“He said to them, ‘This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.’ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:44, 45, NIV '84).

During “holy week” we turn our eyes toward both the horror and the triumph of the cross of Jesus. We know from the Gospel accounts the intense physical and mental pain that Jesus experienced in order to “be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

In the Luke 24 passage above, Jesus explains to two of his disciples how his suffering and death were predicted by Scripture. But where exactly did he validate this manner of death from the Hebrew text?  By saying that his story fulfills “the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms,” Jesus is telling his Jewish friends that his life, death and resurrection was foretold in all three sections of the Old Testament. [Interestingly enough, this three-fold division—Law, Prophets, and the Writings—is still recognized in Jewish teaching today.]

Wouldn’t we have loved to listen in on that Bible study led by the risen Lord as he “opened their minds” to understand the word of God? Since we are told to “search the scriptures because they speak of me,” it is good that we do some Bible digging to sleuth out some of the scriptures to which Jesus was pointing his disciples.

First, we look into the Law of Moses, which is the first five books of the Bible commonly referred to as "the Torah”. As Jesus explained why the Savior would need to suffer and die he could have pointed to any of the following texts?

In Torah (where I believe Jesus would have spent much time expounding on the Emmaus Road that day):

• Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you [the tempter] and the woman, between your seed and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel” Jesus’s death was God’s cosmic answer to defeat the Evil One.
  
  
• Genesis 22:8 “Abraham answered [Isaac], ‘God himself will provide the lamb. . .” While God held back Abraham’s hand from sacrificing his son, God the Father would give His only dear son as a sacrifice for the whole world.
  
  
• Exodus 12:13 “The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.”
  
  
• Exodus 13:13 “Redeem with a lamb . . . every firstborn among you” Jesus is the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
  
  
• Exodus 30:12-16 “Each one must pay a ransom for his life. . .”
  
  
• Leviticus 17:11-14 “the life of the creature is its blood… it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.”  The shedding of the blood of an innocent, pure offering was required for the remission of sin.

The Prophets: The promise of a redeemer is told throughout the prophetic books, but Jesus surely pointed to the 12 verses of Isaiah 53 which graphically described the suffering, death, burial and resurrection of the Messiah. This chapter is one we can meditate on during Holy Week.

 Here are just a couple verses from that prescient text:

 5 he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

 The Psalms: (Which was a way of referring to the rest of the books of the Old Testament known as “the Writings”)

Written a thousand years before Jesus was crucified, David was inspired by the Holy Spirit to describe this method of capital punishment in Psalm 22. Again, listen to how accurate this description is.

14 and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted within me.
15 My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.
16 Dogs surround me,
a pack of villains encircles me;
they pierce my hands and my feet.
17 All my bones are on display;
people stare and gloat over me.
18 They divide my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.

How amazing would it have been to walk along side of Jesus as he explained, from the Scriptures, to those traumatized disciples, why the Messiah had to suffer and die? Isn’t the Word of God so full of his wisdom and foresight. I invite you this week to meditate on God’s Word and on the Cross of Jesus that fulfilled his Word. And may your meditations cause you to worship God all the more for his great wisdom, love and kindness.

_{[All scriptures taken from the ©} NIV, 1984.]

Tags: cross, resurrection, suffering, death, messiah, psalm 22, isaiah 53, prophecy, law, prophets, writings