In der Liebe Christi,
Rev. Kurt Hering, Pastor
Trinity Lutheran Church
Layton, UT
SERMON for The THIRD SUNDAY of EASTER: April 6, 2008
"Believing Is Not Seeing"
Our Gospel lesson this morning presents a fascinating question for the
examination and edification of God's people today:
"Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and
while He opened the Scriptures to us?" (Luke 24:32 NKJ)
And yet, their eyes were not opened and they did not know Him until "He sat
at the table with them, . . . took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it
to them." (Luke 24:31 NKJ)
What is more, once "their eyes were opened and they knew Him; . . . He
vanished from their sight.(Luke 24:31 NKJ)
Why is that?
Why is it that today's Gospel reading, about two disciples walking to Emmaus
after the resurrection, reveals yet again a story of discouraged and
depressed disciples - even though they were in the very presence of the
risen Christ? Why is it that they relate to the stranger on the road a
message of despair and disappointment? Even more, why is it that He remains
a stranger to them? Why is it that in the very presence of the risen Christ
they still do not get it and instead bemoan, "we had hoped he was the one
who was going to redeem Israel."? (Luke 24:21 NKJ)
Why? There is a very simple explanation. This is what happens when we rely
on our emotions, rather than the Word of God. It is what happens when we
believe our eyes before the Scriptures - when we place our earthly senses
and human reasoning above the Word of God.
The lesson that we learn here is the lesson Paul teaches:
So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we
are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight.(2 Cor 5:6_7
NKJ) And that "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Rom
10:17 NKJ)
In other words, believing is not seeing the things of this world, but
hearing the Word of God that speaks of unseen, heavenly, forever things.
While one can hardly blame these men for being emotional over the events of
the past seventy-two hours, their conclusions were made apart from the words
the Lord had shared with them, His words by which He had clearly told them
what would happen and why, His words of absolute truth. [Reference from SINE
NOMINE DAILY DEVOS for the 3rd Sunday of Easter's Gospel]
We are no different today. We get emotional over the various events of our
lives -particularly the crosses we carry. And Jesus talks with us on the
road of life too. Our hearts burn within us as He does, and yet we do not
truly recognize Him in these worldly things either -- "For since the
creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead,
so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did
not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their
thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Rom 1:20_21 NKJ)
No one truly recognizes God until He takes bread, blesses it and breaks it,
and gives it to us. Why? Because until we see Him as the risen Christ who
has risen precisely to show us His wounds, we do not see Him as THE Savior.
This is what Jesus' famous bread lecture following His feeding of the five
thousand is speaking of:
Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the
flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise
him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink
indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who
feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from
heaven__ not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this
bread will live forever."
. . . Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is
a hard saying; who can understand it?"
When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said
to them, "Does this offend you? . . . It is the Spirit who gives life; the
flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they
are life." (John 6:53_63 NKJ)
Until we see Him as the risen Savior, the One crucified in the flesh and
pouring out blood for our sins, yet risen and still bearing the wounds in
His hands, feet and side - we see only one who came to show us how to get to
heaven rather than One in whom "it is finished" and so brings heaven to us.
Until we receive that forgiveness from His lips to our ears, from His heart
to our heads, from His hand to our lips, we see only one who comes to rescue
us from those sinners out there, rather than one who comes to rescue us from
our own sin.
We are all -- each and every one of us here in this sanctuary, even each and
every person on this earth whom God desires so dearly to teach and give the
bread of life that they may see and know His salvation is in Christ and
Christ alone - we are each of us a disciple on the road to Emmaus. While our
hearts burn within us with our own passion for the Lord and what we think of
Him or what He should be, we do not see and know Him until He teaches us
from the Scripture that He is the One who took on flesh to go to the cross
and until He gives Himself to us to see for ourselves with the eyes of
faith - like he did for the women outside the tomb, like he did for the
disciples behind the closed doors of the upper room, like he did for Thomas
again behind the closed doors of the upper room, like he did for the
disciples on the road to Emmaus - in His sacrificial wounds still born by
His risen body.
Today, and each Lord's day here at Trinity Lutheran Church -- and wherever
the Gospel is purely proclaimed and the Sacrament observed according to His
command -- our crucified and risen Savior walks the road with us in the
Divine Service, where He expounds to us in all the Scriptures the things
concerning Himself; takes bread, blesses and breaks it, and gives it to us.
So that then our eyes are opened and we know Him, just like He did with the
disciples.
And remember this, as soon as the disciples eyes were opened in faith, Jesus
vanished from their sight - and ours. As he sends us out onto the Emmaus
road of your life in this world, remember that believing is not seeing. He
is with us even to the end of the age as we disciples go forth and make more
disciples, teaching the world everything He has commanded us and baptizing
into His name and forgiveness all who will receive Him even as we are
baptized, forgiven and have eternal life now and forever in the name of the
Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
___________________________________________________________________________
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