Luke 24:30-35 * Easter Sunday 2005 *
Pastor Leyrer
Dear Friends in the Risen Christ,
Emmaus was a small town about seven miles northwest of
You may recall the story. Two disciples are sadly making their way home, still dazed and confused about the crucifixion of Jesus. The last few days had presented them with emotions they neither expected nor invited, and there were a lot of things they were trying to process.
At some point a stranger joins them and wants to know what
they are talking about so seriously.
Frankly, this surprised them. “Are
you the only one living in
So they told him everything. Maybe it was therapeutic for them. Maybe they thought by saying it out loud one more time it might all make sense. They spoke about Jesus of Nazareth; how he was a special man of God but that he got on the wrong side of the religious leaders – and they literally crucified him for it. They were sad because they thought this was a man with the potential to help them as a nation. But now he was dead. This all happened on Friday.
And if that wasn’t enough to contend with, just today they had heard some remarkable but perplexing news. The women who went to the tomb to give him a proper burial ran back talking about angels who told them Jesus was alive. And this apparently was more than the hallucinations of some grief-stricken females, because the empty tomb had been verified by a couple of Jesus’ disciples.
At this point the stranger enters the conversation. With equal parts authority and compassion he explains to them what the Bible said about Jesus and how all these things that were presently perplexing them had to happen; how it was all part of God’s plan. The time undoubtedly passed quickly now, and before they knew it the disciples had reached their journey’s end. But it appeared that their new found friend was going to keep walking. So the disciples invited him to stay the night, since it was getting late.
That’s where we pick up the words of our text. There we heard how Jesus prayed and broke bread with them – and then they realized who this stranger was. It was the Risen Christ! And, in their own words, this was their reaction to the amazing truth of Easter: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
Burning hearts. That was their response to the Risen Christ – as it is for everyone who understands the magnificence and majesty of this day. Whether we’re hearing the Easter message for the first or the ninety first time,
THE RISEN CHRIST STILL PRODUCES BURNING HEARTS
Why? What’s so special about this day? You’ve heard of the three R’s of education; it’s the three R’s of Easter that warm our hearts this glorious morning:
1. Reliability 2.
Redemption 3. Resurrection
Jesus’ resurrection first of all proves He is who He said He is. And He claimed to be nothing less than the almighty, eternal Son of God. He made this claim many times.
To a woman at a well in the country of
When Jesus asked Peter as the spokesman for the disciples
who they considered him to be, Peter said:
“You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus accepted his statement. Later, when the disciples asked Jesus to “show
us the Father” (i.e., God), Jesus answered, “Anyone who has seen me has seen
the Father.”
And when, in his trial before the religious leaders, the
question was put to him, “Are you the Christ?”, his reply was
“Yes,
it is as you say.”
You get the picture. Jesus never hid the fact of who he was. But Jesus was more than big talk. He authenticated this claim with miracles. Lots of them. He did miracles of healing. He did miracles over nature. He even raised the dead.
But of all the things he ever said and all the things he
ever did, the biggest claim he ever made was that he would die, and then three
days later rise from the dead. “Destroy
this temple” said Jesus of himself, “And I will raise it again in
three days.”
To make a long story short, on Good Friday he died, and
today he arose. The ladies who went to
his grave on that first Easter morning with the expectation of performing last
funeral rites were not met by a corpse in the initials stages of decay, but by
an empty tomb and angels who said, “Why are you looking for the living among
the dead? He is not here, he is risen,
JUST AS HE SAID.”
Do you see the significance of this? He died – “just as He said.” He rose – “just as He said.” In fact, everything happened “just as He said.” Jesus did something that mortals cannot do, try as we might. Rising from the dead is something only God can do. And that’s who Jesus claimed to be. Consequently the resurrection proves he is who he says he is: The Son of God, our Redeemer and Savior. Furthermore, it proves that he is reliable in every other promise and claim that he makes.
And that brings us enormous comfort. Because “just as He said” he would rise, he also says many other wonderful and marvelous things to us.
For example, Jesus gives us the promise of his abiding presence in our lives when he says, “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” Jesus gives us the promise that we are never alone when he says, “Surely I will be with you always, even to the very end of the age.” Jesus gives us the promise that he hears and answers our prayers.... Jesus gives us the promise that nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ... Jesus tells us that no matter how we may perceive things, he has a plan for us and makes all things work for the good of those who love him...
All these promises and many more Jesus makes to us in His
Word. Why can we believe him? What proof do we have that he can carry them
out? Go to the tomb. It’s empty – “just as He said.” And just as he proved himself reliable in
this greatest of claims and promises, so he is reliable in every other promise
he makes to us. And that utter and total
reliability makes our hearts burn within
us.
The second R of Easter is “redemption.” The resurrection means our eternal salvation is complete and secure. Let us briefly return in time to Good Friday, for Easter Sunday means nothing unless it is paired with Good Friday.
Good Friday was not pleasant. For approximately six hours Jesus endured one of the most painful deaths devised by man. For three of those hours (when darkness covered the earth), he suffered the very pangs of hell and experienced something we never will – utter abandonment by God. Finally, after he voluntarily gave up his life with the cry, “It is finished,” he was laid in the unused tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.
This is what happened. More importantly is why it happened. And why it happened to Christ is so that it wouldn’t happen to us…
Even though it should have. The thief on the cross spoke for the entire human race when he said that with his pain and suffering and ultimate death he was only getting what his sins deserved, but that this man – Jesus – had done nothing wrong. Redemption is just another way of saying we’re “not getting what our sins deserve.”
Why not? Here’s why: Jesus, the Son of God, became a man to do as man’s substitute that which we could not do. He lived the perfect life in our place. And then he suffered the punishment for sin in our place. In his life and in his death, he came to be our surrogate.
Good Friday reminds us that the responsibility for putting
Jesus on the cross extends far beyond the betraying Judas, or the intensely
envious Jewish leaders, or the unprincipled Pontius Pilate. We put him there. The Roman guard may have lifted the hammer to
pound the spikes through our Lord’s hands and feet, but it was the weight of our sins that brought the hammer down. The Apostle Paul summarizes it succinctly
when he says, “He was delivered over to death for our sins…”
But that was then.
Today is Easter. And the body
that suffered for our sins is no longer in the tomb. What does it mean? It means his mission of redemption was
satisfactorily accomplished. The empty
tomb is God’s stamp of approval on Christ’s redemptive work. It means the fulfillment of Jesus statement, “I am the resurrection and the life…”
and it means the assurance that “Whoever
believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes
in me will never die.”
The resurrection of Jesus means that death – both our own and our loved ones – is a comma, not a period. It is not a door that merely shuts out earthly existence, but a gate that leads to eternal life for all who trust in him as Savior.
And because of the knowledge that our salvation is
complete, that our place in heaven has been secured, that death is but the gate
to eternal life – our hearts burn within
us.
And then there is the final R of Easter. It means we, too, will rise from the dead. In other words, it is the assurance of our own personal “resurrection.”
In our creeds we confess that we believe in “the resurrection of the body.” How can we say that? What’s the basis? Once again, the answer is found in the empty tomb. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Firstfruits is really an Old Testament agricultural term which referred to offering God the first portion of a harvest. It was also an indication that more was to follow.
The point: Christ was the first to rise; and we, too, will rise from the dead to live both body and soul in heaven. There we will live in a glorified resurrection-body free from any and all imperfections eternally in a joy and happiness and a Christ-centered fellowship that is beyond the very beginning of imagination.
Because that is what the future holds for us, the present
becomes more bearable. And with that to
look forward to, our hearts burn within
us.
Two thousand years ago the Risen Christ had a pronounced effect on two believers as they journeyed home. I think we know what they experienced. Because present today in the heart of every believer who understands the message of Easter is a warm, pervasive feeling of contentment; or as the Emmaus disciples would put it, “burning hearts.”
Knowing Jesus is the Son of God reliable in everything He says and does… Knowing our redemption is complete and secure… Anticipating our own resurrection when we will be with the Lord both body and soul forever in heaven – all the results of the empty tomb of Jesus – confronts us with this single question: do not “our hearts burn within us?” To which the answer is: how can they not? Because He is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen.