Grace - Adam and Eve on the Road to Emmaus

In Genesis 3, God carries on a conversation with Adam and Eve.  They've just messed up by believing they could (or needed to) choose between good and evil for themselves.  This act brought sin into the world and created in them an orphan attitude:  a fear of their Father.  They were, of course, not without hope, because God prophesied a coming Savior (Gen. 3:15b "he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel).

I wonder...

if God's conversation with these two, Adam and Eve, should be compared with Jesus' conversation with His two disciples, Cleopas and his companion, on the Emmaus Road.  They knew what they had seen during the last week and a half:  Jesus' triumphal entry, miracle after miracle, and Jesus' arrest, trial and crucifixion.  Even the report of the disappearance of Jesus' body and supposed resurrection made all they had seen and heard all the more confusing.

Yet Jesus did rise from the dead, and I feel like somehow He ends a conversation with them that He started in the Garden of Eden.

It's as if He were to say:  "Adam and Eve, here's the consequences of your choice to not trust in Me.  A curse will come upon you and all creation, but I will one day redeem you from it."  And to those traveling to Emmaus (Luke 24), He might have said:  "My disciples, I've now taken the curse and sent away all sin under the Law.  This was written about Me and foretold by all the prophets.  The work of redemption and restoration has been completed."

But I have a question:  Why did Jesus at first conceal His identity to those disciples?

Let's suppose you are seated beside someone on a plane.  You and this person casually strike up a conversation and it flows very naturally.  Believing the other person to just be a "normal" person, you speak honestly and are not tempted to impress.  Some time later, you learn that the person you were conversing with is an internationally-known business-mogol whose ingenuity earned his company billions.  How would you feel now?  Like an idiot?  That the topics you introduced in your conversation were absurdly below the intelligence and wisdom of this person?

I believe that Jesus hid His true appearance from those two disciples so that they would not have experienced the same fear as Adam and Eve:  that "Oh, Jesus, we really messed up", self-deprecating, groveling reaction, which would have blocked their ears from hearing the good news of restoration and reconciliation.  Because Jesus was sensitive to this possible reaction to them, He hid His identity, enabling them to hear the good news of Him first, which, as the Gospel news should do in any person, caused a fire to stir in their hearts.  He then broke bread with them, and only then did He reveal His identity, as if to say, "I'm not angry or disappointed with you.  I just wanted you know what great thing I had done so you wouldn't leave Jerusalem and be discouraged for the rest of your life!"

I pray that you will believe that Christ Jesus (God's ability to Save) really did settle those issues that you return to time and time again; that you would no longer look back to what you once were and did, and would now see yourself fully restored, reconciled, righteous, sanctified and holy, and complete in Jesus.  Stop groveling and begin reigning.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy