april 23 2023
April 23rd 2023, Easter 3
First Reading: Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Psalm: Psalm 116:1-19
Epistle: 1st Peter 1:17-25
Gospel: Luke 24:13-35 (36-49)
Sermon Text: Luke 24
Sermon Title: “He Opened to Us the Scriptures”
In the name of our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Was it
not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter
into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets; He
interpreted to them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning
Himself”. (Luke 24:26-27) The disciples 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 Scriptures”? (Luke 24:32) “These are My
words, which I spoke to you while I was still with you; that
everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and
the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then He opened their minds to
understand the Scriptures”. (Luke 24:44-45)
I was sent an interesting video this week of an interview with a rather famous Christian preacher and author, talking about how his thinking regarding Holy Scripture had changed recently. He was challenged by his 20-something daughter to a Bible reading contest, to see if they could read through the entire Bible in a month. Being a pastor and being competitive, he took up the challenge and finished reading in 2 weeks.
What he discovered, that he had never noticed before, was that (contrary to conventional wisdom) those who proclaimed the Word of God; from the Old Testament prophets, to Jesus, to the Apostles in the New Testament; all sounded the same; the same directness, simply speaking the truth of the Word and not worrying about how people responded. Then came the “aha” moment. He confessed, “I don’t sound like them … and neither does any other preacher I’ve heard. We’ve got to stop playing this game of trying to please everyone and just say it like it is”. That is quite an admission from someone who has been a pastor for 30 plus years; and hopefully his discovery, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, will bear good fruit in his future teaching/preaching.
Jesus wants us to be in His Word and to understand what we read and hear. This is made clear in Holy Scripture itself, with many exhortations to read and study the Word regularly. It is also reflected in Luther’s Small Catechism as roughly 40 of the 300 or so questions deal with the Word of God, beginning with # 2 “Where is the truth about our Savior Jesus Christ made known”? Answer; “The Old Testament promises the Savior who is to come, while the New Testament proclaims the Savior who has come”.
This is how Jesus wills to be known by you; in His Holy Scriptures. “My Word … shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in the thing for which I sent it”. (Isaiah 55:11b) “So, faith comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ”. (Romans 10:17) So, we also heard in the Gospel last Sunday, “These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have eternal life in His name”. (John 20:31)
Therefore, whenever there is a question about a particular moral issue or doctrine/teaching in the church, we are not to trust in so-called worldly wisdom; we are not to seek answers in science or woke ideology (Marxism) or psychology or politics or pop culture; for the Apostle Paul wrote, “the wisdom of this age and the rulers of this age are doomed to pass away”. (1st Corinthians 2:6)
Instead, we are to search the Scriptures diligently, for (again) that is where the Lord Jesus has promised to reveal Himself to us. All of the Bible is about Jesus. “Blessed are those who walk in the Law of the Lord”. (Psalm 119:1b) As Luther said, “time and paper would fail me if I were to recount all the blessings that flow to us from Gods Word”. (Large Catechism, Luther’s Preface, par. 12)
We hear this also in Close of the Commandments section of Luther’s Catechism, which we studied in Bible class last Sunday. “God threatens to punish all who break these commandments. Therefore, we should fear His wrath and not do anything against them. But He promises grace and every blessing to all who keep these commandments. Therefore, we should also love and trust in Him and gladly do what He commands”. (Explanation to the Close of the Commandments; Small Catechism)
In the gospel text this morning, Jesus rebukes the Emmaus disciples for not believing the Scriptures that spoke of Him saying, “O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself”. (Luke 24:25-27)
Jesus’ rebuke is for us as well this morning, whenever we reject His Word of truth. As people who trust in Christ, we should gladly hear His discipline and correction, from the Bible, each and every day of our lives; confessing and repenting of our sins as we are taught in the Small Catechism; fourth part of baptism. “Every day, we should be found in faith and amid its fruits (works); every day we should be suppressing the old man and growing up in the new”. (Large Catechism, Baptism, par. 84) Every day!
Now, later that same day, Jesus appeared again to them saying; “These are My Words which I spoke to you while I was still with you; that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said to them, thus it is written; that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning with Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things”. (Luke 24:44-48) Here Christ makes clear, there is no repentance or forgiveness of sins apart from Him; His atoning death and bodily resurrection on the third day.
We confess in the Small Catechism, “I cannot by my own reason or strength, believe in my Lord Jesus Christ 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 one true faith”. (Third Article explanation) So Peter declared, “The living and abiding Word of God … the Word of the Lord (which) remains forever … this is the good news which was preached to you”. (1st Peter 1:23b-25)
Our Lord Jesus Himself used the Holy Scriptures; His own Word to teach throughout His ministry, and on this day of His resurrection, provided the disciples with a tour de-force of how the Holy Scriptures prophesied of all that He came to do and continues to do through the preaching of the Gospel, “for the promise (of forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the body) is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off; everyone whom the Lord God calls to Himself”. (Acts 2:39)
So, the rest of the walk turned into a Bible class, with Jesus as both the teacher and the subject of the class. We do not know how long Jesus walked with the disciples and Luke does not record which of the Old Testament Scriptures Jesus used to testify of Himself; but we do know it came from many places; “the Law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms”. (Luke 24:44b) Let us now briefly review some of what Moses and the prophets and the Psalms had to say about the coming Christ.
The very first Gospel proclamation in all of the Bible occurs in Genesis chapter 3. This is immediately after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Before pronouncing their punishment, the Lord promised to destroy the works of the devil who tempted them saying; “I will put enmity between you and the woman; between your offspring and her offspring (Jesus). He shall crush your head, and you shall bruise His heal”. (Genesis 3:15) The Lord spoke to Abraham of this promised seed saying “In you all the families/nations of the earth shall be blessed”. (Genesis 12:3b) This was fulfilled in Jesus’ atoning death on the cross and bodily resurrection from the dead for the salvation of the world.
During Advent and Christmas, we heard many other prophesies of the birth of Christ. The prophet Micah foretold where He was to be born; “O Bethlehem … from you shall come forth for Me, One who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from ancient days … He shall be their peace”. (Micah 5:2,5) The Lord also spoke through Isaiah saying; “The Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel”; (Isaiah 7:14) “which means God with us”. (Matthew 1:23b)
Many other prophesies spoke of Jesus’ life and ministry. Again, Isaiah spoke of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus saying, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord’ make straight in the desert a highway for our God”. (Isaiah 40:3) Isaiah spoke of Jesus’ preaching with these words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach the Good News to the poor … to bind up the broken hearted … to proclaim liberty to captives and the opening of prison to those who are bound”. (Isaiah 61:1) His miracles were also foretold by Isaiah, “then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame man shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute shall sing for joy”. (Isaiah 35:5-6)
Those who were here during the Lenten season and Holy Week services also heard many prophesies of the fulfillment of Jesus’ ministry. Zechariah spoke of the day we now call Palm Sunday when he wrote, “Behold, your King is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He; humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt the foal of a donkey”. (Zechariah 9:9)
On Maundy Thursday I read Psalm 22 to close the service. Jesus quotes this Psalm of Himself saying, “My God, My God; why have You forsaken Me”. (Psalm 22:1a) Other parts of this psalm clearly speak of crucifixion, even though this form of execution had not yet been invented. “They have pierced My hands and feet”. (Psalm 22:16b) The Psalmist also speaks of the mockery of Jesus and that “they divided My garments and for My clothing they cast lots”. (Psalm 22:18) From the cross, Jesus also speaks from Psalm 31:5, “Into Your hands I commit My spirit”.
The words of Isaiah were read again on Good Friday where an entire chapter is spent describing Jesus’ suffering and death, hundreds of years before it occurred. “He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief … He has borne our grief and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him smitten by God and afflicted … the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all”. (Isaiah 53:3-4, 6) Then on Easter morning, we heard the Psalmist declare that Jesus would not stay in His grave; “You will not let Your Holy One see corruption”. (Psalm 16:10, Acts 13:35) These are just a few of the more than 300 prophesies of our Lord Jesus Christ in the words of the Old Testament Scriptures.
Another important Scriptural doctrine especially emphasized this Easter season, is that because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we know that we too will be raised bodily on the Last Day. This too is spoken of in the Old Testament, where Daniel writes “those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt”. (Daniel 12:2) Through the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord God said; “Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O My people”. (Ezekiel 37:12a)
Isaiah also records that the Lord “will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away every tear from all faces … the Lord has spoken”. (Isaiah 25:8) Then we have the words of Job, who in the midst of intense suffering confidently said; “I know that my Redeemer lives; and at the last He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed (in death) yet in my flesh, I shall see God … my heart faints within me”. (Job 19:25-27)
We do not even have time today to get into all the New Testament promises of God regarding eternal life and the resurrection of the body; though we heard a few of them on Easter Sunday from 1st Corinthians 15. Needless to say, there are countless examples in the Gospels, Epistles, and the Book of Revelation; which speaks of a great multitude of the resurrected saints who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”. (Revelation 7:14b)
So, in our Lutheran Confessions, for the sake of the salvation of souls, we testify to the truth of God’s Holy Word “as the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and teachers alike must be appraised and judged”. (Epitome, par. 1) “We (also) reject all heresies and teachings which have been introduced into the church which are contrary to them”. (Epitome, par. 2) “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Christ, who is our head”. (Ephesians 4:15) “For the Word of God is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path”. (Psalm 119:105) Amen.
The peace of God …