Did Not Our Jesus doesn’t just want a decision from you. He wants to sit at your table and share a meal, the way he did on the Emmaus road.
Burning Hearts Series
Chapter FourWhen he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. — Luke 24:30
For three chapters now we have been out on the road to Emmaus, and at last we come off the road. We have watched their hearts, their ears, their eyes — three chapters, three parts of a person, each one changed by the same open Book.
But did you notice something about all three?
Every one of them was a private thing. A single soul and its God. Your heart. Your ears. Your eyes. The whole journey so far has been one a man could make alone — the Book open on his own knees, in his own quiet room, and the door shut.
And that is good. That is necessary. But it is not where the story ends.
Watch what happens now. The two travelers come near to the village, and Luke tells us Jesus continued on as if he were going farther (Luke 24:28). He acts as though He will walk straight past. He will not force His way in. He waits. And then the two of them do the one thing that changes everything — they urge Him. They press Him. Stay with us, they say, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over. They would not take no for an answer.
So He goes in. And in that moment the road becomes a room. The walking becomes a table. The mysterious stranger becomes their honored guest. And it is there — not out on the empty road, but inside, at a plain table, in the breaking of an ordinary loaf — that everything finally breaks open.
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him. — Luke 24:30‑31
He was known to them in the breaking of bread.
Now we must ask why. Why the table? Why bread and thanks and the work of hands — why does this of all things open the sealed eyes?
Remember what the Word has been the whole way through this book so far: not information about God, but God Himself, breathed out, His own voice sounding off the page. John tells us why the table can hold so much of it: the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:14). What had been opened to their ears and their hearts out on the road does not fall silent the moment the walking stops. It simply changes shape — from a voice explaining to a Person sitting down, from words unfolded to hands held out. The very Word that had warmed them mile after mile is, at this table, made flesh once more, doing with bread what it had only just finished doing with Scripture.
Because the table is not incidental to the story of Jesus. The table is at the very center of everything He came to do. A new covenant was sealed at a table. The greatest declaration of love in all of history was spoken at a table. And the proof that He had overcome death was given — not in a vision, not in a shout from the sky — but at a table, with food and friends and broken bread.
So we gather at the table. Three things. It knocks and asks to come in. It loves us to the very end. And it puts that same bread into our hands, to break for others.
It Knocks
There is something about the Emmaus story that I have never been able to get past, and I have thought about it for years. The risen Lord of glory — the One who conquered death, who holds the keys of hell and of death in His own hands, before whom every knee in heaven and earth will one day bow — walks to a stranger’s door, and waits. He acted as if He were going farther. He will not push past. He will not demand entry. He knocks, in effect, and stands there in the evening, and waits to be asked. There is no image in the whole Bible more tender than that one.
Hear Jesus say it in His own words:
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.” — Revelation 3:20
Feel the strangeness of that. The Lord of the universe is standing outside a door. Not commanding it to open. Not breaking it down. Standing there, knocking, and waiting for someone inside to hear, and turn the handle, and say, come in.
And notice what He says He will do the moment He is let in. Not deliver a lecture. Not conduct a formal inspection. He will come in and eat with them. He is not simply offering salvation as a transaction — a form signed, a box ticked, a debt cleared. He is offering a meal. He is offering to sit down with you at your own table, in your ordinary house, in the middle of your ordinary life, and share bread with you. That is how close He wants to be. Not a God observed from a distance through the glass of a cathedral window, remote and magnificent and untouchable. A guest at your table, pulling up a chair.
The two on the Emmaus road had no idea what they were doing when they pressed a tired stranger to stay the night. They were being kind to a man they thought they had never met. And in that one act of ordinary hospitality, they made room for the risen Christ to come in and sit down and change their lives forever. He is standing at your door. Some of you have been walking past Him for a long, long time. And the question is the simplest one in the world: will you ask Him in?
For notice how He comes in — only ever by invitation. It is the travelers who must ask:
But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” — Luke 24:29
There is so much packed into those few words. Stay with us. They had no idea how desperately they needed what they were asking for. They thought they were being polite. They thought they were offering a bed to a stranger. But in that simple invitation — stay with us — they were doing the one thing that would turn their entire night around. And notice: He would not have stayed without it. He acted as though He were going on. He waited for the asking. The God who holds galaxies in His hand waits for two tired, heartbroken people to say, please stay. He will not go where He is not wanted. He never has. But where He is wanted — where even one person turns to Him and says, stay, come in, I need You — He goes in. Every time.
And when He comes, He comes to you in particular, because He knows your name:
“He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” — John 10:3
He knows your name. Not your category. Not your type. Your name. He did not come to the road to Emmaus to find travelers in general — He came alongside these two specific, named, heartbroken people, and He walked with them at their pace, and He asked them their questions, and He listened to their grief, and He opened the whole of Scripture to them on that seven-mile road. And then He waited at their door. Because He knew their names. He knows yours. And He is not standing at some general door with a general offer for whoever might be passing. He is standing at your door, saying your name, and waiting for you to let Him in.
That is where all of this begins — not with a decision reached at the end of a logical argument, but with a door opened. Stay with us. Come in.
It Loves
Now we get to the heart of it. Because when we ask why Jesus chose a table — why He was made known to them in the breaking of bread, why Revelation 3:20 promises not a handshake but a meal — we have to go back to another table, on another night, just a few days before. The night He was betrayed. The night He sat down with His friends one last time and showed them, in the plainest possible way, exactly how much He loved them.
John sets the scene:
It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. — John 13:1
Stop at that last phrase. He loved them to the end. The Greek word there, eis telos, means to the uttermost — to the full limit, to the last possible degree, all the way through and all the way out to the farthest edge of love. He knew that night that Judas was going to betray Him. He knew that Peter was going to deny Him three times before the cock crowed. He knew that every single one of them was going to abandon Him before the night was out — scatter like frightened birds the moment the soldiers came. He knew all of it. And He sat down at the table with them and loved them anyway. Not because they deserved it. Not because they had earned it. Not because they were going to hold up their end of the bargain — because He knew, better than they did, that they were not going to. He simply loved them. All the way to the end. To the uttermost. There is no love in the history of the world quite like that.
And then He did something extraordinary. He got up from the table, took off His outer clothing, tied a towel around His waist, and washed their feet. Twelve pairs of feet — dirty from the roads of Jerusalem, belonging to men who were going to fail Him before sunrise. And He went from one to the next, on His knees with the basin, doing the work of the lowest household servant. And then He looked up at them and said, in effect: now you know what I am like. This is who I am. This is the love I am offering you. This is what is about to be written in blood on a cross for you before the sun comes up tomorrow.
And at that same table He took the bread and the cup, and told them plainly what they meant:
And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” — Luke 22:19–20
He took bread. He gave thanks. He broke it and gave it to them. Can you hear the echo? On the Emmaus road, three days after the cross, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it — and their eyes were opened. Because they had sat at this very table. They had watched these very hands do this very thing. And now the risen Christ was doing it again, and the memory came flooding back, and everything locked into place, and they knew.
But feel the weight of what He said that night. This is my body, given for you. Not lent to you. Not offered to you on certain conditions. Given. The word is total and unconditional. And then the cup — the new covenant in my blood, poured out for you. A covenant sealed not with the blood of a sacrifice brought to the altar, but with His own. The old covenant was written on tablets of stone. This one is written in blood, on a cross, with His arms spread wide. That is the table He is inviting you to. That is what lies behind the breaking of bread. Every time bread is broken in His name, this night is remembered. Every time the cup is lifted, that cross is proclaimed. He is not simply inviting you to a pleasant fellowship meal. He is inviting you to receive everything His death secured for you.
And He named the love that was about to be poured out:
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” — John 15:13
He said that in the same room, on the same night. And then He went out and did it. There was no gap between the word and the act. By the next afternoon He was dead, exactly as He had said — His life laid down, not taken from Him, but given. For His friends. For twelve men who were going to fail Him before the night was over. For a world that did not deserve it and could not earn it and had done nothing to merit it. He sat at that table, and He knew everything that was coming, and He said there is no greater love than this. And then He went out and proved it.
Do you know what it means that He has done this for you? Not for the world in some abstract, distant sense — for you. By name. Knowing everything about you, exactly as He knew everything about those twelve men around that table, He laid His life down. The table at Emmaus, and every table where bread is broken in His name, is a remembrance of that. And the question it puts to every one of us is simply this: do you know how much He loves you?
It Spreads
Now we come to the most searching part of all, and also the most wonderful. For He did not sit at that table simply to receive their worship and leave them as they were. He sat at that table to give them something to carry into the world. And the almost unbelievable claim of the New Testament is that the Word goes on becoming flesh — in His people, in us — so that a watching world, which will never in its life pick up and read our Bibles, reads instead our shared life, and there, in the plain ordinary love of ordinary Christians for one another, catches a glimpse of the Christ it could never otherwise see.
Hear the Lord Himself, speaking on that very night, with the servant’s towel still in His hands and the smell of the supper still in the room:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” — John 13:34–35
Hear what He makes the badge and mark of His people. Not the depth of their learning. Not even the correctness of their doctrine, vital as that surely is. Not the size of their buildings, nor the polish of their music, nor the eloquence of their preachers. By this — by this one thing — everyone will know you are Mine: by your love for one another. The world is handed a single great piece of evidence by which to weigh whether there is anything at all to this religion of ours, and the Lord does not place that evidence in a book up on a shelf. He places it in the way His people treat each other at the table when no one important is watching. It has been truly said that the only Bible most people will ever read is the life of a Christian — and the only chapter many of them will ever get to is the way Christians do, or do not, love one another. The Word becomes flesh again, visible and legible to a watching world, in a fellowship that actually, stubbornly, sacrificially loves.
John says it more boldly still:
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. — 1 John 4:12
Stop, and feel the full weight of that opening line. No one has ever seen God. He is invisible; no mortal eye has ever once fallen upon Him. So then how is the invisible God ever to be seen in this world of ours? And John’s answer is breathtaking, almost too bold to say aloud: if we love one another, God lives in us — and the invisible becomes visible, the untouchable becomes tangible, in the love of His own people.
When believers truly love one another — bear with one another’s faults, forgive one another’s wrongs, carry one another’s heavy burdens, sit faithfully at one another’s tables in the bitter seasons and not only in the bright and happy ones — then the love of the unseen God takes on flesh again before the eyes of the world, and people get to see, in us, something real of the God they could never otherwise see. That is at once a glory and a terror. A cold, suspicious, quarreling fellowship hides God from the watching world and makes Him out a liar. A warm, patient, forgiving one puts Him on open display.
And it is rarely the grand and dramatic gesture that does it. It is the meal carried around to the family in the long months after the funeral, when the casseroles of the first week have all stopped coming and everyone else has moved on, but one believer keeps quietly showing up at the door. It is the older woman who sits the whole of a long night in a hospital corridor beside a frightened younger one, saying almost nothing, simply there. It is the bitter quarrel between two members that everyone in the church had given up for lost, that was going to split the place down the middle — healed instead by one hard conversation and one harder act of forgiveness, until the two of them are seen, to the astonishment of all, sharing a hymnbook again. The world has no category for any of that. It cannot account for it; it does not happen out there. And every so often, watching it, someone on the outside finds himself wondering, almost against his own will, whether there might after all be Something — Someone — standing behind a love like that. That is the invisible God, made visible. That is the Word, made flesh again, in us.
And Paul gathers it all into one beautiful command:
Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. — Colossians 3:16
Look very closely at where Paul tells the Word of Christ to come and live. Not merely in you, singular — not only in your own private heart, behind the shut door of your own quiet room. Let the message of Christ dwell among you — plural, the whole company of you, together. The Word is to take up residence in the shared life of the church, and to dwell there so richly, so abundantly, that it spills over from one believer into another — teaching, admonishing, encouraging, singing. This is the Word made tangible in fellowship, and it is God’s own answer to a thing I see far too much of, and grieve over: the believer who tries to go it alone — the Christian who loves Jesus but cannot abide His people, who will have the Head but not the body. But you cannot have it so. A hand was never designed to live by itself. A hand cut from the body is not a brave and independent hand making its own way in the world; it is simply a dead thing, cold on the ground. We are members of one body, every one of us, and the Word of Christ is meant to dwell richly among us, passed from hand to hand like the broken bread at Emmaus, so that what one of us lacks another quietly supplies, and Christ is known and seen in the whole.
The table at Emmaus was a receiving table. They received bread from His hands. They received the recognition that opened their eyes. They received a joy so overwhelming that they got up and ran seven miles in the dark to tell someone about it. That is what happens when the love of Christ is truly received — it does not leave you sitting still. It gets into your hands and your feet.
✠ ✠ ✠
So come back to the table one last time, and take the whole of it home.
He knocks, and waits, and will not force His way in. He walked those seven miles with two heartbroken people, opened the whole of Scripture to them, brought them all the way to their own door — and then stood there and waited to be asked. He waits for you to say it: Stay with us. Come in.
And once He is in, and once the bread is in His hands, you will see what He did at the Last Supper with those hands — broke, and gave, and poured out — and you will understand, perhaps for the first time, what it actually cost Him to sit at your table. He loved them to the end. He loves you to the end. He laid down His life for His friends, and He calls you His friend.
And then He turns to you across the table and gives you the new commandment. Not a rule to follow from a distance, but a love to receive and then pass on. As I have loved you — in that measure, at that cost, with those kinds of hands — love one another.
The two on the Emmaus road thought they were simply being kind to a stranger when they pressed Him to stay. They sat down to an ordinary supper in a borrowed house. And in the breaking of bread, everything broke open — the sealed eyes, the heavy hearts, the locked understanding — and they found themselves sitting in the presence of the risen Lord of glory, and the evidence of it poured out of them for the rest of their lives.
That can happen at your table. It can happen at this one, today. He is standing at the door. He is waiting. He has loved you to the uttermost, and He is holding out the bread.
Will you ask Him in?
