In this three-part series, we walk with two of Jesus’s followers who had such strong preconceived notions about the Messiah that they failed to recognize the resurrected Christ when he was staring them in the face. In part 1 of our series, Jesus approached two disciples of his—dejected, morose, on their way back home after Jesus’s horrifying execution. In their sorrow and confusion, they didn’t recognize him. In part 2, we will consider political views that led to these disciples’ disappointment.

In Luke 24, Jesus sidles up to his own two disciples and draws them into conversation, leading to their telling him their perspective of his crucifixion. In their own summary, the two disciples reveal an important aspect of their expectations for the Christ:

Luke 24:17-21. And he [Jesus] said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.

They describe to this stranger on the road their disappointment—they “hoped that he (Jesus) was the one to redeem Israel” (v. 21).

What do they mean? In modern Christianity, we have an accepted definition of “redeem.” To us, it means to pay a price that releases one from sin and death, like what Jesus did through his sacrifice. But is it possible these disciples have a different definition?

They’re using language here that calls to mind a figure we call “the prophet like Moses.” Moses himself told Israel in Deuteronomy that another prophet would arise, “a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—” (18:15).

When Luke records these disciples describing Jesus as “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people” (v. 19), the disciples are using a phrase that Luke will later write into Stephen’s description of Moses: “And he [Moses] was mighty in his words and deeds” (7:22).

There’s more to this. They also say they had hoped he would “redeem” Israel. In Acts, Stephen describes Moses as a redeemer. “This Moses … God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush” (7:35).

What?! Moses, a redeemer? My modern Christian mind thinks of only one redeemer: Jesus. But these disciples did not yet know about the resurrection. When they say they thought Jesus would redeem Israel, they are using language that describes Israel’s hero who led them out of Egypt. Except now, Israel is no longer dominated by Egypt. Now, it’s Rome.

Our own Sean Finnegan’s recent book, Kingdom Journey, helps us see the extraordinary tension of the time between Jew and Roman:

Incompetent Roman leadership, the constant pressure to pay taxes, and a belief that God had given them the land, prevented the Jews from submitting to the Roman boot on their neck. Over and over, protest movements flared up and revolutions broke out.… Richard Horsley writes, “The Roman killing or enslavement of tens of thousands of Galileans and Judeans around the time Jesus was born must have left mass trauma among the people in its wake.”¹

Truly the Jews’ Roman overlords represented violence and pain—a new Egypt. So, when these disciples say, “man, we thought Jesus was going to redeem Israel,” we can see that they must mean “(…from Rome).”²

At this point, my modern Christian mind waggles a finger at these two. “Silly Jews!” I imagine saying. “Didn’t you know that Jesus’ mission was bigger than politics? Didn’t you know that Jesus’ goal was to save the world?”

Like many of the time, these two almost certainly saw their nation as enslaved to Rome. But they were missing that Rome was enslaved, too! Except Jesus, everyone in all of history has lived under the same crushing masters: enslaved to sin, doomed to die. Jesus is the prophet like Moses. Like Moses delivered God’s people from their enslavement to Egypt, Jesus also delivers God’s people (that is, all people who follow Christ). But not from a nation. Not from a situation in history. No, Jesus rescues his people from the curse that has dogged us since Genesis 3.

I like to think that I would not have so misunderstood Jesus’ mission. I imagine I would have looked compassionately on the Romans—no matter how badly they treated me—ready to preach Jesus to them and welcome them as fellow disciples of Christ.

But wait, didn’t I catch myself praying just the other day that God would fix America by crushing my political opponents?

Didn’t I hear a friend at a party say, “if those terrorists were just wiped off the face of the earth, everything would be better”?

Pick a political opponent, a group, a side in a war. We American Christians curse other human beings to our own shame. We fail to recognize that Hamas, that the Chinese Communist Party, that nuclear Iran, that the enemy-of-the-year, all suffer under the same enslavement from which we were set free by Jesus.

Earlier in his ministry, Jesus had said to Jews who believed him,

John 8:31b-36. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

Jesus’s view is that sin, not Egypt, not Rome, not your low-paying job, not your difficult marriage, not your strained family relationships, not your regrets, not the governor you don’t like or your political situation, not even sickness or disease, is what enslaves us. Sin. And who cannot recall a time when they were enslaved to sin? This could be furtively seeking out pornography, shaming your wife on the way home from a party, valuing money over your relationships, rejoicing in evil. Anyone who has lived under sin’s powerful pull can attest to it. It is slavery.

Jesus did not come with the mission of setting one group of people free from a nation, from a situation, or from a war. He
came for all people, that we may all come to know him and call him Lord. Through the Scriptures, Jesus is speaking to his disciples and to us, saying, “These people are not your problem. They have your problem, and I defeated it for them, too.”

What an honor that we should be chosen to bear this wonderful freedom and gifted with the mission to carry it to the world! May we see others as Christ sees them and recognize his transcendent mission beyond political parties or groups, beyond friends and enemies, to the defeat of the sin that enslaves us as we await eternal life through him.

Reflect on your own experiences being enslaved to sin. Have empathy for your fellow human, and ask yourself: who do I tend
to assume is outside of God’s grace? Pray for that person or group.

1. Sean Finnegan, Kingdom Journey: A Call to Recover the Central Theme of Scripture (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2023).[↩]
2. To be fair to Cleopas and his friend, Old Testament prophecy describes the Messiah as one who will vanquish Israel’s enemies. It’s only when we look at
   Jesus’s ministry that we see him realign that expectation by putting off this nationalistic culmination of his ministry. (See Acts 1:6-8).[↩]