#258: Everything Points to Jesus

Sherilyn R. Grant (0:07)

Hello and welcome to the Truth Seekers Podcast. The Truth Seeker is someone who wants to know the truth. They search for what's true and they won't rest until they find it. I am a Truth Seeker, and if you are too, then you've come to the right place where we will search for truth each week in the stories of the Bible. Well, Truth Seekers, over the last several episodes, we have been following what happened Jesus Rose from the Dead. Mary saw Jesus in the garden. Two disciples walked with him on the road to Emmaus. Jesus appeared to his disciples behind locked doors. Thomas saw him and believed. Peter sat beside a fire with Jesus and discovered that his failure was not the end of the story. Jesus was alive.

But there was something his disciples still needed to understand.

They needed to understand why.

Why had Jesus needed to die? Why did he rise again? And what did all of this have to do with everything God had been doing throughout the rest of the Bible? Well, Jesus was about to explain it to them. Luke tells us that the disciples were together talking about everything that had happened when suddenly Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, Do you imagine? One moment they were talking about Jesus, the next moment Jesus was standing right there. But instead of being excited, the Bible tells us they were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. They had watched Jesus die. They knew his body had been placed in a tomb. How could he?

Jesus knew exactly what they were thinking. He said, why are you troubled? And why do doubts rise in your minds? Then Jesus said to them, Look at my hands and feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have. Jesus wanted them to understand something very important. He was really alive. This was not their imagination.

This was Jesus. The same Jesus who had been nailed to the cross was standing in front of them.

Luke tells us, when he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And then something almost funny happened. The disciples were so amazed and so joyful that they had trouble believing what they were seeing. So Jesus, Do you have anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and Jesus ate it right there in front of them. Can you imagine watching him eat? Maybe the disciples were staring at Jesus as he ate that fish. He really is here, they thought. He really is eating. He really is alive. But then, Jesus began to explain something to them, even bigger, something I want every Truth Seeker listening to understand. Jesus said, This is what I told you while I was with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms.

Wait a minute. Did you hear what Jesus just said? Jesus was talking about what we call the Old Testament, the Law of Moses, the Prophets, the Psalms. These were the scriptures the disciples had heard and studied their entire lives. And Jesus was telling them.

They are pointing to me.

Think about all the stories we have learned together as Truth Seekers. Way back in Genesis, sin entered God's beautiful creation and separated people from Him, but God promised that He would send a rescuer.

And do you remember Abraham? God promised Abraham that through his family, all the nations of the earth would be blessed, and that promise was pointing forward to Jesus. Remember the Passover?

God's people were slaves in Egypt, and God told each family to sacrifice a lamb. The blood of the lamb would be a sign, and God's judgment would pass over that home. That Passover lamb was pointing forward to Jesus. Remember the sacrifices God's people offered because of sin? They were pointing forward. Remember King David? God promised that one day a king would come from David's family line. That promise was pointing forward. Remember the prophet Isaiah? Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, Isaiah wrote about a servant who would suffer for the sins of others. Isaiah wrote that he would be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.

Isaiah was pointing forward. Story after story, promise after promise, prophecy after prophecy, all of them were like little signs along a road saying, He's coming. Jesus is coming, the Messiah is coming. And now, Jesus was standing in front of his disciples saying, I am the one they were pointing to.

Bible isn't a bunch of random stories about different people who tried to follow God. It's one big story. God's story in the story. of Redemption, and Jesus is at the center of it all.