Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2005 : April 10, 2005
Jesus Gives Us Easter Heartburn
Easter 3
What are some things we do at Christmas time? We worship God. We get together with family around an evergreen tree and open presents and usually we have a big meal for the occasion. What do we do at Easter? We worship God. We do our best to get together with family, and children usually get some kind of Easter basket filled with candy and eggs, and maybe an Easter egg hunt. Oh, and we usually eat a big meal, too. Actually, it seems that whenever there is a big celebration or some special event, there is some kind of an important meal to go along with it. If you're like me, you see all that good food and try to put some of every dish on your plate because it looks so good, but your eyes end up being bigger than your stomach, and you can barely finish off your plate. And what happens when you eat so much and you're not used to it? You feel pretty crummy, don't you? And you might even get really bad heartburn. These days it seems like every other commercial on TV is advertising some kind of heartburn medicine, even the kind that you can take beforehand so you never have to deal with heartburn.
Usually when you think of heartburn, you think of something bad. But not in our text for this morning. Here we find the kind of heartburn that we all need -- the kind that is caused by the wonderful Easter message of a dead but now alive Savior from sin. Let's see how Jesus gave his disciples some Easter heartburn.
It's Easter afternoon. Jesus has already appeared to Mary Magdalene, the other women, and Peter. The whole city of Jerusalem was astir with the news, and some heard more than others, but the disciples really didn't know what to make of it. We find two such disciples in the early afternoon on their way to Emmaus, a small village seven miles away from Jerusalem. They were talking about all the things that had happened to Jesus and now the report from the empty tomb. But what could it all mean? As they were talking, a stranger joined them. After listening to them for a while, the stranger asked, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?" Their reaction told him a lot, as it tells us a lot, too. "They stood still, their faces downcast."
For these disciples, the fire of the gospel was not blazing at all. In fact, since Good Friday as they saw their Savior hanging on a cross in humiliation and rejection, their gospel fire was smoldering. Why? They tell the stranger plainly: They had hoped Jesus "was the one who was who was going to redeem Israel." They were confused with the turn their lives had taken; they really didn't know what to make of the resurrection reports. They were trying to figure it out on their own, and they were failing miserably.
Can you see a parallel to your life here? How often don't we try to figure things out on our own and find that things don't work? I remember when I bought my latest computer. I hooked up everything exactly as I thought it should go, even looking in the owner's manual so I didn't miss anything, but when I turned it on, nothing happened. After spending hours trying to figure it out, with no success, I was really no fun to be around. Finally, I broke down and called the manufacturer, and the person on the phone told me to do everything I had already done -- still nothing worked. Then he told me to take off the cover of the CPU to get into the circuitry of the computer. I was looking at all kinds of scary wires and connections, and I was sure I was going to destroy this expensive piece of machinery or electrocute myself as I tried to fix it. But that didn't happen. The person on the phone directed me to just make sure one of the connections was stronger. And I couldn't believe it -- it actually worked!
To make our lives work, with whom or what do we need a stronger connection? God. Jesus. God's Word. All of those things are the same connection. When we make our connection to God stronger through going to worship and getting regularly into God's Word at home and praying individually and as a family, we find that our lives "work", too. Does that mean that all our problems will go away? No, but you will be able to cope with them because you are using the power of Jesus. Now just as I will never completely understand how a computer works, so we can never fully see what God is trying to do in our lives at times, but at least our faces won't be downcast like these two disciples' faces were, because we will really understand what God meant to tell us with his suffering and death and resurrection.
The person walking with these two disciples knew that they needed to open their eyes. They should have known better. And that is why the stranger's rebuke was so direct: " 'How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?' And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." Jesus opened their eyes to the Scriptures and basically told them what life was all about. He told them first how foolish they were, and how slow of heart to believe. We need that same admonition. If we start living our Christian lives as if we think an hour here or there with God each week is enough, but our lives show something very different, we also need to hear God's rebuke. We also need to hear every day how foolish we have been when we lose sight of the big picture, when our connection to Christ weakens. When we stumble and fall down with sin every day, we need to see just what that sin did. It killed us and made us enemies of God. It put up a huge wall between us and God and eternal life and trapped us inside of that wall for eternity. Sin causes us to look at our own little world and think we are the central people in the universe and what we say goes. Unfortunately, when we look to ourselves, we get nowhere, nothing.
But when we look in faith to Jesus, we see the great love he had for us to make us children of God and heirs of eternal life. Every time we looked away from God and tried to do things our own way -- Jesus took all of those times and took them to the cross where he paid the horrible penalty for all sin. When these two disciples of Jesus finally had their eyes opened and realized who it was who was opening Scripture to them -- Jesus himself -- they had to say: "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" See what the gospel does? When we look to Jesus, we get forgiveness. It makes your heart burn. And we can't contain that fire ourselves. Instead, Jesus' disciples -- who have Easter heartburn because their Lord is alive and gives us life -- those disciples will have the fire of the gospel burst into their lives; it will overflow into everything they do, and they will spread that fire of the gospel to others. They won't be able to hold that fire in.
That's what happened to the Emmaus disciples: "They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem." Did these disciples of Jesus say, "Maybe I'll tell somebody about it tomorrow. Maybe when my schedule is a little less packed I'll tell others"? Did they make lodging arrangements for the night? No! They didn't even finish their supper! What does it mean to you that the Emmaus disciples went "at once" to Jerusalem? These disciples needed to spread the fire of the gospel that was burning in their hearts. They went at once to Jerusalem because they had to tell others -- their friends -- what they knew. How terrible if we have a friend who might die in a car accident tomorrow and we didn't take the chance to tell them about the one thing that matters in life -- Jesus! Once they are gone, they are gone, and there will be nothing else we can do for them. But now, while they are still on this earth, we can give them the same heartburn that we have -- the Easter heartburn of knowing that our Redeemer lives. Do you feel something burning in your heart? That is the heartburn that the fire of the gospel gives. Now go and share that gospel. Don't waste another minute! But let that Easter heartburn take its course in your life. Amen.
