Today’s Scripture

Psalm 145            Isaiah 60:1-6              1Peter 3:13-16            Luke 24:13-36, 44-48

 

 

            Today’s Gospel account of Cleopas and his friend on Easter afternoon tells us a lot about ourselves.  Sometimes we are in the middle of what is going on and yet do not see the entire scope until someone from the “outside” enlightens us.  That is so true with our lives in faith.  As Christians, and very common to Lutherans, we understand full well God’s love for us in Jesus Christ.  We know a lot of Scripture quite well, or so we think.  So many of us can repeat or come close to repeating from memory those “What Does This Mean?” sections of Luther’s Small Catechism. 

 

            But back to that day-to-day, minute-by-minute walk in faith…  There are the emotional ups and downs.  Maybe you were brought to baptism as an infant and remained firm in that faith throughout your life.  Are you one who was brought to baptism as an infant, then wandered around from here to there and are drawn back into an active life in faith?  Are you one who was were wandering around in this dark world of sin and, “Voila!” someone share the beautiful Gospel message of God’s love in Christ Jesus to you and now your life is aglow because of that faith?  In any way, all find that Jesus enters your life time and again in different ways and in unpredictable times and your heart burns at those times.

 

            Our services and Bible Studies and fellowship activities here bring those heartwarming moments when a hymn verse is sung, a passage is read, a phrase in a prayer or section of a sermon hits home, a baptism is celebrated, and especially when we receive our Lord’s body and blood in the bread and wine.  In our hearts and voices we sing hymns from the service as the day goes along and even at spontaneous times during the week.  Your heart does burn at different degrees and in different ways.

 

            Isaiah tells us, even 700+ years before Jesus’ birth, that your “light has come.”  God’s act of forgiveness and eternal salvation has always been, is today, and always will be before all people in his word in Jesus Christ.  He declares it from Eden.  He declares it in Isaiah.  Now, as Jesus has completed the suffering, death, and resurrection, he explains to the disciples how all that is written in Moses, the Psalms and the prophets point directly to him and what he has just accomplished.

 

            Today countless souls search in our society for this wonderful truth, God’s one and only plan of salvation.  Countless souls have heard the wonderful Christmas and Easter stories, yet do not understand that this is eternal life.  Countless souls know the name Jesus but do not know exactly what he accomplished, the forgiveness of sins for all people of all time.  Countless souls think all people believe in the same God not aware that there is one true God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as he reveals himself in Scripture.  Countless souls burn for, but are not burning with the truth of a wonderful God as Luther found him.  This is a God who places his righteousness over our unrighteousness, and makes us righteous simply by the blood of Jesus.

 

            Peter says to always be prepared to answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that is inside of you.  He says to do it with gentleness, with a warm and burning heart of faith.  He says to speak in a “clear conscience,” that is not compromising the truth of the Gospel, nor apologizing for it. 

 

            ABLAZE!  Yes, it is an emotional thing knowing you no longer need to fear death and an eternal destruction in hell.  Yes, it is an emotional thing knowing that God loves you so much that he gave his only son; that he gave all of himself up as he did on Calvary for you.  Yes, it is an emotional thing knowing the immense eternal joys that are waiting for you on that last day.  Yes, it is an emotional thing when you remember your baptism and relive that moment each time one is celebrated here.  Yes, it is an emotional thing when a loved one dies in the arms of Jesus.  Yes, it is an emotional thing when someone who did not really know Jesus before in his or her life comes to saving faith because you took a moment of your time to tell that wonderful story to them.  Yes, it is emotional when a believer says, “____, I am not afraid to die because in that death, I am alive eternally with my Lord.”  Yes, it is an emotional thing when one receives the very body and blood that was given up on the cross as it now comes to you in simple bread alone and simple wine alone.  Yes, it is an emotional thing to give up your human pride and pour out your heart in sorrow and repentance of all of your sins, knowing they are so many and great you cannot account for them all by yourself. 

 

            Yes, it is a good thing to be ABLAZE telling others when they ask of the hope that is in you so that their hearts burn too. 

 

            In Jesus’ undying love.  Amen.