We Had Hoped

Ordinary Means · A Genesis Study · No. 1

Before we open Genesis, we open Luke. The whole question of how to read the Old Testament was answered, on the afternoon of the first Easter, by the One who wrote it. Two disciples are walking the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus, talking over everything that has happened, when a stranger falls in beside them. They do not know it is the risen Christ. And in the course of that walk He hands the church the way it will read the Old Testament for the next two thousand years.

Luke notes something strange at the outset: their eyes were kept from recognizing him. The verb is passive — they were being held back. God is keeping them from seeing Jesus, and not out of cruelty. There is something He wants them to learn first. He means to walk seven miles opening the Scriptures before they know who He is. And there is a parable in that for the work we are about to do. The Christian who opens the Old Testament has the risen Christ walking beside him in the words of Moses and the prophets, just as truly as He walked beside Cleopas. The only question is whether his eyes will be opened to see Him — or held back, by his own assumptions, by never having been taught what to look for.

Jesus asks what they are discussing, and — not knowing they are speaking to Him — they tell Him about Himself: Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word… our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. Every word is accurate. They have the facts. They even have the morning's news — it is now the third day, the tomb is empty, the women have reported angels. And then the line that breaks your heart:

We had hoped. The tense is imperfect — a hope that lasted a while and has now broken off. They have everything except the gospel. They have the facts, a high view of Jesus, grief at His death, and the empty tomb itself in their conversation — and no Christ in their hearts. They have read the events accurately at the surface and missed the whole of it. (This is exactly how the Old Testament gets read by anyone never taught what to look for: a string of things that happened to good people and bad people, true at the surface, drained of Christ — a sad news item you process and move past.)

Then the Lord answers, and the rebuke is gentle but real: 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? The suffering Messiah was never a surprise or a defeat. He was there in the Scriptures all along. Their problem was never a shortage of data. It was a shortage of eyes. And so:

There is the whole method of this series, placed in our hands by the risen Lord Himself. Not a handful of predictive proof-texts pulled from the wreckage — all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself. He read the Old Testament as a book about Himself, because it is one.

And notice how He is finally recognized, because it is not accidental. They reach Emmaus; they press Him to stay; and at the table he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. In the breaking of the bread. Then they say it to each other: Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures? The risen Christ is known in the opened Word and the broken bread — the very means by which He is still known among us. He opened the Scriptures, and their hearts burned; He broke the bread, and their eyes were opened.

So this is how we will read Genesis — with risen eyes. Expecting to meet Christ in Moses. Knowing the bare facts are never enough without Him. And trusting that the same Lord who opened the Scriptures on that road will open them to us, and set our hearts burning over a book we thought we already knew.

Next time, before the first verse: what kind of book is this? Is Genesis history, poetry, myth, or something else — and how does the answer change the way we read every line that follows?