Women go to anoint a dead body and find an empty tomb instead. Two disciples walk seven miles with a grieving heart, not realizing the risen Jesus Himself is walking beside them the entire way, until He breaks bread at their table and vanishes. And at the very end of the story that began with an angel visiting a childless priest in the temple, Jesus leads His followers out to Bethany, lifts His hands to bless them, and is carried up into heaven while they are still watching.
A study in Luke 24 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 27 min read
Why Seek Ye The Living Among The Dead
This site’s own studies of Matthew’s twenty-eighth chapter and Mark’s sixteenth chapter already cover the empty tomb in full.
“Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared… And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.”
Luke 24:1-3
“And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee.”
Luke 24:5-6
The angels do not simply announce good news. They gently correct where the women are looking — not accusing them of unbelief, but reminding them of words Jesus had already spoken, which they had simply not yet connected to this morning.
“It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles. And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.”
Luke 24:10-11
This site’s own study of Luke’s eighth chapter has already introduced Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and the other women who funded and followed this ministry from its earliest days. They are, fittingly, the first witnesses of its greatest morning — even though the eleven, at first, will not believe them.
Did Not Our Heart Burn Within Us
“And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus… And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.”
Luke 24:13, 15-16
Found in no other Gospel, this whole encounter belongs to Luke alone, and it opens with an image no reader forgets — two grieving disciples pouring out their disappointment to a stranger who is, without their knowledge, the very person they are grieving.
“Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people… But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.”
Luke 24:19, 21
“Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”
Luke 24:25-27
“So highly did He value it that at one time He said, ‘If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.’ … It is the voice of Christ that speaks through patriarchs and prophets, from the days of Adam even to the closing scenes of time.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 799
Every study on this site, from the very beginning of Genesis to this closing chapter of Luke, has been an attempt to walk this same road — tracing one unbroken story of Christ through the whole of Scripture, exactly as the risen Lord Himself first modeled it on this stretch of road to Emmaus.
“But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.”
Luke 24:29
“Christ never forces His company upon anyone. He interests Himself in those who need Him. Gladly will He enter the humblest home, and cheer the lowliest heart. But if men are too indifferent to think of the heavenly Guest, or ask Him to abide with them, He passes on.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 800
Had these two disciples let the stranger walk on, they would have missed everything that came next. Their own small act of hospitality — simply urging a traveler to stay for supper — is what opens the door to the recognition scene that follows.
“And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.”
Luke 24:30-31
“Their companion spreads forth His hands in exactly the same way as their Master used to do. They look again, and lo, they see in His hands the print of nails. Both exclaim at once, It is the Lord Jesus! He has risen from the dead!”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 800
It is not a miracle, or a proof text, or an argument from prophecy that finally opens their eyes — it is the familiar shape of His hands breaking bread, the same gesture they had watched Him make a thousand times before.
“And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?”
Luke 24:32
“They leave their meal untasted, and full of joy immediately set out again on the same path by which they came, hurrying to tell the tidings to the disciples in the city. … They do not see, they do not know, that they have the protection of Him who has traveled the road with them.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 801
The same seven miles that had felt heavy with grief on the way out are covered, on the way back, at a run — carried not by rested legs, but by news too large to walk slowly with.
Handle Me, And See
“And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.”
Luke 24:36-37
“Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”
Luke 24:39
“And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them.”
Luke 24:41-43
Found in no other Gospel, this small, homely detail — the fish, the honeycomb, eaten in front of witnesses — is as physical a proof as words could ever supply. The resurrection this Gospel proclaims is not a ghost story or a comforting metaphor. It is a real body, capable of real hunger, standing in a real room.
“Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things.”
Luke 24:46-48
Luke, who wrote this Gospel as the first half of a two-part account, closes this scene with the exact commission his own second volume — the book of Acts — will spend its own opening chapters carrying out.
Carried Up Into Heaven
“And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.”
Luke 24:50-51
“Christ had ascended to heaven in the form of humanity. The disciples had beheld the cloud receive Him. … And the angels had assured them that the very One whom they had seen go up into heaven, would come again even as He had ascended.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 832
Bethany is not a random location. It is the same village where Lazarus was raised, where Mary and Martha first welcomed Him, where He rested through so much of His final week — and it is fitting that a Gospel which has traced His whole life from a Bethlehem manger to a Galilean ministry to a long road toward Jerusalem should end with Him ascending from the one town where He had known the quiet comfort of a real home.
“And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.”
Luke 24:52-53
The Gospel that opened in the temple, with an old priest struck speechless for doubting an angel’s word, closes in the same temple, with a company of ordinary men and women who have seen everything — the miracles, the cross, the empty tomb, the ascension — and are left not doubting, but worshiping, not silenced, but praising God continually, waiting for the promise of power from on high that the book of Acts will show them receiving in full.
