The modern world contains not a few of the disciples of Christ in name, downcast and sad, who are leaving Jerusalem as if on the point of giving Him up; and He, as of old, joins them once and again, in another form, so that their eyes are holden and they do not see Him. He comes to them in His Church, which is in their eyes only a human institution; or in His Scriptures, which seem to them but a human literature; or in His Sacraments, in which they can discern nothing more than mere graceless forms: and yet He has a question to put to them and a word to address to them if they will but listen.
I. There is the sadness of mental perplexity. It is our risen Lord who offers the true solution of all mental perplexities. And that He can speak with authority on such subjects we know, for He has given the world a pledge of His right to speak by first of all dying publicly in the full daylight of history, and then raising Himself from the dead.
II. The sadness of the conscience. Our risen Lord reveals Himself to those who are weighed down by sin as pardoning it and blotting it out. But what is it that gives His Death, His Blood, this power? It is that the worth and merits of His Person are simply incalculable, since He is the everlasting Son of God. And what is the proof of this which He Himself proffered to His disciples and to all the world? It is His Resurrection from the dead.
III. There is the sadness of the soul which arises from the want of an object in life to be grasped by the affections, to be aimed at by the will. To persons who are thus living without an object, Christ our Lord appears, once, it may be, at least, to teach them that there is a something worth living for the known will of the Eternal God; and He, in His resurrection glory, can speak on this too, with high authority, for He was declared the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xix., p. 257,
References: Luke 24:17. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 257. Luke 24:17-22. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 493.Luke 24:17-29. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iv., p. 264.Luke 24:21. Ibid.,vol. ii., p. 235. Parker, Christian Commonwealth,vol. vii., p. 39. Luke 24:22. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 252.Luke 24:24. W. Scott, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxi., p. 124; E. Lewis, Ibid.,vol. xxix., p. 378. Luke 24:25; Luke 24:26. J. M. Neale, Sermons in a Religious House,vol. ii., p. 488. Luke 24:26. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. v., p. 157; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 12; Ibid.,vol. vii., p. 238. Luke 24:27. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 18; T. T. Carter, Sermons,p. 198. Luke 24:28; Luke 24:29. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxviii., No. 1655; Homiletic Magazine,vol. xvi., p. 297; J. R. Macduff, Communion Memories,p. 199.