Revealed: Jesus reveals his identity to those who seek him. This is a Bible study teaching on Luke 24:1-35 from the “Explore the Bible” series from Lifeway.
What Happened on the Day of Resurrection?
Happy Pentecost! Today is the day that the Holy Spirit came to and tongues of fire fell upon the disciples that were waiting for when they were assembled together in the upper room.
So this study is curriculum from Lifeway. We’re given a theme, the verses, leader studies and a lesson plan that you could print out and use almost without any preparation on your own. They’re good guides … but I think this session and this plan highlight something very significance. This lesson plan ends next week with the last part of this chapter with Jesus giving what is known of as the Great Commission.
The lesson plan ends with Luke and Jesus, but the church doesn’t start until the Holy Spirit comes in Acts.
4 Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. 5 John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
I have an article about the significance of Pentecost and it’s place in the Spring Feasts, but today we’re going to look at Luke 24 when Jesus revealed himself to his disciples. Today’s lesson, revealed is a reminder of how blind we are without the revealing presence of the Holy Spirit.

Last week, we studied the turning point of history, the day Jesus, the Lamb of God was crucified. For hundreds of years, the Jews had been looking forward to the coming of their Messiah. He came. Their deliverer was here. They rejected him. They turned him over to the Roman authorities to be crucified.
Even though every step and every moment was a part of God’s plan, they didn’t recognize it or Him. This is an example of how God can use our own evil, free will actions to bring about his perfect plan. It is not God’s will for any of us to lie, betray, or manipulate people, but he knows what will happen, what we will do and he works all things together for the good of those who love him.
We know the story. It seems like all is at an end. This hope of a Messiah, a deliverer that would bring about a change in their circumstances seemed to have come to nothing. Jesus was dead and buried. The Pharisees had won, the Romans were placated, and the disciples were hiding out in an upstairs room, probably wondering if they would be next.
But then comes Sunday. The women go out to finish preparing the body for burial. This finalization was actually standard practice in the Ancient Near East at the time. The women were going out to do what needed to be done, the hard and heartbreaking work.
But they found something unexpected. The tomb was empty, and two angels told them that Jesus was not there, but that he was risen.
5 The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? 6 He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.
The women were commissioned to be the very first evangelists and tell the disciples the good news. But they weren’t believed. This account of the women that were the first to report the resurrection is one of the strongest evidences of the truth of the Gospel narratives. In the culture of that day, women were not deemed competent witnesses. They could not give testimony in a matter. If the account of the discovery of the empty tomb were manufactured, women would not have been said to have discovered it.

From the Jewish Virtual Library on the witness of women.
11 But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it. 12 However, Peter jumped up and ran to the tomb to look. Stooping, he peered in and saw the empty linen wrappings; then he went home again, wondering what had happened.
The tomb was empty. The women told the apostles what they saw. But they weren’t believed. Even though many of the people in the group had been with Jesus throughout his ministry, they had seen the sight of the blind restored, the lame walking, the storms calmed, and the dead brought back to life … the idea that Jesus himself would rise from the dead was too far outside of what they had expected to happen.
They had expected a Messiah that would overthrow their Roman oppressors and establish his reign on earth. His close disciples had expected that they would have positions and rule with them.
Somehow, they never associated the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 with Jesus. When Jesus suffered each thing that Isaiah described … this didn’t fit what they thought would come.
Who has believed our message?
To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
nothing to attract us to him.
3 He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
5 But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.7 He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
8 Unjustly condemned,
he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
that his life was cut short in midstream.
But he was struck down
for the rebellion of my people.
9 He had done no wrong
and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
he was put in a rich man’s grave.10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
This is one of the Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. It shows a Messiah who is “crushed.” So why didn’t even Jesus’s own followers recognize what happened to Jesus as part of the prophesied plan?
Even though the Jewish people were looking for their Messiah, there was debate about how to interpret the prophecies, some of which seemed to contradict each other, and how they would all fit together.
Although Isaiah 53 and other prophecies indicate a gentle and meek Messiah, there are others that describe a conquering king.
For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. (Zechariah 14:2-4)
The pictures painted by those prophecies seemed so opposite to each other that some believed they described two different Messiahs which they labeled as “Messiah Ben Joseph,” one who suffered in order to bring deliverance to his people like Joseph did in Egypt, and “Messiah Ben David,” a conquering king.
One Jewish interpretation taught that how the Messiah came would depend on the actions of his people.
“If the people of Israel will be righteous, the Messiah will come in the clouds of Heaven. If they will not be righteous, he will come as a poor man riding upon an ass” (Sanhedrin 98a).
So it seems that Jesus’s followers were expecting that conquering king. When their Messiah’s mission ended in seeming defeat, they didn’t know how to process it. They didn’t recognize what they had seen as a fulfillment of Scriptures.
There is debate among Jesus’s followers. Most don’t believe the women.
3 That same day two of Jesus’ followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem.
So it seems that these two followers have decided it’s over and they are going back to their business. A little further in the passage, we find out that one of the men is Cleopas. Three early church writers identified Cleopas as the brother of Joseph, Mary’s husband.
14 As they walked along they were talking about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them. 16 But God kept them from recognizing him.
They are not expecting a visitation. They saw the signs at Jesus’s death, the darkness and the earthquake. They’ve been told that they’re something odd going on at the tomb. But they don’t expect anything out of the ordinary. Yes, Luke writes that “God kept them from recognizing him,” but I don’t think they were looking for him either. I think we need to ask ourselves, if Jesus came walking along beside us, would we recognize him?
17 He asked them, “What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?”
They stopped short, sadness written across their faces.
18 Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, “You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days.”19 “What things?” Jesus asked.
“The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth,” they said. “He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people. 20 But our leading priests and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. 21 We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago.
We see here that the hope is for Israel alone. They saw the sum total of the promised deliverance as nothing beyond their own country. The Messiah was to be one of them, for them alone. But in the God’s promise to Abraham, he said, “all the nations of the world would be blessed.”
The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”
22 “Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. 23 They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! 24 Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, his body was gone, just as the women had said.”
22 “Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. 23 They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! 24 Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, his body was gone, just as the women had said.”
25 Then Jesus said to them, “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. 26 Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?” 27 Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
So Jesus explained it all, but note that they still didn’t recognize him.
28 By this time they were nearing Emmaus and the end of their journey. Jesus acted as if he were going on, 29 but they begged him, “Stay the night with us, since it is getting late.” So he went home with them. 30 As they sat down to eat, he took the bread and blessed it. Then he broke it and gave it to them. 31 Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared!
32 They said to each other, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” 33 And within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven disciples and the others who had gathered with them, 34 who said, “The Lord has really risen! He appeared to Peter.”
The Jews missed their Messiah because he didn’t look like what they thought he would. They wanted a conquering king. They were expecting a king that would make Israel the world power, one where they would no longer be oppressed or at war. That is one of those Messianic promises.
But look at where they are today. They have the land, but they don’t have peace. They have their own ruler, who is corrupt.*
This Bible lesson was originally taught by Carla Alvarez on May 23, 2021 in the Kingdom Citizen Bible study Class at the Second Baptist North campus in Kingwood, Texas.
Note: December 29, 2024
I taught this Bible study in May of 2021, before the Hamas’s treacherous and inhuman attack during the Sukkot celebration and before Israel’s brutal retaliation. Benjamin Netanyahu is extremely, extremely corrupt. His only support is by the far right Orthodox who, like the Twelvers in Islam waiting for their Mahdi, believe they will be building their Messiah’s kingdom, wrenching it by force.
I have read articles that Netanyahu rejected all attempts at any reconciliation and instead chose a scorched earth policy, including attacking women and children.
Is Hamas a terrorist organization that funnels the aid from the world into attacking and undermining the State of Israel? Absolutely.
Can Hamas be trusted? No.
Does Hamas and its affiliates propagandize its own people to hate Israel and see them as the source of their oppression while also putting the responsibility of the support of their own people on Israel? Yes, it does.
Has the “Palestinian refugee crisis” been manufactured by Israel’s enemies for the past seventy years to use as a wedge to delegitimize Israel’s existence as a nation? Yes.
All of those things can be true and it still be true that Netanyahu is corrupt and using the current war with Hamas to perpetrate genocide against the Gazan people who are being used as collateral damage in this war as deflection from his own crimes.
If Hamas’s terrorism and attacks against citizens are evil, it is evil when Israel does it as well.
We, as Americans, believe that we are endowed with inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” by the Creator himself, and that is true for all people, not just citizens of the United States. We should respect the Gazans as human beings that have the right to live in safety.
I support the nation of Israel and it’s right to exist as a self-determined nation and a people with a whole land and reasonable boundaries. I do not support the ruthless eradication of a people who have nowhere else to go.
Current Stories About Benjamin Netanyahu
Mick Krever, “Accusations of genocide. Charges of corruption. Improbably, Netanyahu had a good year,” CNN, December 26, 2024, accessed December 29, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/26/middleeast/netanyahu-israel-year-popularity-intl-cmd/index.html
The article above mentions “the creation of a Palestinian state.” There already IS a “Palestinian state” — Jordan. The British Mandate for Palestine included the area that is now Jordan. Before the territories were released to their own governance, a census was taken and the land that was originally designated for the Jewish homeland was partitioned by population with Israel as the Jewish state and TransJordan as the Arab/Palestinian state. TransJordan was later renamed to Jordan.
“Netanyahu is testifying in his corruption trial. He has been dogged by scandal for years” AP News, December 10, 2024, accessed December 29, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/israel-netanyahu-corruption-trial-scandals-13d309b5513d8f18c67a7cb364b97533
Anshel Pfeffer, “Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever: One man’s ambition has undermined Israel’s security and consumed its politics.” The Atlantic, March 27, 2024, accessed December 29, 2024. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/03/benjamin-netanyahu-worst-prime-minister-israel-history/677887/
Netanyahu is a would-be king who won’t leave office. From the article.
“Twelve years of Netanyahu’s leadership had seemingly made Israel more secure and prosperous, with deep trade and defense ties across the world. But this wasn’t enough to win him another term. A majority of Israelis had tired of him, and he had been tainted by charges of bribery and fraud in his dealings with billionaires and press barons. In the space of 24 months, Israel held four elections ending in stalemate, with neither Netanyahu nor his rivals winning a majority. Finally, an unlikely alliance of right-wing, centrist, left-wing, and Islamist parties managed to band together and replace him with his former aide Naftali Bennett in June 2021.”