from time to time and say, “I don’t necessarily see you at the moment. But I believe that you are here.” Sometimes that leads me to think about what I would want to tell God. Sometimes I just let the truth fill my heart and carry the moment. Some of my most spiritual experiences have not been ones I expected or tried to manufacture. They have been quiet moments of recognition.
Jesus Opens Our Eyes
What strikes me is how Jesus comes. He doesn’t wait for clarity or strong faith, and he doesn’t force himself on them. He walks with them, asks questions and truly listens:
“What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” (24:17).
He lets them pour out their disappointment before he says a word about it. What a beautiful, humble and gentle helper.
Jesus comes to doubters gently, but he doesn’t leave them the same. After listening, he speaks, and he challenges their thinking:
“O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:25–26)
They are slow to trust that God could redeem this situation, and that he was working even now. They don’t lack information. All of Scripture and the words of Jesus should have made them ready for this moment. Their heated discussion isn’t getting them anywhere. They need revelation.
So Jesus brings them back to the Scriptures. “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (24:27). I would have loved to be at that Bible study. We aren’t told everything he said, but we are shown what he does. As he brings them to Scripture, he brings them to himself, because Scripture is where we meet and hear God. And he helps them understand their own story. What they thought was loss, he shows to be part of God’s great plan of salvation.
New circumstances can’t cure spiritual blindness. Jesus cures it by revealing himself through the Scriptures. In all three scenes of Luke 24, this is the turning point. The angels remind the women of Jesus’ words, “And they remembered his words” (24:8). On the road, Jesus explains the Scriptures and their hearts begin to burn. In Jerusalem, “he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (24:45). Even with burning hearts, the two on the road don’t yet see fully. Transformation unfolds slowly. But it does come.
The encounter doesn’t end with explanation. When they reach their village, he leaves room for an invitation:
“He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us’” (24:28–29).
He is an unexpected guest. The house probably isn’t ready for visitors, the food isn’t prepared, and their hearts are still full of questions. Yet they welcome him into this ordinary, unfinished space. Then something remarkable happens. The guest becomes the host:
“When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.” (Luke 24:30–31)
Take, bless, break, give: these four actions echo two earlier moments when Jesus and his mission were revealed. At the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus took the loaves, “said a blessing over them,” broke them and gave them to the disciples (9:16). Straight after that meal in Luke’s Gospel, Peter confesses that Jesus is “the Christ of God” (9:20). At the Last Supper, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it, saying, “Do this in remembrance of me” (22:19). Now, as Jesus serves them in the same way, their eyes are opened, and they see. At the table, memory and presence meet.
And then the most surprising thing of all: just as they see him, he disappears. Yet their sight remains. They no longer depend on his physical presence, because they now understand the deeper reality. He is alive, and he is with them.
Seeing again
Notice that Luke describes their seeing in the passive: “their eyes were opened.” The blind people who met Jesus in the Gospels could do nothing to make themselves see except come to him, and spiritual sight is the same. It is a miracle of grace. All true seeing is an act of mercy. Jesus walks patiently with us, every day, so that we might see.
The work belongs to God, yet the story shows how we take part as Jesus opens our eyes. If we notice that we are spiritually blind, the passage invites us to three things.
Scripture. Scripture is where we meet him, and where we gain the perspective to understand our stories within the bigger story. The two disciples said, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (24:32). They went from sadness to wonder, and that is what a real encounter with Scripture does. There is no shortcut to it, and there is nothing better. We need rhythms of listening, alone and together, staying long enough for our hearts to be shaped. Even when we don’t feel it, we can trust that meeting Scripture is meeting Jesus.
Remembering. The women remembered when the angels reminded them of Jesus’ words. On the road, Jesus did the same for the two, taking them back through Moses and the Prophets. We are forgetful people, and our forgetfulness leads to blindness. So we practice remembering what God has said, what he has done, what we have experienced and what we are learning. Make time, in the presence of Jesus and with his people, to stop, remember and reflect.
Welcome. The disciples welcomed Jesus into an unfinished space, and we are invited to do the same. It is easy to invite Jesus in when our lives look clean and tidy. Here we are invited to make room for him when they are messy. When we welcome him into our confusion and struggle, he becomes the host and turns those places into places where we see God. And sight keeps growing as we share life with him, in Scripture, prayer, community and service.
This is a new way of living, and it takes time. Jesus is patient with our slowness. The important thing is to keep going.
Seeing Leads to Witness
Once we see, we never stay the same. What surprises me is that in each scene of Luke 24, when people begin to see, they become witnesses. The women find the tomb empty, remember Jesus’ words, and go and tell (24:9). The two disciples “rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem” to tell what had happened (24:33–35). The gathered disciples move from fear to encounter and are commissioned:
“You are witnesses of these things” (24:48).
No one had to tell these disciples to share the news or train them to do it. Once they understood how great it was, they had to tell. They went back to the very place of pain and loss to bring others the good news of the resurrection, but now they went with hope, joy and new eyes.
It is the same for us. When we truly see, we will be compelled to tell others. Believing and witnessing go hand in hand. Jesus never separated the two, and when we do, our faith becomes fragile. So let me ask gently: if we are not witnessing, could it be a sign of a deeper lack of sight? If we think we see but aren’t taking part in what God is doing in the world, why might that be?
Why does Jesus send them out at all? He doesn’t need us. Just as he appeared to these disciples, he could appear to anyone. He calls them to be witnesses because it helps them keep seeing. Telling reminds them of what they have seen. It sends them back to the Scriptures, keeps them aware of their dependence on Jesus, and draws them to him. And it leads to their joy.
He also promises that they won’t be alone: “And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you” (24:49). They didn’t open their own eyes, and they won’t open anyone else’s. The Spirit empowers them to speak, and he is the one who brings people to life. We are simply invited to share the good news faithfully and boldly.
The way Jesus comes alongside people who can’t see becomes a pattern for us, with Christians and with those who don’t yet believe. He began by walking with them and listening well. One of the best ways we can help others is to journey with them and ask good questions. Sometimes what people need most is not all our answers, but first to know that they are heard and that someone cares. Then Jesus pointed them to the Scriptures and helped them understand their story within God’s, and we can point others to Jesus in the Scriptures. Finally, he led them to an encounter with himself.
Sight is something only Jesus can give, so we help others welcome Jesus in. He is a gentle and wonderful guest, and he will lead them to sight. Jesus is still the one who opens the eyes of the blind.
Welcome him in
We are all walking our own roads to Emmaus, marked by confusion, disappointment and loss. Luke reminds us that we don’t walk alone: Jesus draws near, even when we can’t recognize him.
So where are you on the road right now? You might feel far from God. You might feel your heart burning. You might be joining Jesus in witness and wondering whether it makes any difference. Wherever you are, I have good news:
“Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).
Jesus is here, and he brings salvation with him.
So come to him and welcome him in. Come honestly. Come with your confusion. Come with your disappointment. Come with your sin. Listen to him, and he will bring the change you need.
These disciples were on the way, and so are we. Keep coming to the Scriptures. Keep remembering what God has said and done. Keep welcoming Jesus into the unfinished places of your life and sharing life with him. And keep telling others what you have seen. As you walk with him, you will continue to see. When you fail, as I so often have, don’t stop. Jesus has grace for you. Confess, ask for help and keep going.
May you see, and keep seeing, to the very end.
FOR REFLECTION
1. Where do you recognize yourself in the story of the two disciples on the road to
Emmaus?
2. When is it hardest for you to remember the gospel, believe, and hold on to
hope?
3. Which of the practices in this passage (Scripture, remembering, welcoming
Jesus in) do you sense God inviting you to take up? What would help you keep
going with it?
4. Who could you walk alongside, by listening, opening the Scriptures and
pointing them to Jesus?
