Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
The sermon
text for today was inspired by the Holy Spirit through the apostle St Luke,
from his Gospel 24:13-35, which we read earlier. And I’ll read a couple of
verses:
And
beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning himself… They said to each other, “Did not our
hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us
the Scripture?”
Prayer:
Sanctify us with the truth, Lord. Your Word is truth. Amen. [Sit.]
In the Small Catechism, Luther
writes: I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in
Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the
Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true
faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole
Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true
faith.
Here in our Gospel reading today,
we see a wonderful example where Jesus comes and calls two disciples and gives
them the light of the Holy Spirit. Jesus examines their hearts, preaches to
them the Gospel, and breaks the bread with them. And we read: Did not our
hearts burn within us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?
But sometimes we can look at
ourselves and say, “What about me? Why doesn’t my heart burn within me? Why do
other people seem to be full of spiritual experiences and heart-warming events
in their life, but not me? Why do new Christians in Africa and Asia seem to
have their heart warmed by the word of God, but not us in Australia?”
Listen – the point of this
passage is not the fact their “hearts were burning”, the point of this passage
is not their experience, the point of this passage is what caused it, namely,
the word of God. We read: Did not our hearts burn within us on the road,
while he opened to us the Scriptures?
Now there are all sorts of things
in this life which might make us feel good, and warm our hearts. We often talk
about warm-fuzzies: we go to one of the 75 cheap shops in Mt Barker and we see
a calendar with pictures of puppies with little ribbons tied around their
necks, and we think, “What a heart warmer!”
But that’s not what we’re talking
about here in the reading. We’re not talking about something like that. We’re not
even talking about when we sing a Christian song from our childhood that
reminds us of those good times we had when we were younger, and makes us think
about the good old days. We’re not talking about being sentimental.
In our Gospel reading today, we are
talking about the fire of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus himself comes into our
midst and opens to us the Scriptures, it always has an effect. But how did
Jesus open the Scriptures to them? We read: Beginning with Moses and all the
Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning
himself.
It’s not simply preaching
anything and everything that brings about God’s enlightening power. It’s when
Jesus preaches himself, his wounds, his cross, his suffering, his death, his
sacrifice, his blood, his resurrection, his ascension, his sitting at the right
hand of God the Father.
You see, there are two things in
the bible, two messages, two different words. One is the law, where God teaches
us what we should do and what we shouldn’t do. And the law shows us our sin,
because it shows us what we haven’t done, what we have done that is not from
God, and also it shows us what we realise we’re not going to be able to do. The
law is God’s word to kill us. And this word also has an effect. On the day of
Pentecost, Peter revealed to all the people there that they had crucified
Jesus, the man who was raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of God
the Father. And we read: They were cut to the heart, and asked, “Brothers,
what shall we do?”
But in our Gospel reading, Jesus
is not interpreting to these two disciples the things concerning themselves,
and their own sin, and their own failures. He already did that when he said to
them, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have
spoken. The preaching of the law is done. Now, it’s time to preach the
Gospel, to interpret to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning
himself.
You see, right from the beginning
of the bible, right from Moses and the prophets, they are prophesying and
speaking to us even now just what a wonderful Saviour and Lord we have in
Jesus. And this is the wonderful thing that Jesus himself wants to preach to
them. Jesus points them to the Scripture, to the simple truth and purity of the
word, and says to these disciples, “You see that? That’s talking about me!” One
of the most amazing passages like this of course is Isaiah 53, and I would
encourage you to go and read this chapter and see just how each verse so
clearly preaches the suffering of Jesus to us, even though it was written over
500 years beforehand.
So when Jesus comes and preaches
himself to us, he comforts us with the gospel, he kindles in our heart the
light, the fire of the Holy Spirit. He sees the empty cup there in our hearts
and he fills it. He sees the faintly burning wick, and he fuels it.
There’s also another way of
reading the Scriptures, which doesn’t have this effect. And that is when we
read the Scripture in such a way that we judge everything according to our
human standard, our reason, and our intellect. We call this a critical approach
to Scripture. This is when we put ourselves above the Scripture and when we
find something that cuts our heart, instead of recognising it as the voice of
the Holy Spirit calling us to repentance and to change our mind about
something, we say, “Well, the bible can’t possibly mean that! What it really
means is this?”
Of course, this approach to
Scripture the devil also used when he said to Eve, “Did God really say…?”
So we say, “Come on, we can’t
just blindly follow the bible like some kind of moron. We have to take into
consideration modern sensitivities, we have to remember we live in the 21st
century now, we have to be practical!”
Who says? Since when has the
bible ever taught us that?
You see, we don’t know how smart
these two men were. We don’t know if they were simple farmers, city commuters,
university academics, or shopkeepers. All we know is that Jesus opened to them
the Scriptures like he would have to anyone and enlightened them with the gift
of the Holy Spirit.
We live in a time where people
think they are so smart, that as soon we get an idea in our heads which gives
us an excuse not to listen to God’s word, we put ourselves above the simple
people, and we close our ears to them, not realising that to each is given a
manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
So what happens when we take on
this critical approach to Scripture? What happens when we put our human reason
above the simple, clear truth of the Scripture? We turn the church from a
fountain of living water into waterless springs. People come to our churches
looking for the bread of life, and the sign above the door says “sold out.” They
come looking for wine of gladness, and the sign says, “Out to lunch”. Simply
put: When in reading the bible we replace the Holy Spirit with our own human
spirit, then the Holy Spirit simply doesn’t call, gather, enlighten or sanctify
anyone around the Gospel, because the Gospel isn’t there.
Let me finish today by reading
you a little quote from Martin Luther’s sermon on this passage today:
We should gladly read, hear, and
receive the Holy Scripture, God’s Word. The Holy Spirit, whose power is with
the Word, gives understanding as we see with these disciples. They are
struggling here along the way to get into Scripture, but to no avail. Thereupon
the Lord joins himself to them, preaches a wonderful sermon to them, taking
passages from Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, and explains them, so that
they understand the Scriptures. The same will be true for us. If we will
approach Scripture with earnestness, we will find to our heart’s great joy that
we perceive Christ rightly, how he bore our sins, and how we shall live
everlastingly with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, if only we remain simple students
and fools like these disciples… There’s no room, therefore, for a smart intellectual
and disputer when it comes to this book, the Holy Scripture. God gave other
disciplines—grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, philosophy, jurisprudence,
medicine—in which we can be judicious, dispute, dig, and question as to what is
right and what is not. But here with Holy Scripture, the Word of God, let
disputing and questioning cease, and say, God has spoken; therefore, I believe.
Amen.
Lord Jesus, come to us today, and open to us the Scriptures, and kindle in our hearts the light of your Holy Spirit. Amen
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