Were not our hearts burning within us? (Luke 24:13-35)

[Stephan Choe]

March 17, 2024

Key verse 32: “They asked each other, <Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?>”

Jesus said: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Mit. 18:20).
What does it mean to gather in Jesus' name?
When two or three are gathered in Jesus' name with faith, hope and love, Jesus Christ is there and works wonderfully. There is Jesus' church.

The fundamental basis of the Christian life of faith therefore consists of faith, hope and love. 
We believe that Jesus has forgiven us through his sacrificial death, so that we have a sure hope of entering the kingdom of heaven as children of God.
Love means that, because of God's love, we gladly forgive others their trespasses and love them with all our heart.

If we have no faith in our resurrection, we become hopeless. If we have no forgiving love, our hearts grow cold and Jesus Christ cannot remain among us. 
But if we have faith in Jesus' resurrection, forgive one another, love one another dearly and have a glorious hope, our hearts will burn through the Holy Spirit and Jesus can work graciously through us. 

So let us pray that God will help us to keep our hearts on fire through faith, hope and love.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

The main belief of Christians is in the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection.

Jesus once taught through a parable how we, as Christians who have been forgiven, should behave towards others (Matthew 18:21-35):

The kingdom of heaven is like a king. A servant owed the king 10,000 talents. Because the servant could not repay the king, the king took pity on him and forgave the debt. But when this servant went out from the king, he found a fellow servant who owed him 100 talents. He seized him, choked him and said, "Pay me what you owe!" and threw him into prison.

Don't we behave like this first servant?

Now let's think about the second main point of Christian faith.

Andreas's father is in bed because of his old age. Renate's parents also have problems because of their ages. Generally, old age beings us more sorrow than joy and hope.

But we have good reasons in Christ to live joyfully and hopefully despite various ailments of old age. And God can help everyone to live joyfully and hopefully and to act as salt of the earth and light of the world.

I would like now to explain how to live with joy and hope dynamically.

1. The source of our joy and hope (Acts 4:10-12, 1 Cor. 15:3-4)

If you want to live joyfully and hopefully, you first need to know the source of joy and hope and draw joy and hope from this source.

Where can we then draw joy and hope from? From the Bible, of course.

The Bible consists of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament tells us that the human lost paradise and the joyful, happy life because of the fall into sin and that God promised to restore the joyful, hopeful life to us through the Messiah.

The New Testament tells us that God has restored the joyful, hopeful life to us through Jesus Christ.

Let us take Peter as an example of this. Before he did not yet believe in the resurrection of Jesus and his own resurrection, he was helpless in the face of the power of death, so that he denied three times that he was a disciple of Jesus. But after he believed in the resurrection of Christ, he confessed his faith in Jesus Christ fearlessly before the rulers of Israel:

"Be it known therefore unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead; by Him doth this man stand here before you whole. ... There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved!" (Acts 4:10-12)

Two main points of the gospel are Christ's death on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins and his resurrection for our resurrection. This is why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:3b-4:

"That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures."

We have all gratefully accepted the grace of forgiveness of sins.

Unfortunately, most of us cannot visualize our own resurrection because we cannot yet see the resurrection world with our eyes. Therefore, we tend to value the joy of this world more than the joy of the heaven and think little of the glory of our resurrection.

The first Christians believed in the resurrection of Christ and their own resurrection really. We can recognize this through the Acts of the Apostles or pictures of the first Christians in catacombs in Rome.

We now want to revive our faith in the resurrection through the story of two Emmaus disciples and live joyfully and dynamically with the hope of resurrection.

2 The example of the Emmaus disciples (LK 24:13-35)

On Easter Sunday, two Christians were on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Emmaus was about 10 km away from Jerusalem. These two Christians are called the "Emmaus disciples". One of them was called Cleopas. On the way, the two talked excitedly to each other. They were very sad about the death of Jesus.

While they were talking, a third person came to them and joined them. But the two did not recognize him as Jesus because they had not expected Jesus' resurrection at all.

Jesus was humorous; he acted as if he were a stranger. He asked the two: "What were you talking so excitedly about on the way?"

The two stopped and made sad faces.

One of them, whose name was Cleopas, said to Jesus in a sad voice, "Are you the only one in Jerusalem who has not heard about the things that have happened recently?"

Then Jesus asked, "What then?"

Then they said: "About Jesus from Nazareth. He was a prophet, mighty in word and deed before God and all the people. But our high priests and rulers handed him over to the Romans to die on the cross. But we had hoped that he was the one who would redeem Israel. Today is already the third day after his death. But that's not all: women from our circle have also caused us great excitement. They were at the tomb early in the morning but did not find his body. Angels appeared to them and said: "Jesus is alive!". Some of us ran straight to the tomb and found everything just as the women had said: The tomb was open and Jesus' body was not there."

Then Jesus said to them, "O fools, too slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not Christ have to suffer these things and enter into his glory?"

Jesus began to teach the Bible: He explained what Moses and other prophets had already foretold about Christ's sacrificial death and resurrection.

In the meantime, they had already reached the village of Emmaus. It looked as if the stranger wanted to go on. So the two disciples urged him: "Why don't you spend the night with us? It will soon be dark!" So Jesus came into the house with them and the two set the table for dinner. Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him. But he immediately disappeared from them.

"Then the two said to one another, "Were not our hearts burning within us as he talked with us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?" (32).

The two Emmaus disciples confessed that their hearts were burning as Jesus explained God's word of his death on the cross and his resurrection.

Our God loves us very much. He could not stand idly by while we live in sin and under the power of death and eventually perish in hell. That is why he sent his Son Jesus to save us. Jesus really loves us. That is why he was willing to sacrifice his life for our sin in order to save us. He willingly accepted all divine punishment for our sins, suffered terrible agony on the cross and died on the cross. Thanks to his sacrificial death, all of us who believe in Jesus can have forgiveness and eternal life for free. The love and devotion of Jesus Christ truly warms our hearts.

Jesus died on the cross, but God did not leave Jesus under the power of death; he raised him from the dead on the third day. Through his resurrection, Jesus destroyed the power of death and gives eternal life to all who believe in him, so that they may rise again and enter the kingdom of heaven.

The joy of Jesus' resurrection surpasses any good news. Because of his resurrection, we are free from the power of death and from hell; we will be resurrected with an incorruptible body and live with Jesus in the kingdom of heaven for eternity. This gives us indescribably great joy, a great perspective for the future and strength.

The Emmaus disciples received much joy, love, and strength through Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection, and this joy, love and strength warmed their hearts. Or rather: their hearts burned because of the joy, love, and power. This was a holy fire, indeed the fire of the Holy Spirit. Normal fire consumes wood or the human body. But the holy fire does not consume the human body, but gives us warmth, love, and strength exuberantly and makes us joyful, loving and dynamic.

What did the two disciples of Emmaus do after they had received fire for their hearts?

Verse 33 says that they got up immediately and returned to Jerusalem to tell others about Jesus' resurrection, even though it was already dark and Jerusalem was still 10 km away. The two disciples then told the 11 apostles what they had experienced on the way. 

The hearts of the first Christians burned because of his resurrection. Their hearts burned with joy, love, and power. They became joyful, loving and dynamic, so that they actively proclaimed this good news and testified to it through their practical lives. In this way, the first Christians were able to set the whole world on fire.

Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection can also set our hearts on fire today. This fire can burn and destroy everything that is bad in us. People's hearts become cold through sin, anger, unbelief and bad thoughts. Jesus' resurrection, however, fills our hearts with much love from God, joy and strength, and this love, joy, and strength burn away all worry and darkness in our hearts and fill them with love, hope, and gratitude. Our hearts are then warm and we are very happy. We can paint our glorious future and rejoice greatly.

When our hearts are on fire because of His resurrection, we will radiate his warmth and strength so that other people will feel this warmth and strength.

Let us pray to God that our hearts will burn because of His resurrection, so that this joy and power will infect our friends, neighbors, children, etc. with this warmth.

3. The consistent life of faith (1Co 13:13 and 15:57-58)

What should our consistent life of faith look like?

He says in 1 Cor 13:13: "Now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but love is the greatest of these."

By this he meant that through faith in Jesus Christ we have the hope of resurrection and should exercise love with this hope.

So we should live joyfully with the hope of resurrection and share the gospel with love.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:58: "Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always increasing in the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

So, through faith in Jesus Christ, we should have the hope of a glorious resurrection future and love one another with this hope.

I will tell you about Esther's last hour on earth.

Esther confessed her faith with humor to many people during her cancer illness. For example, when she had a headscarf because of the hair loss from chemotherapy, she said to the nurses in the hospital: "I looked like a Buddhist because of the baldness. I also look like a Muslim because of the headscarf. But I am a Christian in my heart."

Through such testimonies, she encouraged many to believe in Jesus Christ.

And the hour of her departure was approaching. I also spent the night in her hospital room.

Monday morning, December 9, 2019, the doctor in charge came and asked me if he should give Esther morphine. But I told him that I wanted to talk to our children first when they came in the evening. So Esther didn't get morphine that day.

At midnight that day (Dec. 9-10) around midnight, Esther fought a hard battle of faith because of the great pain. First, she asked God three times: "Why should I suffer?" Then she called out to God: "Papa, Papa, Papa!" With "Papa" she meant God; she had often called God "Papa".

Then she said three times: "Forgive me my sin!"

These were the last words I heard from her. After this word, she immediately fell asleep and slept peacefully until she went home at 4 p.m. on December 13, 2019.

Around nun on December 13, four hours before Esther went home, Mrs. Marian, who lives on the 2nd floor of our apartment, came to visit. Esther had prayed for her for many years for her and told her about the Gospel. But she could not believe in Jesus. However, this day before Esther went home, she confessed that she now believed in Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. That was a miracle.

I have let John 11:25 write on Esther's and my gravestone: "Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even if he dies."

This tombstone testifies to our testimony of faith and our living hope.

We should keep our hope in the resurrection burning in our hearts. In this way, we can always be cheerful and hopeful despite all the current problems and be able to pass on the gospel.

Let the leading verse of this sermon always be our word:

“They asked each other, <Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?>”